HE PHILOSOPHY 
 HELPFULNESS.
 
 Philosophy of 
 Helpfullness 
 
 By 
 PRINCE HOPKINS, Ph. B., M. A. 
 
 Vol. I.
 
 PIONEER PRINTERS 
 
 420-422 Sixth Street South 
 Minneapolis, Minn.
 
 TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 tho her views so differ from those herein expressed 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 like my "INSTINCTIVE PHILOSOPHY" of 
 which it is in part an enlargement 
 
 IS 
 AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 Let it be a small token of appreciation for my 
 nurture and for the many battles she has fought for 
 me as boy and as man.
 
 COVER DESIGN 
 
 The cover design represents the 
 waters of helpfulness welling forth 
 to revivify all living things. Vulcan 
 symbolizing creative effort, and 
 Buddha symbolizing analytic calm, 
 are both reflected in the fountain. 
 Three steps of ascent are represented 
 from the boggy level of corrupt liv- 
 ing to the pure surface of the fount. 
 Overhead hang three fruits, intensity, 
 permanency and universality of hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Acknowledgement is made to Miss 
 Edith Ordway for her valuable as- 
 sistance in digesting certain books.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The strength of any excitation, and the conse- 
 quences of past performances modify all our na- 
 tive tendencies. This fact accepted, we are moved 
 by four primal urges: the hunger-motive, the 
 love-motive, and their counterparts, the rejection 
 or flight-motive and the combat-motive the more 
 specific reflexes and instincts derived from these 
 may therefore be classified as nutritive, amative, 
 rejective or combative. 
 
 Our nutritive impulses are usually draughted 
 into the scramble to obtain material goods faster 
 than our desires for ever more and more of such 
 goods can grow. Perceiving unconsciously the 
 hopelessness of this endeavor for all but an un- 
 scrupulous minority, most of us become disheart- 
 ened. The writer's object is to relieve this dis- 
 heartenment by sublimating the nutritive urge 
 into the channel of striving toward co-operative 
 living. As a hopeful way of realizing in our life- 
 time some of the happiness of non-competitive 
 communism, we contribute this plan, which we 
 ourselves practice, namely: Let the devotee oc- 
 casionally find a time when it will be convenient 
 to take a brief holiday away from his possessions 
 and from his accustomed associations. During 
 that holiday let him live communistically, cleav- 
 ing to no property but helping wherever he can
 
 2 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 without taking pay ; then returning to resume his 
 possessions and old routine until such time as con- 
 venient to again try this adventure in the long 
 run repeating these ventures after ever shorter 
 intervening periods. Let him urge others to join 
 with him. 
 
 Our amative impulses now vent themselves in 
 procreating too numerous children, thus adding 
 to our and the community's burden of support, or 
 else in regaling "that stream of emotions we call 
 our soul" with religion, thus holding back both 
 ourselves and society from many forms of growth. 
 Our object in this book is to sublimate the ama- 
 tive urge rather into artistic creation (the ma- 
 terial of the highest art and highest creation is 
 not the bodies but the characters of children) and 
 into impartiality. 
 
 Our rejective impulses now turn into ostracism 
 or harsher punishment of those who are morally 
 sometimes only economically weaker than we 
 are; but doing this destroys our touch with hu- 
 manity and ends only in embittering both our 
 victim and ourselves. While resistence to evil is 
 necessary, its harmful incidental effects can be 
 avoided and we can maintain our nature sweet, 
 only if we sublimate part of the rejective impulse 
 into some self -humiliating penance on ourselves 
 as the condition of our repressing another person. 
 At all times it is well to sublimate some of our re- 
 jective tendency into the form of a mild asceti- 
 cism.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 3 
 
 Finally, the combative impulses now largely 
 find their outlet in an en masse handling of living 
 beings ; and this method brutalizes them and our- 
 selves. We endeavor to sublimate the combative 
 tendency into a glorious fight for social justice, 
 thru helping to unite all those who agree to these 
 ideas into an association whose controlling com- 
 mittee shall consist, one part of electives of full 
 members of the association, namely persons the 
 most active in service of its ideals, one part of 
 electives of associate members, and one part (to 
 safeguard minorities) of electives of persons who 
 are undergoing whatever maximum punishment 
 or restriction the association ever inflicts. 
 
 We're telling you here the whole of our plans, 
 so you may be under no misconception. They're 
 elucidated in more detail in the pages which fol- 
 low. 
 
 This book has been made large enough to in- 
 clude a fairly comprehensive amount of material, 
 necessitated by the controversial nature of some 
 of the points argued for herein. Consequently 
 there are portions of it which are not adapted to 
 the general reader. He should "skip" these pas- 
 sages entirely, or he will simply become lost in a 
 maze. Thus, you would best omit all the pages 
 from page 50 thru page 82. You should at first 
 reading glance thru the remainder of the book 
 and judiciously select those sections which are of 
 interest to you.
 
 CHAPTER NO. I 
 
 This book is simply one of the means which 
 occur to us for gathering together a group of 
 people who will put into practice the ideas of con- 
 duct expressed herein. In that sense it's a re- 
 ligious book, hence most every chapter is in part 
 given to description of such beliefs and religious 
 usages as are pertinent to the topic in hand. Then 
 may come psychological and other criticisms, lead- 
 ing up to the suggestion of what conduct would 
 be the very best among members of an ethical 
 society like that which we're forming. The topic 
 of the present chapter is the possibility and rela- 
 tive merits of making Heaven to be here, on earth, 
 rather seeking it beyond the stars. 
 
 SECTION NO. I 
 
 "But evil is wrot by want of thot. 
 As well as by want of heart." 
 
 We shall commence this book and chapter with 
 a consideration of certain superstitious origins. 
 Like the rest of the work, however, this is only 
 meant to be suggestive and won't attempt to pre- 
 sent any topic of finished form. 
 
 In each chapter we shall follow the plan of 
 treating the chapter topic with respect to how it 
 concerns corrupted characters under the head of 
 section 1 ; in respect to how it concerns normally
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 5 
 
 haphazard types under head of section 2; in re- 
 spect to the viewpoint of selfish advantage, under 
 section 3, and in respect to the viewpoint of the 
 man wishing to help others under section 4. 
 
 The topic of this first chapter is animism, the 
 primitive way of thinking about the universe 
 which treats every object as tho it were alive and 
 as tho it did whatever it does, intentionally. 
 
 Each person has a tendency to regard not only 
 other persons and animals but everything else, as 
 being like what he knows best, himself. Hence, 
 if a tree falls upon him, the child or the savage 
 reads into its action his own feelings, and may be- 
 come enraged against what he regards as its evil 
 intention. Later, when ideas of supernatural 
 agencies have been elaborated, the various spirits 
 and demons are similarly endowed with the pas- 
 sions and other characteristic of the worshipper 
 himself, or those which were outstanding in per- 
 sons of authority with whom he early came into 
 contact. Each of us, for instance, forms a con- 
 ception which greatly affects his subsequent life, 
 from his father and his mother ; the former gen- 
 erally representing to him power, and the latter, 
 love. 
 
 The individual "projects" his childhood's 
 father-concept (in particular) into his supersti- 
 tious beliefs, or where we are dealing with races 
 and not with individuals, into his myths. The 
 idea of God will be found in each race to be an in- 
 dex to the relationship of the father to the family,
 
 6 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 not only do individuals whose recollection of 
 their father as a severe authoritarian tend to be- 
 lieve in a God of similar characteristics, but races 
 for example the Hebrews during the patri- 
 archial epoch reflect the paternal characteristics 
 with which they have become familiar into their 
 concepts of the deity. 
 
 This matter is related closely to the Freudian 
 concept of incest-complexes of which we may find 
 evidences in the myths of all nations. The most 
 usual examples given are the myths of Oedipus 
 and of Electra. It will be remembered that ac- 
 cording to the Greek story an Oracle had foretold 
 that Oedipus would live to kill his father and 
 marry his mother. His father commanded that 
 he be killed to prevent this happening; but his 
 mother turned him over to some peasants who 
 brot him up as their own son. In later life they 
 sent him out to seek his fortune. He encountered, 
 without recognizing, his father upon the road and 
 killed him in combat. Presently the people of the 
 king his father's city chose him to be their ruler 
 and he married the queen whom he did not know 
 to be his mother. Dire disasters falling upon the 
 city, he made investigation and discovered the 
 true facts. The story of Electra similarly relates 
 how she usurped her mother's place. These two 
 myths seem to represent a projection of a conflict 
 which exists in every individual and is expressed 
 by children sometimes naively in the form 
 "Daddy, when mother dies, will you marry me?"
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 7 
 
 In adult life so crude and barbarous a desire is 
 suppressed from the conscious part of the mind 
 as unworthy, but it still remains in the uncon- 
 scious. Here it may give rise to dreams which 
 seem to us not possibly to represent our true 
 wishes as for example a dream that our parent 
 of the same sex is dead. 
 
 Another form which this fantasy takes is the 
 wish to go back to those earliest conditions of 
 natal or even prenatal existence when all our 
 wants were satisfied by the mother and respon- 
 sibilities had not yet come to exist for us. Myths 
 representing this conception usually disguise the 
 wish for re-birth under some such conception as 
 that of the hero who is killed and resurrected. 
 The. most evident forms of this conception are 
 represented in stories like those of Mithra and of 
 Christ, both of whom, as you probably know, were 
 killed and then resurrected; but another form 
 that the story takes is seen, for example, in that 
 of the Babylonian Fish-God Cannes, who comes 
 out of the sea to bring gifts and blessings to man- 
 kind, returns again into the sea, etc. Submer- 
 gence under the sea representing equally the condi- 
 tions before birth and after death. Similarly 
 there is the Egyptian myth of Osiris who is be- 
 trayed into the hands of the demon Set (Note 
 that the hero never dies in fair combat, but al- 
 ways thru betrayal.) The pieces into which Set 
 cuts Osiris' body are scattered to the corners of 
 the heavens, but are brought together by his faith-
 
 8 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 f ul sister-wife, so that he is resurrected again in 
 the form of the young rising sun Horus. The 
 descent and rise of the sun are taken in all re- 
 ligions, as emblematical of death and resurrec- 
 tion. Many primitive people believe that a great 
 dragon swallows the sun in the evening and 
 swims back towards the east under the ocean and 
 that when he is approaching the eastern horizon 
 the sun-hero manages from inside the monster's 
 belly to deal a death thrust at its heart ; then he 
 cuts his way out and re-appears glorious at dawn. 
 You will perhaps recall that in the Old Testament 
 are references to Leviathans and to the struggle 
 of old against the overwhelming waters which 
 biblical students account for as a faint survival 
 of the old Babylonian story of the creation. .Con- 
 sider also the story of Jonah who is swallowed by 
 the whale, is carried under the sea and then is 
 vomited forth upon the land to continue his work 
 of redemption. Baptism as practiced in various 
 religions represents, in symbolical form, drown- 
 ing and re-birth to the new and spiritual life. 
 
 How the symptoms of a neurotic may be sym- 
 bolical satisfactions of the libido, or body of his 
 desires, has been shown by neurologists. In the 
 normal individual, his dreams subserve similar 
 but less intense cravings and protect his sleep 
 from disturbance by emotion. In the Ethnic 
 group, its myths or its religion play the same role. 
 As we said, the concept of the godhead corre- 
 sponds almost invariably to the character of the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 9 
 
 father. In patriarchial ages, God is a severe 
 judge; in civilized times he is more gentle and 
 forgiving. For each individual, too, the national 
 god-ideal is sure to be modified by the demands of 
 his personal father-complex. 
 
 In these pages we shall review some of the 
 principal world-viewpoints that man has thot out 
 for himself since first he arrived at sufficient in- 
 telligence to opine at all upon such matters. 
 
 The most primitive types of belief proceed from 
 animistic superstitions. (1) Savage man attrib- 
 utes the movements of trees, etc., to the spirits 
 that inhabit all objects, and control is sought over 
 the objects by directing attention on these spirits. 
 (2) The spirit is separable from its physical 
 habitants. (3) The spirit itself, tho somewhat 
 impalpable, yet is distinguished from grosser ma- 
 terial only by the degree of its density, for not 
 until Descartes' day was drawn the modern sharp 
 differentiation between "mind" and "matter." 
 Indeed, to the Greeks the "spirit" of a thing 
 wasn't far from synonymous with our idea of its 
 Purpose as if the "spirit" of a hunting-dog were 
 Pursuit of Game, etc. 
 
 The animistic attitude even credits beasts with 
 living in families, having magic, etc. 
 
 One point that must always be noted when 
 we're concerned with the origin of religions is 
 that it is the tendency of primitive men, as we 
 note it is the tendency with children, to regard 
 all things as more or less like themselves and to
 
 10 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 attribute even to objects that we would call dead 
 volition. For example, a child who has been hurt 
 by catching his finger in the door will fly into a 
 rage and beat the door as tho the latter had been 
 guilty of an intentional offense. If this tendency 
 is so innate, you mustn't be surprised that when 
 men had begun to hold a theory of every object 
 having its double or spirit, they should very read- 
 ily justify such actions as that of the angry child, 
 upon the ground that the spirit within the object 
 that had injured them was evilly motived toward 
 them, and if they showed themselves resentful 
 toward the object, such rage might modify its 
 future conduct even as their anger might affect 
 the conduct of a living creature. This is the atti- 
 tude called animism. Its growth and development 
 are due to it seemingly to offer a new means of 
 controlling the forces of nature. 
 
 The present writer has observed primitive re- 
 ligions only in Hawaii and Java ; and in both those 
 countries vestiges that are left of the primitive 
 beliefs of the natives are -corrupted by Mohamme- 
 dan and Christian additions. The dwellers on the 
 Hawaiian Islands are today largely Christians, 
 and in Java they are mainly Mohammedans, al- 
 though in both these countries primitive practices 
 still persist to some extent. 
 
 Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Ha- 
 waiian beliefs was their veneration for the power- 
 ful spirits which are supposed to dwell in the vol- 
 canoes. But we ought to go back first to the ques-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 11 
 
 X 
 
 tion of how these people ever got the notion of 
 spirits at all. On inquiring into the analogous 
 beliefs of people like ourselves, we find that for 
 the most part, we moderns accept a good deal of 
 material that has been handed down by tradition. 
 But by looking far enough back into the past, 
 one comes to the time when the very earliest 
 beliefs were beginning to be evolved. If there is 
 any truth in the theory of human evolution and 
 no competent judge today any longer denies this 
 hypothesis there must have been a period when 
 our race was just becoming human and intelli- 
 gent, and ceasing any longer to be animals moti- 
 vated only by instincts that were unmodified by 
 reflection. As man is preeminently the potential- 
 ly intelligent animal, so he is also preeminently 
 the animal gifted with imagination. 
 
 In common with other creatures, men dream; 
 and that not only at night, but in their daytime 
 reveries. But whereas the lower animals can 
 hardly be presumed to seek for their dreams any 
 rational explanation, it is the characteristic of 
 men that they try in some intellectual way to har- 
 monize all the less comprehended phenomena of 
 life with phenomena already more or less familiar. 
 We moderns explain dreams as products of our 
 inner desires that find in the form of reveries the 
 satisfactions which are denied them in the living 
 world of reality. The material of which these 
 dreams are constructed, or as one might say, the 
 garments in which unconscious desires clothe
 
 12 
 
 themselves, are experiences and pictures taken 
 over bodily from the world of real phenomena. 
 
 The savage, however, hasn't advanced far 
 enough to explain his dreams in such terms. He 
 still retains a good deal of the lower animals' con- 
 fusion of inner subjective experience with objec- 
 tive reality. At night he dreams that his friends 
 have been moving about and talking to him, but 
 upon awakening he repeatedly discovers that as 
 a matter of fact they were all the time quietly 
 asleep in their own tepees and deny all knowledge 
 of the nocturnal adventures that he attributes to 
 them. Of this there seems to him only one ex- 
 planation possible; that is, that his friends have 
 doubles, so that while one form reposed in the 
 tent, another went on journeys. What more nat- 
 ural that that he should consider their own 
 shadows (shades) as being these doubles. An 
 identical curiosity about shadows is evinced by 
 children. Their feeling has been well expressed 
 by Stevenson 1 : 
 
 "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, 
 And what can be the use of him is more than 1 can see; 
 He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head, 
 And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. 
 
 "The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow: 
 Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; 
 For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India rubber 
 
 ball, 
 And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him 
 
 at all. 
 
 1 Stevenson, R. L. My Shadow.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 13 
 
 "He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play, 
 And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way; 
 He stays so close beside me, he's a coward, you can see; 
 I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks 
 to me. 
 
 "One morning, very early, before the sun was up, 
 I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup; 
 But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, 
 Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in 
 bed.'" 
 
 When, in course of time, a class of men were 
 evolved whose superior learning and cleverness 
 enabled them to Jive by their wits upon the cre- 
 dulity of the tribe, and so to enjoy leisure for thot, 
 these began to ask themselves, "What is the na- 
 ture of this double ?" "What's the nature, what's 
 the meaning of life itself?" 
 
 The reason why there has been so much dis- 
 agreement on this great matter is that people, be- 
 fore trying to solve it, haven't asked themselves, 
 "First of all, just what do we intend our question 
 to mean?" A story relates that a peasant and 
 his son were sitting in the shade of their oak tree, 
 when several strangers came along the road. 
 "How do you like my oak tree?" asked the peasant 
 of the first of these. The stranger responded, "Oh, 
 it's an excellent bit of wood ; yes, an excellent bit 
 of wood!" "So it is, Mr. Lumberman," returned 
 the peasant ; then he put the same question .to the 
 second stranger. "What do you think of my 
 tree?" The second, having answered, "Oh, what 
 fine acorns to fatten hogs upon !" our peasant re- 
 plied, "So they be, Mr. Farmer," and turned to
 
 14 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 the last of the three with his question, "How do 
 you like my tree?" When the last of the men 
 had answered, "What a roost from which to pick 
 off the enemy's officers!" the peasant rejoined, 
 "Quite so, Mr. Sharpshooter!" By this time the 
 peasant's small son was getting curious. "Dad, 
 how did you know that those guys were a lumber- 
 man, a farmer and a sharpshooter?" So his 
 father told him, "It was by the way they under- 
 stood my question. The question was the same 
 in wording, but to no two of the men did it have 
 the same meaning, because no two were of the 
 same trade !" So, with people who tried to answer 
 satisfactorily the question of "What is Life?" the 
 chief trouble has been that they didn't agree on 
 what they all meant by their query. 
 
 Now, the writer is interested in life from the 
 point of view of a psychologist, and his friend 
 Jameson from that of a lawyer, while Greenbie is 
 a writer, and you are what you are. Is there, 
 then, no one class that'll include us all? Yes, for 
 whatever else we are, we're interested in living 
 life. What we all want to know is, how more 
 successfully to live. Life is full of possibilities; 
 they're its sun-light ; it is full of failures ; they're 
 its shadows: what we want is neither the mere 
 light nor shade, qua light or shade, but from the 
 clues they give us, to realize the truth behind. To 
 no less a realization than this should you be con- 
 tented that these pages should bring you hints of :
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 15 
 
 shall we, therefore, carry our query into meta- 
 physics ? 
 
 "Yes, of course," you admit. "My question is 
 more in the province of the metaphysician. Mr. 
 Metaphysician, can you tell us what is Life?" 
 
 "Yes," says Mr. Metaphysician, "I can give you 
 half a hundred explanations. Choose any one of 
 them, or none of them, and I will disprove all the 
 others for you, whichever they are." 
 
 This is very kind of him and very obliging ; but 
 reader, if you are of the same mind with the 
 writer, you'll decide that all his fifty explanations 
 so ingeniously proven and disproven, only show 
 that he doesn't know much more about the matter 
 than did we. His earnest and persistent inquiry 
 after these elusive things, however, at least ought 
 to encourage us not wholly to give up hope of 
 finding answer some day, provided we avoid the 
 entanglements of the purely metaphysical method. 
 You've heard people say, with an air of positive- 
 ness that's in strange contradiction to the content 
 of their own words, that "the human mind, altho 
 it can believe this or that, never can know any- 
 thing positively." You have heard that when old 
 Socrates preached about the value of knowledge, 
 certain men asked him to tell them what knowl- 
 edge was, and thereby utterly confounded him. 
 But that we can know is what, after some pre- 
 liminary explanations, we propose to prove, by 
 actually giving you a definition of Truth. 
 
 First, let us introduce two big words: "phe-
 
 16 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 nomenon" and "noumenon." Phenomenon means 
 an event in the material world, such as a feeling 
 or a thot. Phenomena are going on about us all 
 the time; rocks crumble away, rivers glide into 
 the sea, or the wheels of the factories spin around ; 
 other phenomena are the secretion of juices by 
 the body, the contracting and relaxing of muscles, 
 the growth of nerve-fibres, and the readjustment 
 of brain-structure. Examples of noumena, on the 
 contrary, are pleasure, pain, seeing, hearing, emo- 
 tion, memories, imaginings, and all the fantasies 
 and facts of mind. 
 
 Now, in such creatures as you and we are, the 
 inner phenomena of secretion, adjustment of cells, 
 etc., go on in a different way because of, and after 
 the occurrence of, outside phenomena such as, 
 e. g., the bringing in of a tempting dish of food. 
 But at the same time as the inner phenomena 
 change their way of going on, the noumena also 
 change. If the change of inner phenomena be, 
 in the above case of food brot in, a change to a 
 greater secretion of digestive juices and altera- 
 tions in certain nerve cells, the corresponding 
 change of noumena may be a change from what- 
 ever train of thot previously was going on, to an 
 expectation of the act of eating. All this time 
 certain associations are being formed. Thru 
 what mechanism is no matter j ust yet. But after 
 some experience, the noumenon "anticipation of 
 eating" doesn't await the actual sight of the food 
 set on the table before us, but, e. g., arises so soon
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 17 
 
 as we see mother come into our nursery with a 
 certain form of vessel in her hand, which in the 
 past always has contained food. 
 
 Now, let's represent the phenomena in this case 
 by capital letters; let: 
 
 E stand for Entrance of mother with a pink 
 bowl. 
 
 U stand for Uncovering of bread-and-milk 
 within the bowl. 
 
 F stand for Feeding of us by mother with said 
 bread-and-milk. 
 
 M stand for mouthing by us of the bread-and- 
 milk. 
 
 Then day after day the succession of phe- 
 nomena which takes place is: E, U, F, and M. 
 
 Let's represent the noumena in the same case 
 by small letters; let: 
 
 e stand for hearing and seeing mother Enter 
 with the bowl. 
 
 u stand for seeing and smelling the bread-and- 
 milk, as Uncovered. 
 
 / stand for feeling the spoon put into our mouth, 
 Feeding. 
 
 ra stand for taste and muscular sensations due 
 to Mouthing. 
 
 Then day after day the succession of noumena 
 which takes place is: e, u, f, and m. Now, the 
 point is that a time comes when so soon as phe- 
 nomenon E has hit off noumenon e, the noumena 
 u, f, and m take their cue direct from e, and don't 
 wait till U, F, and M have occured. Result,
 
 18 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 noumenon m precedes, instead of following, the 
 phenomenon which normally used to give it birth, 
 M; the sensations of mouthing anticipate the 
 mouthing itself ; you think of the meal so soon as 
 you see the mother. 
 
 But one day mother brings, in her bowl, not 
 food, but floor-polish. At first blush everything 
 is as before ; phenomenon E is present and there- 
 fore quite properly gives rise to noumenon e. But, 
 from long association, e, u, f and m, the final 
 term m, is Truth if independently a phenomenon 
 M does occur, which, if it gave rise to any 
 noumenon directly, would give rise to the 
 noumenon m. Conversely, m is Falsehood in all 
 other cases. 
 
 But while it's good to be reassured that truth 
 isn't altogether unattainable by man, we still are 
 a long way from finality today. On those supreme 
 questions which we were just discussing almost 
 hourly comes the influx of new discoveries which 
 make us skeptical of the sacred dogmas ! At this 
 instant there's before the writer an item 2 headed 
 "Where Was Soul of Girl During Time She Was 
 'Dead'?" in which the wondering newspaper 
 writer asks "Where did the soul of Anna Loben- 
 stein go when heart action ceased for 120 
 seconds ? 
 
 "That question, resulting from the now famous 
 case, in which a surgeon who had just operated 
 on the Schenectady girl when respiration stopped, 
 
 2 New York, May 26, 1917.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 19 
 
 placed his hand within the abdominal cavity and 
 massaged the life-giving organ until it returned 
 to its normal work, has aroused discussion." 
 
 Immediately below is an item : "Dr. Walter B. 
 Cannon, professor of physiology at the Harvard 
 Medical School, has perfected a scientific means 
 of bringing back the departed spark of animal 
 life. He declares that if the new method should 
 be employed in each and every case of death a 
 large percentage of the supposed inanimate bodies 
 could be revived. The method consists of the 
 introduction of a tube or catheter into the 
 pharynx, pulling up the tongue, forcing the back 
 part of it against the roof of the mouth by pres- 
 sure applied far back under the chin," etc. 
 
 Maeterlinck's book, "Death," is written for the 
 reassurance of those whom religious teachings or 
 morbid contemplations have filled with fears of 
 the hereafter. We regret to say that he commits 
 "the one sin in philosophy, superficiality." In so 
 brief a volume it is impossible to go at all deeply 
 into any phase of the subject. The alternatives 
 are to give a mere summary of the possible argu- 
 ments, or else to resort to general statements with- 
 out proof. Maeterlinck, with his love of beauty 
 and mysticism, of course chooses this latter way. 
 
 After some preliminaries, he states that "Out- 
 side the religions, there are four imaginable solu- 
 tions and no more: total annihilation; survival 
 with our consciousness of today ; survival without 
 any sort of consciousness; lastly, survival with
 
 20 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 universal consciousness different from that which 
 we possess in this world." Annihilation is un- 
 acceptable because (here Maeterlinck is dog- 
 matic) "We are prisoners of an infinity without 
 outlet, wherein nothing perishes." Our conscious- 
 ness of today is too dependent on senses and bod- 
 ily "organs that create and nourish it," to survive 
 the corporeal demise. Of the other two postulates, 
 cessation of all consciousness certainly offers no 
 grounds for fear, since then "what comes is the 
 great peace so often prayed for, the sleep without 
 measure, without dreams and without awaken- 
 ing ;" whereas to blend our being with that of the 
 universe (the fourth possibility) would be to 
 achieve great bliss. This author also bids us 
 have no doubts but that the whole tendency of the 
 universe is toward its greater felicity, for "If it 
 be unhappy, that means that it willed its own un- 
 happiness; if it will its unhappiness, it is mad; 
 and, if it is mad, that means that our reason . . . 
 judge what it wholly fails to understand." 
 
 But let's return to our savage pondering over 
 his dream and its implication that while a friend's 
 body was reposing quietly on the ground, a form 
 of similar outward appearance was actually 
 wandering about and visiting him during the 
 night. At other times our savage dreams that 
 he himself has gone abroad and camped again at 
 the scene of experiences of former years. His 
 family tell him that during the whole of the night 
 they saw the light of the camp-fire playing upon
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 21 
 
 his immoveable form so that they knew he re- 
 mained there with them and had not gone else- 
 where. So he is driven to the conclusion that he 
 himself also has his double and that this double 
 has been abroad conversing with the doubles of his 
 friends and the doubles also of trees, animals and 
 inanimate objects. He comes thus to think that 
 both he himself and his friends and his dog and 
 even stones and mountains all have their dupli- 
 cates in a mysterious phantom world. 
 
 When he comes to speculate upon what these 
 doubles may be, several phenomena present them- 
 selves for his consideration. There is, for ex- 
 ample, his shadow. It follows him about during 
 all the day and then disappears at night. It has 
 essentially the same form as himself, so that he 
 might very easily suppose it to be recognized by 
 other persons. It seems capable of movements 
 mimicking his own, a fact from which he is very 
 ready to induce that it is endowed with its own 
 will and powers of movement. Hence the word 
 "shade" is used in the sense of soul. 
 
 At other times the savage catches sight of his 
 reflection in a quiet pool. There he sees not only 
 very perfect presentation of his form, but its 
 likeness even in color and fine matters of detail. 
 Such an image is always puzzling to uninstructed 
 minds; you know how wonderfully Carrol has 
 portrayed a child's imaginings about it, in 
 "Thru the Looking Glass." 
 
 Thirdly, the savage notes that when they're
 
 22 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 active, men breathe violently; whereas they 
 breathe more gently during sleep, and cease to 
 breathe altogether when at last death overtakes 
 them. So he comes to think of the breath of 
 which he has caught sight on cold frosty days 
 as perhaps also representing the double which 
 so mysteriously comes and goes. Sleep, indeed, 
 to the savage, is thought of as more akin to death 
 than we today are apt to think it, and, for that 
 reason, the most ignorant peoples (here falsely so 
 called) usually have none of the terror at death 
 which is found among peoples who have submitted 
 to "the benefit of clergy" and rejoice in highly 
 artificial religions. 
 
 Lastly, a fourth class of phenomena which con- 
 vinces the savage of the reality of spirits has been 
 given altogether too little consideration by most 
 of the writers upon this topic. In our day there 
 is still great interest in so-called spirit-mediums 
 persons who go into a trance state and then pre- 
 tend to have communication with souls of the 
 departed. 
 
 We'll return to this matter presently. In a dis- 
 cussion-group which we held, of adults, we at 
 this point asked the members of the class to give 
 us some summary of their own beliefs in regard 
 to the soul. One man said that he believed we 
 all had souls, for the reason that the Bible so 
 taught. He, however, was the only member who 
 seemed to place his belief upon this authoritative 
 standard (if, indeed, he could have found in the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 23 
 
 Bible an unequivocal justification for his asser- 
 tion) . The other members mostly inclined to the 
 opinion that the matter was incapable of definite 
 proof one way or the other. A majority declared 
 that they couldn't easily conceive of their essen- 
 tial self, their inner consciousness, as ever ceas- 
 ing altogether to exist. We said that we our- 
 selves were inclined toward this attitude, not be- 
 cause we could justify it upon any theoretical, or, 
 much less, scientific, grounds, but admittedly be- 
 cause we lacked the capacity to imagine ourselves 
 absolutely "going out" like a candle flame. How- 
 ever, it seemed to us that we must rigidly exclude 
 from the possibility of continued survival, all 
 those faculties of the mind which under the heads 
 of memory, reason, benevolence, etc., it has been 
 customary to associate with the word "soul." 
 That while we might conceive of an inner self as 
 passing into the body of another animal or under- 
 going some other kind of transition, yet any soul 
 necessarily must leave behind all recollections of 
 a former life ; hence those so-called proofs of con- 
 tinued existence which sometimes are offered, 
 namely, the alleged memories of former exist- 
 ences, must be put out of court. This was be- 
 cause all our higher mental operations depend 
 upon sensations, memories, etc., and there was 
 more than mere speculative reason there was 
 considerable scientific evidence for believing 
 that the capacity for having sensations, etc., in- 
 heres in brain structure. It seems to be a fair in-
 
 24 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ference from what we already know of the de- 
 pendence of mental activity upon brain structure, 
 to doubt the old theory, that the soul and not the 
 brain is the ultimate seat of mental activity and 
 that the brain is "only an instrument." Today 
 that theory is in a precarious position. 
 
 It was a custom among the Hawaiians to pay 
 great reverence to the bones of their departed 
 
 ANCIENT CHINESE MEMORIAL 
 TABLET 
 
 chiefs, because the soul was thot to hover around 
 these enduring portions of the anatomy of the 
 deceased. It became highly important, therefore, 
 to bury the body of their relatives in proper fash- 
 ion in order that their spirits mightn't continue 
 to go mooning about in the night. Savages be- 
 lieve that these spirits are often very malicious 
 toward those who in real life were their friends
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 25 
 
 or even relatives. For example, one traveller tells 
 how a woman was warned by her dying husband 
 not to follow his funeral quite to the grave be- 
 cause he was afraid his spirit would then eat her. 
 When, as a matter of fact, she forgot his warning 
 and did follow too far, his ghost was on the point 
 of doing her serious injury, only at the last mo- 
 ment she thought to call on the names of the gods. 
 Often tablets and wooden figures are con- 
 structed by friends of a dying man, in the expecta- 
 
 STONE FIGURES IN JAVA 
 
 tion that his spirit will take up its abode in one. 
 These figures or stones are reared to invite 
 friendly demons to make their home here and 
 ward off those less well-disposed. In the picture 
 shown herewith, you'll see two big stone figures 
 of this kind in Java ; and in another picture hun- 
 dreds of little idols set upon the top of a wall in 
 Madura that look like gaily painted dolls made out 
 of plaster.
 
 26 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 The veneration given to idols is due to belief 
 not that the actual blocks of stone are inherently 
 possessed of any supernatural power, but simply 
 that these form convenient dwelling places for 
 departed spirits or for ghosts. "For," argues the 
 savage, "if spirits have a fondness for inhabiting 
 
 IDOLS ON A GARDEN WALL IN MADURA 
 
 living bodies, mayn't they be supposed to attach 
 themselves to the stone representations that we 
 make of such forms?" 
 
 Fetishes are symbols to the worshipper him- 
 self of the power resident in a deity, just as, for 
 example, to the lovelorn young man the slipper 
 or handkerchief of his sweetheart may bring back 
 to him the emotions which he more properly 
 might be supposed to feel only in her actual pres- 
 ence. Almost any kind of object may be used by
 
 27 
 
 the savage as a fetish, and he comes to believe a 
 certain supernatural power to inhere in the fetish 
 by virtue of the spirits that are attracted to it. 
 
 Spirits are supposed very often also to take up 
 their abodes in the bodies of animals; and this 
 idea has given rise to many weird tales, as also 
 to things which, from our point of view are hu- 
 morous. Mr. Thacher, headmaster of a school 
 the writer attended, received a complaint from 
 his Chinese cook that the cat was killing chickens. 
 "Then why don't you kill the cat?" asked Mr. 
 Thacher. "I no likee," answered the Chinaman, 
 "maybe he my glanmother. ! 3 " 
 
 An interesting example of the desire to secure 
 hin^lf from being haunted by the spirits of ani- 
 mals that he had slain is shown in the photograph 
 herewith submitted of a number of animals that 
 were placed in this old Chinese temple by a man 
 who had been a great hunter. The guide told us 
 that every time this ancient gentleman had killed 
 a deer or a tiger or whatever it might be, he had 
 had one of these wooden likenesses constructed to 
 safeguard him from the creature's ghost, which 
 might naturally be expected to feel toward him a 
 certain resentment. 
 
 Savages also believe that the spirits of departed 
 men may take up their abodes in the bodies of 
 wild animals ; and if they are disposed evilly, they 
 may inhabit some vicious creature such as the 
 
 3 Grandmother.
 
 28 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tiger. You have probably heard of were-wolves ; 
 wolves into the bodies of which demons or malevo- 
 lent ghosts have entered in order in a fearful way 
 to prey upon those who were perhaps the ghosts' 
 tribal brothers. A similar superstition is preva- 
 lent among the Slav people of parts of Europe. 
 They believe that a departed spirit or devil will 
 take up his residence in a dead body, the blood of 
 which, for this reason, continues to remain liquid ; 
 these spirits, going about at night to do harm, are 
 
 IN THE ANIMAL TEMPLE, PEKIN 
 
 known as vampires. The most blood-curdling 
 witch story in fiction is based upon this religion. 
 It is now out of print, but sometimes you can ob- 
 tain an old copy. The title is "Dracula." 
 
 Probably the belief in reincarnation arose from 
 the fact that often a child was born who bore re- 
 semblance of body and perhaps of mind also to 
 some member of the family who recently had died. 
 The natural inference by savages who understood 
 little of heredity, was that the spirit which had 
 so recently departed had now come back again to 
 its friends in the form of the newly born child.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 29 
 
 The child would sometimes be greeted in a way 
 indicating this belief. 
 
 We asked the above mentioned adult discussion 
 class to give their own "reactions to" the idea of 
 transmigration. None of them seemed to oppose 
 the idea except the two members who absolutely 
 disbelieved in any idea of the survival after death. 
 These two members seemed to consider that con- 
 sciousness was a sort of product of those activ- 
 ities which go on in the body, in the same sense 
 that a water spout is a product of certain arrange- 
 ments of a pipe with a nozzle and a proper supply 
 of water, and they thought as soon as the bodily 
 activities ceased, the stream of consciousness 
 must "go out" just as absolutely as the fountain 
 might cease to spout when someone turns off the 
 water, or as the flame of a candle "goes out" when 
 it is extinguished. It seemed to the writer that a 
 good approach to a discussion of this question 
 would be to ask what function consciousness plays 
 in animal life. Since all animals apparently are 
 endowed with consciousness we might expect that 
 endowment with consciousness was a product of 
 natural selection. We might anticipate that the 
 creatures which were conscious had, by the fact 
 of that quality, some survival-value in the strug- 
 gle for existence, over creatures which conceiv- 
 ably were pure automatons. More specifically, 
 the function of consciousness in the animal auton- 
 omy might very well be the bringing together of 
 various sensations into one general feeling. If a
 
 30 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 person looks at some object, each portion of that 
 object throws its image upon a particular part 
 of the retina of the observer's eye, but if the per- 
 son now moves to a different position and again 
 regards the object, all parts of that object are 
 now thrown on to entirely new parts of the eye 
 and yet we are somehow able to recognize the 
 object as the same. Without pretending to give 
 an explanation which could be regarded as 
 scientific, possibly we may draw an analogy that 
 will be in some ways helpful. We might suppose, 
 for example, that each brain-cell engaged in the 
 process of intellectualizing the seen object were 
 to send out its own particular kind of radiations 
 and that somewhere in the brain or near it were 
 located some single particle (to be called the Self) 
 which would be affected simultaneously by their 
 radiations from all these different cells at once. 
 Or it would partake, let us say, of a certain vibra- 
 tory backward and forward motion imparted by 
 one cell and with a certain rotary motion im- 
 parted by another cell. In this way we might 
 represent in the physical terms how this one 
 central particle could unify thru itself the vari- 
 ous motions received from the many different 
 brain-cells, and thus could be able to reflect back 
 to the brain a single type of motion synthesized 
 from all. Of course the above must be regarded 
 as only a very crude way of representing the 
 functions of a conscious self. But perhaps it will 
 do to illustrate the point that, supposing such
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 31 
 
 consciousness-units (which you may call selves 
 or souls or by whatever other name) to exist 
 separately from corporeal bodies, then the fact 
 that they could be useful to living beings might 
 in the course of time result in this : that if there 
 could be evolved upon the earth organisms able 
 to draw these selves to them, as boats upon the 
 sea are drawn into whirlpools, then necessarily 
 the law of the survival of the fittest would account 
 for the existing fact that the organized creatures 
 which inhabit the world are the creatures 
 equipped to draw to them consciousnesses. 
 
 The feeling that even inanimate objects are 
 motived by their own volition, not only explains 
 the attitude of savages toward the world around 
 them, it not only explains their curious religious 
 customs and their willingness to make sacrifices 
 to the lesser and greater spirits which they feel 
 to inhabit the river which may rush down and 
 overwhelm their canoe, and the sun in heaven 
 which they recognize as the source of warmth and 
 light. Animism also gives rise to those proced- 
 ures which we include under the name magic. 
 The most simple form of magic is the endeavor 
 to cause good or evil to distant persons by sub- 
 jecting to good or evil, figures, likenesses of these 
 persons. It's roughly true that like things tend 
 to act in like ways, similar things tend to ex- 
 perience similar feelings, etc. If one knows how 
 a tawny giraffe will behave, he can guess pretty 
 well how a black giraffe will behave. If the small
 
 32 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 cherries are devoured by birds, probably the large 
 cherries likewise will be devoured by birds. So 
 the savage argues, that if thru the clay figure 
 which he makes to look like his enemy he thrusts 
 his spear, then a spear is likely and in a similar 
 way to pierce his real enemy. 
 
 We show you herewith a snapshot of an effigy 
 of the Kaiser being guarded by a French soldier. 
 You see, these old dispositions still continue to 
 work their effects on the human mind. The sol- 
 dier, guarding "Guillaume," of course, doesn't be- 
 lieve that he could bring any real misfortune upon 
 the Kaiser by hitting his figure, and yet to mal- 
 treat the effigy does seem to afford a certain satis- 
 faction. The primitive man took such things a 
 little more seriously; that's all. You remember 
 how in the fall of 1917 the people in Chicago car- 
 ried an effigy of Mayor Thompson thru the city 
 in an automobile and afterwards publicly burned 
 it to show their disapprobation of his tolerance 
 of the former American principle of free speech. 
 
 Playing up this almost innate superstition, the 
 medicine men of savage tribes manage to per- 
 suade such of their dupes as have any enemy 
 whom they wish to injure that they, the medicine 
 men, know the most effective means of insuring 
 such injury. If the tribe plans to go on the war 
 path, the medicine men are called into council 
 and employ their magic art to cause sickness to 
 spread among the foe. Of course if, by coinci- 
 dence, disease does spread in the enemy's camp,
 
 EFFIGY OF THE KAISER.
 
 34 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 the most is made of this fact, and the prestige of 
 the medicine men rises by leaps and bounds. 
 Here is the true origin of Mrs. Eddy's famous 
 M. A. M. 4 One is reminded, too, of the story of a 
 clergyman who was asked "to pray for Lucy 
 Gray." Regularly the prayers of the congrega- 
 tion went up for her until one day the pastor 
 was, by the same parties as before, told, with 
 thanks, that the prayers no longer were required 
 for Lucy Gray. "Has she died?" queried the 
 pastor? "0, no, indeed," came the answer, "she's 
 won the steeplechase!" He became the most 
 popular pastor in the history of the parish. 
 
 Particularly are shamans in vogue for the cure 
 of diseases. Since time immemorial, certain 
 types of disease have been curable thru the 
 agency of faith. It's no matter whether the faith 
 be reposed in the "miracles" performed at the 
 Cathedral of Lourdes, or reposed in John Alex- 
 ander Dowie, or in the incantations of Christian 
 Scientists, or in the presence of a New Thought 
 healer, or in bread-pills administered by a mod- 
 ern medical practitioner; no matter whether the 
 faith is that of the pilgrims to the Temple of 
 Asculapius in Ancient Greece, or still earlier tem- 
 ples of the ancient pagan world, or finally whether 
 the faith is that imposed in the primitive medi- 
 cine man. The cure of disease seems to be ef- 
 fected with equal efficacy. What the New 
 Thot healer doesn't happen to cure, the Christian 
 
 4 "Malicious animal magnetism."
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 35 
 
 scientists may, and the man on whom the Chris- 
 tian scientists are powerless, may get the bene- 
 fit of a miracle at Lourdes, and whoever gets no 
 action at Lourdes, may still hope for benefits 
 from some witch-doctor from the negro quarter. 
 
 There is the best of biblical authority for de- 
 moniac possession. This belief, that sick per- 
 sons were suffering from the ejection from their 
 bodies of their own proper souls, and habitation 
 of those bodies by demons who had, so to speak, 
 "squatted" in the vacated premises, is now so 
 far from our present thinking that for us mod- 
 erns it's difficult to see how mankind ever held 
 such a conviction. Not so, however, if you bear 
 in mind certain phenomena which still remain 
 somewhat difficult for us to explain scientifically. 
 We refer to that general group of psychoses 
 known as hysterias, neurosies, comas, etc., and 
 to epileptic seizures. Indeed, Dr. Hyslop of Bos- 
 ton recently told the writer that he (Hyslop) had 
 reverted to the theory that these neurosies are 
 true cases of spirit-possession ! 
 
 What is more natural than for the savage 
 to explain as due to the agency of malevolent 
 spirits the conduct of a man who, suddenly ceas- 
 ing to act in normal fashion, falls upon the 
 ground, writhes in apparent agony, foams at the 
 mouth, etc? Have you ever seen a group of epi- 
 leptics gathered together in a room? A clinic 
 where several of them are assembled is a very 
 extraordinary sight. You'll see a circle of these.
 
 36 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 persons seated in the waiting room as calm and 
 dignified as anyone else. But they are like a lot 
 of quiescent geysers in the Yellowstone National 
 Park, when it isn't time for them to erupt. Then, 
 suddenly, with even less warning than those gey- 
 sers would give, one or more of the persons pres- 
 ent will perhaps throw back his head and laugh 
 hysterically for exactly six minutes, or whatever 
 his particular time-interval may be, and then be- 
 come quiet and dignified again just as suddenly. 
 In the meantime, some other party may enter 
 upon a violent crying fit, and after the seizure has 
 passed away and the period of quiescence that 
 succeeds it has passed away also, another such 
 fit will seize the person. We knew of a case, a 
 boy, who was always a very good child and espe- 
 cially very affectionate and kind to his mother, 
 only at intervals of about two weeks, he would be 
 seized with an almost homicidal attack, would as- 
 sault his mother, would pick up a hatchet and at- 
 tack furniture or even attack persons, and would 
 simply run amuck for a short time. Then he 
 would, of his own accord, become again perfectly 
 good and sweet for another two weeks. 
 
 When in a savage tribe such a seizure would 
 take place, the medicine man would be called 
 in. The latter would go through various weird 
 ceremonies, the epileptic seizure would pass off, 
 and the medicine man would receive the credit 
 for effecting a wonderful cure. It is just as to- 
 day; if you get a cold in the head you take pills
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 37 
 
 for it, and when the cold, through the natural 
 course of nature, has passed off, you recommend 
 the wonderful medicine to all your friends. 
 
 Hysterias have pretty well been shown by psy- 
 choanalysts to be by-products of sexuality; and 
 in the case of certain comas, etc., Freud and other 
 writers of this school have made out a very 
 strong case. They have shown, too, that the 
 phenomena of hypnotism must be diagnosed sim- 
 ilarly. The effect of hypnotism in religion we 
 shall discuss in Chapter II. 
 
 The illogical dogmatism of religious people 
 sometimes reminds one of the Scotchman who 
 maintained that all the greatest writers had been 
 Scots. "What about Shakespeare," someone 
 asked, "he wasn't Scotch, was he?" "Weel," re- 
 plied the daughty highlander, "Shakespeare's tal- 
 ents would justify the supposeetion that he was." 
 
 Three years ago we found ourselves in Java, 
 where a great mixture of superstitions were to 
 be studied. At Buitenzorg, all evening the peo- 
 ple were helping the Chinese element among them 
 celebrate a sort of left-over New Year's. Many 
 merchants entertained the populace with native 
 dancers and players on the "gamelong." 
 
 The dancers sometimes by the masks they 
 wore, and in their attitudes, imitated the witch or 
 spirit figures that are embroidered on their batic^ 
 work. 
 
 But for that matter, the bible definitely stands 
 for belief in witches. Manasseh "used enchant-
 
 38 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a fa- 
 miliar spirit, and with wizards." 3 Isaiah speaks 
 of "Wizards that peep and mutter."" "Thou 
 shalt not suffer a witch to live." 7 "A man also or 
 a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a 
 wizard, shall surely be put to death." 7 
 
 A distinctly Eastern belief, that the material 
 world is an illusion, and that nothing truly exists 
 but ideas, is finding its way into the west. Thomas 
 Reid (1710-1796) combated this pretty effective- 
 ly. His points were that (1) the actual percep.- 
 tion of an object is clear and steady compared 
 to mere imagining of it, and contrasts with 
 "knowledge about," (2) Our belief always varies 
 with clearness (likeness to near perception), for 
 eye-witnesses are most credited in a courtroom, 
 and even skeptical philosophers as a matter of 
 fact do credit their senses in the very act of pick- 
 ing out an object in order to dispute whether or 
 not it has a real existence; and (3) Reasons never 
 make sense-perceptions more irresistible than 
 they previously were. 
 
 Perhaps the best argument of all is that if ma- 
 terial-objects are only errors of mind, we never 
 could experience surprise. What is the philosophy 
 under discussion but a refusal to look facts in 
 the face? There's an illustration to be had from 
 the intellectual world today, so ludicrously ex- 
 
 S II Coron. 33:6. 
 e lsa. 8 :19. 
 'Ex. 22:18. 
 "Lev. 20:27.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 39 
 
 treme that it would have astonished our grand- 
 parents more than would the wireless telegraph 
 or an airship. Who'd have predicted that the 
 age in which Science, a system of thinking that's 
 tacitly materialistic, has justified its essential 
 soundness, would be the age to revive the denial 
 that a material universe exists. 
 
 "I was told," said Pundita Ramabai, 9 "on com- 
 ing to New York that a new philosophy was being 
 taught in the United States; but when I asked 
 what its teachings were I recognized it as being 
 the same philosophy that has been taught my 
 people for four thousand years. It has wrecked 
 millions of lives and caused immeasurable suffer- 
 ing and sorrow in my land, for it is based upon 
 selfishness, and knows no sympathy or compas- 
 sion." 
 
 The last phrase of this accusation would seem 
 to accord at least with the words, "Sympathy with 
 sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone God as 
 Truth" 10 . 
 
 "The Los Angeles Times, one morning last 
 August, published the details of the arrest of one 
 of our citizens who had allowed a horse to suffer 
 acutely from colic, explaining that he was giving 
 the horse treatment. It is reported by the Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that the 
 horse in its awful suffering had beaten both sides 
 of its head upon the ground until they were raw, 
 
 The noted helper of the "little widows" in Bombay, India. 
 10 Harker, P. 43. Dr. J. M. Buckley, North American Review, July, 
 1901, P. 34.
 
 40 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 when a little medicine from a veterinary surgeon 
 would probably have brought instant relief. The 
 horse died. If a man or woman is foolish enough 
 to apply the false teachings to himself, I suppose 
 in this free country he will have to be allowed 
 to play the fool; but when innocent little chil- 
 dren and enfeebled old people and defenseless 
 dumb brutes are victimized by this senseless and 
 inhuman fanaticism, then " 
 
 While responsible for much neglect of suffering 
 and for many deaths, this religion has been a true 
 help to many nervous invalids who, by repeated 
 iteration of its high priestess' book, have been 
 able to induce in themselves a conviction that her 
 phrases make sense, are logically acceptable, and 
 remove or heal every malady. 
 
 On June 14, 1914, Mr. Voliva, successor to 
 John Dowie and now the head of Zion City, ful- 
 minated in an amusing way against the cults in 
 a lecture given at Zion City. He took a long time 
 to get started, as he had to tell the audience how 
 he had stood at the head of his class in logic, how 
 he had six sheepskins from different universities, 
 
 and knew a lot more about than the devil 
 
 himself, who, he said, wrote it. He also sent a 
 good many people out of the hall, by his repeated 
 use of the words, "liar," "hypocrite," and other 
 vulgarisms, but once started he was clever. 
 
 "This table is an illusion, but when it comes to 
 buying their book, there isn't any illusion about 
 
 "Dr. C. E. Locke, Eddyism, p. 22.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 41 
 
 that ; you've got to come over with the real cash. 
 
 "Christ's disciples say he was dead, but he was 
 fooling them all the time, while he was in the 
 
 tomb he was demonstrating . (This after 
 
 quoting from Mrs. E. to the effect that Christ 
 only "seemed to die.") Hitting one of his follow- 
 ers on the back, Voliva exclaimed: "What's the 
 matter? This is just nothing hitting nothing!" 
 After quoting from Mrs. E. to the effect that it 
 isn't exercise that strengthens the arm, but only 
 the directing of mind upon it "for a trip-hammer 
 is not strengthened by the use it gets," Voliva 
 offered next time to bring a trip-hammer up on 
 
 the stage and let all the ists in the audience 
 
 direct their -minds upon it, and see whether it 
 would grow. (This would be an absolutely fair 
 test of their contentions.) 
 
 Quoting from Mrs. E., "If a man had as little 
 of mortal mind as a lobster, he could grow a new 
 arm in place of one cut off as readily as a lobster 
 can grow a new claw." 
 
 "Here's one for the women. Page 141, Science 
 and Health : "We shall always continue to be beau- 
 tiful, when mortal mind so decrees." 
 
 "The sensation of sickness and sin exists only 
 in mortal mind." Page 107. 
 
 "From human belief comes the reproduction 
 of the species, we are male or female according 
 as we think." Science and Health, Page 411. "If 
 God is all and all is God, then God is an illusion,
 
 42 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 isn't he? (i. e., since "All" must include even 
 "mortal mind.") 
 
 We've been warned that this chapter is against 
 "good taste," and will offend many earnest peo- 
 ple's feelings. But the classifying as "bad taste" 
 of every utterance which strikes at the Eternal 
 Hypocrisies is a dangerous ruse of reactionism, 
 which honest men must expose and defy, and 
 while we apologize to everyone whose tender toes 
 we tramp on we'll continue to trample on what 
 obstructs the path to truth. If the beautiful 
 cathedral shelters falsehood's sharpshooters, the 
 beautiful cathedral must fall. 
 
 "Some people thoughtlessly say, if it does any 
 good, why not let it alone? but this is a danger- 
 ous and illogical position; if in approving any- 
 thing that seems to be good, we lend our appro- 
 bation and support to dangerous untruths and a 
 mass of unmoral and immoral teachings. Taking 
 opium may do some good when one is in pain, 
 but because of the danger of fastening a deadly 
 habit, morphine is prescribed with the greatest 
 care. It is no sign that an entire system is good 
 because here and there some noble principles may 
 be found in it. There may be some good in 
 
 ism, but behind the false-face of good, there 
 
 is imposture, lying, and grossest self-conceit; 
 therefore a brave man cannot let half-truths and 
 untruths alone ; it must be assailed ; it will, in the 
 end be driven out; to let it alone is a confession 
 of weakness." 12 
 
 J -Dr. C. E. Locke, Eddyism P. 50.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 43 
 
 There's a duty of denial as well as an abuse of 
 it; a public duty as well as a private duty in re- 
 fusing what is contrary to self-interest and the 
 general welfare. The Doctor finds himself con- 
 fronted with it when some new nostrum or turtle- 
 serum is being foisted upon the public and adver- 
 tised by newspaper syndicates. A calm study of 
 alleged cures convinces him that it's a fake, but 
 if he raises his voice in denunciation, a thousand 
 angry throats will revile (alas! historically too 
 true) "the intolerance of the medical profession." 
 
 The psychologist finds himself hailed as a 
 brother by all manner of well-meaning tho hope- 
 lessly deluded dabblers in the "occult," and is 
 expected to countenance, by at least the duplicity 
 of a polite silence, what from experience he recog- 
 nizes as typical forms of delusion; and not to 
 smile at the most disgraceful fabrications of old 
 ladies' brains or be scorned as "materialistic," 
 "narrow," and "unwilling to be convinced." The 
 scientist in every field is brought by his researches 
 to conclusions on the great metaphysical ques- 
 tions that shake the world, but awed by the au- 
 thority of the University that employs him, and 
 which too frequently guages its own duty by the 
 delicate barometer of income and bequests he con- 
 tents himself with publishing the crudest facts of 
 his discoveries and makes but faint complaint 
 when they're "interpreted" by some Bergson into 
 a denial of the very basis of science.
 
 44 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 The oriental doctrine of reincarnation now so 
 much in vogue relies for proof mainly upon two 
 supposed facts: (1) It satisfies our sense of the 
 universe being moral, and (2) we often, walking 
 into a strange room, feel a sudden sense of having 
 been there before when in this present life it's 
 impossible we should have been. 
 
 The argument for the assumed "morality of the 
 universe" is : "The Cosmos is orderly ; like causes 
 give like effects, therefore, we're forced to believe 
 that all good or evil fortunes somehow, some- 
 where, sometime, were justly earned." True that 
 the universe is orderly, but this only proves that 
 good and evil fortunes were caused ; not that they 
 were "justly earned;" there's an immense gulf be- 
 tween the respective hypotheses of universal 
 Causality and universal Justice. The former has 
 been established as an absolute truth, by deduc- 
 tion from repeated experiments. The latter fails 
 by this method to be established, as it is, in fact, 
 disproved to be more than roughly and generally 
 true. Since it's evidently false that we get strict- 
 ly and accurately our deserts in this world, the- 
 ology has postulated a world hereafter, where 
 who can say but there may be hells and heavens 
 and has appealed to the feeling each of us has 
 of an innermost indivisible self which when its 
 every tangible embodiment has rotted away shall 
 still survive. 
 
 Call them "souls" if you will, these indivisible 
 selves, but remember always that giving a thing
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 45 
 
 a name doesn't really explain What it is. Avoid 
 assuming, too, that there's any evidence of "souls" 
 having a capacity for an independent intellectual 
 life when not en rapport with a mechanically 
 operating brain. On the contrary, we've direct 
 proof that at least a large number of mental func- 
 tions depend absolutely upon the activity of spe- 
 cific cerebral organs. Not so easily can we just- 
 ify the existence of sin and things to cry about. 
 
 This leads us to give some ill-merited atten- 
 tion to that venerable apology for all evils that 
 "unless we had the experience of overcoming ill, 
 we couldn't enjoy the satisfaction of mastery, nor 
 the strength of character that comes thru moral 
 conquest," or that "evil is necessary to purify 
 us." But if we know nothing of that particular 
 satisfaction, the joy of conquest, why should we 
 ever miss, or crave it, or be imperfectly satisfied 
 without it? Or of what use is purity except in 
 a world where evil exists ? Seriously, out of your 
 own acquaintance, reader, are the forceful indi- 
 viduals you have known so much happier, or 
 mayn't some shiftless southern darky put them 
 all to shame when it comes to sheer enjoyment of 
 life? The cold facts of experience, always the 
 ultimate arbiter of any theory, are dead against 
 the pious hypothesis that the suffering and temp- 
 tation in the world, thru struggles and character 
 building, become the source of more happiness 
 than they take away. The writer has traveled 
 rather extensively over the world, and has found
 
 46 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 that what's true of individuals is equally true of 
 races of men the happiest he has encountered 
 anywhere are the easy-living, characterless peo- 
 ples of the Malay Archipelago particularly the 
 Javanese. There's no moral justification for the 
 existence of suffering and "sin" or "error." 
 
 This problem of the ultimate injustice of things 
 is postponed merely, not solved, by the Oriental 
 doctrine of Karma. You ask, "Why do I who 
 am so good, suffer more privations than Smith, 
 who's so wicked?" The Eastern sages trium- 
 phantly answer, "It were indeed outrageous, save 
 that in a former life it must have been you who 
 were wicked and Smitty who was good." You 
 come back with, "But why was I wicked and 
 Smith good?" They parry this with the reply, 
 "Because in a still earlier existence than that one, 
 you were perhaps still more evil yet than Smith." 
 You follow up with, "But why did I ever start 
 differently from the way Smith started?" Your 
 Oriental philosopher, if he's frank (in Asia this 
 word is purely a relative term) here will profess 
 to misunderstand your query; and so ends an 
 idle discussion. Otherwise he begs the question 
 by means of endless rigmarole about the inbreath- 
 ing and outbreathing of the Brahman, but never 
 "gets down to brass tacks" on the question of 
 how our sense of justice is to be satisfied by know- 
 ing merely that the Brahman does so breathe, 
 without any satisfactory fundamental reason why 
 it must be so. The secret of the superior subtlety
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 47 
 
 of the Eastern philosophy over the Western lies 
 in the fact that it presents a greater number of 
 mazes in which you can lose track of the unan- 
 swerable questions before your instructor has 
 to confess, "I don't know." In fact, he may, as 
 a final resort, declare that to understand the great 
 truths of which he and a few other adepts alone 
 are in possession, you first must prepare your 
 intellect thru years of practicing Yoga. This 
 dodge is one that the Theosophists particularly 
 affect, whom we have with us also in America. 
 No, dear reader, the Eastern philosophy is as 
 utterly bankrupt as the Western when asked to 
 disprove that in the last analysis sin or virtue, 
 folly or wisdom (and consequently, of course, pain 
 and joy) are alotted ultimately as by a throw of 
 the dice. The thing important to recognize is 
 that the greatest true fortune is greatness of 
 spirit, and that the worst misfortune is petty 
 egoism. On merely metaphysical grounds, we re- 
 peat there's no justifying the existence of sin and 
 "error." 
 
 If, "without a brain, the 'soul' is without mem- 
 ory, without perception and without reason," im- 
 portant correlaries follow. It's evident that all 
 post-mortem punishments or rewards for a soul 
 benefit of power to remember for what it was 
 being punished or rewarded, are ridiculous. It's 
 equally plain that our conduct while we are liv- 
 ing upon this earth is unlikely to add to our souls 
 any accretions everlasting of importance ; whether
 
 48 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 accretions of wisdom, or of superiority to low 
 desires, or of ennobling traits of character, or 
 anything whatsoever. Nor is it reasonable that 
 our conduct (through "Karma," etc.,) affect for 
 better or for worse the state in which we shall 
 be re-incarnated (if we are to be). Our present 
 conduct, indeed, may make this a worse or a bet- 
 ter world to be born into, when our chance for 
 that comes around again, but the resulting likeli- 
 hood of betterment to our own condition would 
 be mighty slight. Therefore, these facts ap- 
 preciated by a majority of mankind (as, unless 
 false, they sooner or later must come to be) , will 
 necessitate profound alterations in our methods 
 of seeking to induce mankind to be good. 
 
 Hereto, philosophical systems have concerned 
 themselves largely with an attempt to show that 
 we live in a moral universe, i. e., one in which, 
 in the long run, the evil doer can't escape the full 
 penalty of his sins, and wherein, on the other 
 hand virtue inevitably will receive its full reward. 
 The strong psychological effect of so absolute and 
 sweeping an assertion, is lost, or hopelessly 
 weakened, so soon as we modify it to even a slight 
 degree, by admitting it to be (what it is) only 
 an approximation to the facts a general truth, 
 but not an absolute, or necessary truth. Since 
 current philosophy is bound to be "found out," 
 (indeed, it is suspect already), is there no use 
 to prepare for the day when we shall have to be 
 wholly honest? Isn't it a wiser plan to make our
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 49 
 
 ethical teachings in schools independent of alleged 
 super-human revelations (which at best leave sin 
 and causes for crying unexplained) ? 
 
 1. The absurdities of the ancient Jewish at- 
 tempt to harmonize the presence of evil with the 
 concept of a moral universe are well emphasized 
 by Marshall Gauvin. "God foresaw and . . . hav- 
 ing infinite power the serpent was but the instru- 
 ment he used. If the fall occurred God was re- 
 sponsible. Is there any wonder that Christianity 
 is dying, when that religion means, if it means 
 anything, that God designed the ruin of the hu- 
 man race, designed a hell in which to burn his 
 children, and designed his own death on a cross 
 to save a few!" 
 
 Again, "where shall we look for proofs of God 
 in history? ... In what nation, in what re- 
 ligion, at what times has God revealed himself 
 in the human heart? Can the history of any 
 Christian nation be pointed to as a shining credit 
 to God? Is not the history of Christianity a long 
 and gruesome story of ignorance, persecution and 
 war? Was God revealing himself in the human 
 heart when scientists languished in dungeons and 
 when helpless old women were burned as witches ? 
 Can it be that God revealed himself to the Mo- 
 hammedan and the Jew as a unity, to the Catholic 
 and the Presbyterian as a trinity, and to the great 
 world of science as the unknowable the incon- 
 ceivable? Is it not reasonable to suppose that if 
 God were addressing himself to the human heart,
 
 50 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 we would all receive and understand the mes- 
 sage?" 
 
 We have already noted the unsatisfactory at- 
 tempt to justify God in allowing men to go on 
 sinning, suffering, on the ground that it developes 
 their character. "Honest industry in a hovel 
 and indulgent idleness in a stately home, virtue 
 clothed in rags and vice arrayed in silken robes, 
 truth beneath the feet of priests and superstition 
 made sublime, liberty dying on the scaffold and 
 tyranny raised to the monarch's throne these 
 are but the means by which the providence of God 
 realizes its design. 13 
 
 Of the sense of recognition we sometimes feel 
 on entering a place in which we couldn't previous- 
 ly have been, the explanation given by Tichener 
 is that in the first moment our conscious mind is 
 absorbed by some other idea but our unconscious 
 is taking in the situation; next we see the place 
 with our conscious mind too, and the previous 
 unconscious view compounds with this later one 
 so as to give a feeling of recognition. A more 
 usual case would, it seems to us be that where 
 certain elements in a present situation have been 
 experienced before, and under conditions of strong 
 emotion, so that the strong sense of recollection 
 for these elements is superimposed on the whole 
 situation. For example if just as we enter a 
 strange town a certain odor were to blow toward 
 us from the neighboring orchards, this odor might 
 
 "Gauvln. Marshall G., Artile in The Truth Seeker, July 26, 1913.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 51 
 
 bring into our unconscious a memory of a certain 
 summer evening when the orchards were in 
 bloom ; but, especially if the circumstances of that 
 evening involved painful recollections, it might 
 well be that all would be repressed from the con- 
 scious mind except only the sense of familiarity, 
 and that familiarity, deprived of its proper refer- 
 ence, would superimpose itself upon the entire 
 present scene. 
 
 It is profitable for us to examine the basis of 
 strange religions, because all religions are related 
 phenomena and throw light upon one another. 
 It is profitable to examine history for references 
 to pagan practices, because so many of our Chris- 
 tian usages are taken over from them bodily. R. 
 Ellsworth in the Truth Seeker of December 28, 
 1918, has an article on this topic. "The . . . 
 historian, Mosheim, tells us that in the second 
 century several Christian churches imitated the 
 mysteries of Paganism. The profound respect 
 that the people entertained for those mysteries 
 . . . were ... a motive sufficient to give a mys- 
 terious appearance to their religion, so as to com- 
 mand . . . respect with the public . . . For this 
 reason they called mysteries the institutions of the 
 Gospel, particularly the Eucharist. They used in 
 this rite, and in that of baptism, several words 
 and ceremonies consecrated in the mysteries of 
 the Pagans. This . . . commenced chiefly in 
 Egypt. Clement of Alexandria . . . was one of 
 those who contributed the most to this usage,
 
 52 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 which then spread to the Occident when Adrian 
 had introduced the mysteries in that part of the 
 empire. Hence . . . customs and fables of Pa- 
 gan mysteries . . . have 'been perpetuated in that 
 church down to our day. In the initiation to 
 the Pagan mysteries there were degrees; so in 
 the church there are the degrees of porter or door- 
 keeper, acolyte, reader and exorcist, the last de- 
 gree conferring the power of expelling the devil. 
 The ecclesiastical ornaments in the Church are 
 like those used in the mysteries of the Pagans. 
 The Vestals kept a light constantly burning in 
 the Pagan temples; so a lamp is kept burning 
 day and night before the altar in ... churches. 
 Upon the altar in the Pagan temples there was an 
 image of the god Usiris or Bacchus, and the em- 
 blem of an aries or lamb; so upon the altar in 
 . . . churches there is a tabernacle in which God 
 is said to dwell, and the door of the tabernacle 
 bears a representation of a bleeding lamb. 
 
 "The Pagans solemnly and processionally car- 
 ried the image of Osiris or Bacchus, around whose 
 head there was a halo representing the rays of 
 the sun; so in the . . . church the priests pro- 
 cessionally, and with great pomp, carry, both in 
 the aisles of the churches and on the streets, a 
 wafer which they call God. It is shaped like the 
 disc of the sun, and the outside, called halo or 
 glory, appears like the sun's rays. The Pagans 
 did not permit their candidates for initiation 
 to assist at the celebration of the mysteries, which
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 53 
 
 t 
 
 was always preceded with this formula, solemnly 
 and loudly spoken by an officer: "Away from 
 here, ye profane and impious men, and all those 
 whose soul is contaminated with crimes!" So, 
 at one time in the . . . churches, the deacon arose 
 after the sermon, turned towards the assistant, 
 and ordered the catechumens to leave the church, 
 because the celebration of the mysteries was about 
 to commence the celebration of the mass. 
 
 "The Pagans initiated the candidates near the 
 front door of their temples; so in ... churches 
 the baptismal font is placed near one of the en- 
 trances. The Pagans initiated candidates chiefly 
 on the eve of great festivals ; so, in the . . . church, 
 catechumens are baptized chiefly on the eve of 
 Easter and Pentecost. The Pagans believed that 
 initiation made them holy; so the . . . church 
 holds that baptism remits original and all other 
 sins and makes men holy. The Pagans revered in 
 their temples the statue of Pan, in whose hands 
 was a seven-pipe flute ; also they revered emblems 
 of the seven planets; likewise the . . . church 
 holds the doctrine of the seven gifts of the Holy 
 Spirit and of the seven sacraments. In the month 
 of February the Pagans celebrated the Luper- 
 cales and the feast of Proserpine; so the Church 
 . . . celebrates Candlemas-day. . . The Pagans 
 celebrated the exaltation of the virgo or virgin, 
 the sixth sign and seventh constellation in the 
 ecliptic ; and the Church . . . has established the 
 feast of the Assumption, or the ascension of the
 
 54 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Virgin Mary to heaven. The Pagans made sol- 
 emn processions in honor of the goddess Ceres; 
 so the . . . Church has instituted pompous pro- 
 cessions in honor of the Queen of heaven, the 
 Holy Virgin. 
 
 "When in the . . . century the Protestants 
 shook off the yoke of the pope, they discarded 
 many of the mysteries of the Romish church, but 
 retained enough to establish an identity between 
 the reformed practices and those of the ancient 
 Pagan world. Protestants still teach the mystery 
 of the trinity, the mystery of the incarnation, the 
 mystery of the new birth and other occult notions, 
 which took their rise in Pagan forms of belief and 
 usage, and are in no sense original with the new 
 religion. 
 
 "Christians now celebrate the birthday of 
 Jesus Christ, without apparently any realizing 
 sense that . . . before . . . Christianity . . . the 
 twenty-fifth of December was . . . held sacred 
 . . . in memory of the nativity of the god Sol, or 
 the sun, which regularly occurred at the winter 
 solstice. . . A revelation that is but a refined re- 
 production of what ancient peoples conjured up 
 ... is plainly a human product . . . Mysteries 
 imply secrecy ; what then is the value to mankind 
 of a revelation that does not reveal? 
 
 "Christianity is a cemetery of dead faiths; it 
 is the opium of the people . . . and the sooner 
 men free themselves from the influence of its 
 hierophants and priestly intercessors, the sooner
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 55 
 
 they will learn to value man's autonomous ef- 
 forts." 
 
 As regards our own position, we'll say frankly 
 that we're atheist. How in the world can a Chris- 
 tian, for instance, who professes to believe in 
 the new testament, comply with (what the "Melt- 
 ing Pot" has given us) : 
 
 "Some tests for true believers: 
 
 "Now, I want to show the Christian by his own 
 standard, the New Testament, just what his 
 chances of heaven are worth (Mark xvi, 16-19) : 
 "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
 but he that believeth not shall be damned. And 
 these signs shall follow them that believe : In my 
 name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak 
 with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; 
 and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not 
 hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and 
 they shall recover." 
 
 "Now, my dear Christian friend, step forward. 
 In addition to a check which will secure for you 
 a crown and a harp, I will give you one hundred 
 dollars for the first lively, healthy, robust devil 
 that you will cast out. If you have never learned 
 anything but plain English, I will give you another 
 hundred dollars if you will utter a few sentences 
 in Greek, Hebrew, or Sanscrit. And if you will 
 handle a good big rattlesnake without mittens 
 you shall be rewarded with his rattles; they will 
 prove a fine accompaniment to your harp. Now, 
 I will take a little strychnine just what will lie
 
 56 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 on the point of a small penknife and drop it into 
 a little water. Don't tremble now, because if you 
 take it and pull through all right you will not 
 only escape hell, but will secure heaven. Remem- 
 ber the promise in the New Testament, and down 
 with it ; if you have faith like a grain of mustard- 
 seed, there is not the least bit of danger. Web- 
 ster says that to be sick is to be affected with 
 any kind of disease. Now, most people die of 
 some kind of disease. But why should any one 
 die of disease when the simple laying on of hands 
 would cause one to recover? 
 
 "Either there are no believers, or else the prom- 
 ise is not worth a penny whistle. Now, Chris- 
 tian, how is it? If you can't heal the sick, you 
 don't believe; you must go to hell sure. Allow- 
 ing the promise to be good, and that every Chris- 
 tian is a believer, all the doctors' diplomas in 
 America would not be worth a rupee. Unless these 
 Christians are great liars, they are praying for 
 my conversion every day. But is there a sane 
 man who believes that any Christian can exhibit 
 these signs any more than I can? Consequently, 
 his chances of heaven can be no better, and I am 
 nothing but a poor Infidel, whose oath would not 
 be taken in a court of justice in some of the states 
 in this Union, and who has been loaded with a 
 thousand Christian curses. 
 
 "Of all the countless millions who have ever 
 been born not one ever could perform these mira- 
 cles. Therefore all the myriads who have ever
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 57 
 
 peopled the earth have been brought into exist- 
 ence only to be damned." John Peck. 
 
 "And these signs shall follow them that be- 
 lieve." Good ! 
 
 "In my name shall they cast out devils; they 
 shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take up 
 serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it 
 shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on 
 the sick and they shall recover." 
 
 "Bring on your believer! Let him cast out a 
 devil. I do not ask for a large one. Just a little 
 one for a cent. Let him take up serpents. 'And 
 if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt 
 them.' Let me mix up a dose for the believer 
 and if it does not hurt him I will join a church." 
 Ingersoll. 
 
 "The reason that Christianity does so little 
 harm is because it is so little believed." R. C. 
 Adams. 
 
 In Bombay one morning at about 7 :30, we went 
 out to the Parsi Towers of Silence, where mem- 
 bers of this sect when dead, are exposed to be 
 devoured by vultures! They don't let you get 
 very close to the Towers, but they have a model 
 by means of which they show you how the dead 
 bodies are placed in sort of basins provided for 
 them. The basins having little irrigating ditches 
 leading off from them to drain away blood and 
 other fluids when the vultures come in to do their 
 dirty work. We arrived here at the same time 
 that a lot of Native Congresses were being held
 
 58 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 and have been chasing 'round to a lot of these. 
 One night we attended a big reception given by 
 Lady Tata, and, there found a woman whom we 
 had been quite anxious to meet, Mrs. Annie Bes- 
 ant. She is short, with nearly white hair, force- 
 ful masculine face and dressed always in a sim- 
 ple white silk Mother Hubbard. She wore around 
 her neck a single gold ornament of beautiful and 
 intricate workmanship. We couldn't get her to 
 talk very much that night, but next day, after 
 we'd heard various "hot-air artists" at the Mos- 
 lem League and the Social Conference, we man- 
 aged to get an earful of her eloquence. She is a 
 famous orator. She spoke, however, not on the- 
 osophy which, of course, was what we wanted to 
 hear her talk on, but on the betterment of the 
 "little widows" and abolition of the greatest curse 
 of present day India, child marriages. 
 
 We "scouted about" a good deal to Mission So- 
 cieties, Salvation Army Depots and Y. M. C. A/s, 
 to talk with workers in those lines about the con- 
 ditions of the masses of the people. One of the 
 most interesting talks we had was with the Na- 
 tive Secretary of the local Y. M. C. A. who pre- 
 sented to us in a very interesting light the Hindu 
 attitude toward all the hodge-podge of Native 
 and Foreign religions, Hinduism, Brahmanism, 
 Buddhism, Islam and Christianity that rubbed el- 
 bows in this country. He himself seems to be 
 deist; and we imagined that that is what the 
 more educated Hindus were. He started a while
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 59 
 
 ago a school to teach the poorer class of Natives 
 and prepare them to get a little better living for 
 themselves, as the Y. M. C. A. here is more par- 
 ticularly for Europeans and charges rates that 
 are beyond the reach of poorer Natives and there 
 is a deplorable dearth of elementary schools. 
 
 On the day before Christmas we attended a 
 meeting in a large Pavilion of the Arya Samaj ; 
 then a meeting of the Bhattias. 
 
 Many people who are so greatly impressed with 
 "spirit phenomena" might find their explanation 
 by reading in the Century Magazine 13 his owners 
 account of Roger, "A full blooded mongrel of 
 the cocker-spaniel persuasion," how "he could 
 spell anything which I could spell without being 
 taught. I asked for Constantinople, phthistic, 
 penumonia, and for problems like 2x3-f-2 1. He 
 never made a mistake. Fractions offered no dif- 
 ficulties to him. He selected colors correctly the 
 first time he saw them and made change as quick- 
 ly 'as any cashier." Then, compare the story of 
 "The Behavior of Roger," by Robert M. Yerkes. 
 His explanation of Roger's powers is the same, 
 tho as he says the process isn't "seen by the ob- 
 server when Roger is in practice and does his best. 
 It is highly probable that the dog's visual sensi- 
 tiveness to movement is greater than ours." 
 
 Upon which passage E. A. Swift makes com- 
 ments worth quoting at some length. "Yerkes' 
 conclusion agrees with those reached in the in- 
 vestigation of 'Der Kluge Hans,' the German
 
 60 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 horse whose wonderful feats in reading, spelling, 
 giving the najnes of those to whom he had been 
 introduced, and solving complex arithmetical 
 problems involving fractions were heralded 
 round the world a few years ago. Pfungst 14 dis- 
 covered that clever Hans could not reply correct- 
 ly to questions when the answers were unknown 
 to the questioner. Fraud was climated by the 
 fact that the horse answered correctly questions 
 put by the investigator and by others who were 
 only interested in the psychological aspect of the 
 performance. The success of the investigator in 
 obtaining correct answers also proved that the 
 movements which served Hans as a cue were in- 
 voluntary. . . . These movements, which the spec- 
 tators did not detect, were observed by the horse 
 and translated into appropriate action. So he could 
 spell any word which the questioner could spell, 
 or give the answer of difficult problems in arith- 
 metic by pawing with his hoof according to the 
 language code which he had been taught." 15 
 
 In a clipping before us* George Arliss, actor, 
 is reported as saying: 
 
 "A most astonishing lot of Boston people ap- 
 pear to be believers in spiritualism. It seems to 
 me that the war with its thousands of untimely 
 deaths has caused great numbers of people to 
 grasp desperately at the idea that the dead hover 
 around us and try to communicate with us. Sir 
 
 14 Prof. Pfungst Das Pferd des Herrn v. Osten. 
 l: 'E. A. Swift Youth and the Race, pp. 294, 295.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 61 
 
 James Barrie in The Well Remembered Voice' 
 has dramatized this idea and since I have been 
 playing it here, I have been amazed at the num- 
 ber of folks who have written me discussing 
 spiritualism." 16 
 
 That this movement represents anything ex- 
 alted is questioned by David Eccles in the Truth 
 Seeker : 
 
 "The crudest form of materialism I know is 
 the materialism of the average Spiritualist. With 
 him (as one of them expresses it) 'spiritual things 
 are gross matter in a refined state.' 
 
 "Sane thinking requires us to tie ourselves to 
 rational probabilities drawn from experimental 
 evidence. That one form of matter is cruder than 
 another, save in relation to our own needs, is a 
 delusion. It is doubtful if forces, as separate en- 
 tities, go racing over the universe. 
 
 "Professor Crookes demonstrated that gases 
 increase their amplitude of vibration as a condi- 
 tion of vacuum is obtained till they begin to move 
 in straight lines across the receptacle and their 
 impingement on the outer glass causes it to glow 
 with light. He calls this 'the fourth state of 
 matter.' The speed of the atoms is enormous. 
 As spirits are supposed to move with the speed 
 of light or thought, this fourth state of matter 
 Would seem to be their condition. Unfortunately, 
 in this highly sublimated and 'spiritualized' 
 state, like Cowper's 'John Gilpin,' they could not 
 
 "January 25, 1919.
 
 62 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 stop themselves when they wanted to, but if ob- 
 structed would bound back with the same resili- 
 ency. To get living rational conditions into an- 
 other world we are compelled to build it on ex- 
 actly the same order as this one, with birth, 
 growth, toil, decay and death. 
 
 "The most telling indictment against the claims 
 of Spiritualism is its utter sterility and confused 
 Babel of statements. It has revealed nothing and 
 does nothing but continue the old bondage to a 
 new set of grasping go-betweens, who begin to 
 call themselves 'reverends.' In a dark cabinet 
 it claims to materialize from the air, faces, 
 flowers and clothing; but it never made a potato 
 to feed a starving child or a garment to clothe 
 its nakedness. No medium has yet told the 
 whereabouts of a lost explorer or located an 
 enemy's mine or cannon. It has not added to 
 science a single thought. The spirit's relation 
 to the body is presented in the same crude terms 
 as was thought out by the early savage. 
 
 "Dr. Mary Walker insists that the snakes men 
 see in delirium tremens are real spiritual snakes. 
 In this view, man is not alone a living soul, but 
 a colony of untold millions of living souls. Every 
 cell is animate and individualized. It does its own 
 breathing and imbibes its own food. When the 
 power to oxidize food is gone the phenomenon of 
 life disappears. Life is simply one form of the 
 general energy. That this energy carries "the 
 promise and potency of life" under all conditions
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 63 
 
 of existence is not only believable, but forced upon 
 us as a conclusion. Evolution denies a creative 
 beginning to anything. 
 
 "The cells do not all die together. Cells and 
 whole organs can be incised and kept living after 
 the individual is dead. Moreover, the ovaries of 
 a dying mother may be cut out and transplanted 
 into another body, and brought to maturity and 
 fecundated produce offspring. 
 
 "If the ovaries had been cut out and had died 
 before the mother, would they continue to grow 
 into human form in the Summer Land? Spir- 
 itualists insist that there is change and growth 
 there. A Spiritualist once gravely showed me an 
 alleged spirit photograph of his dead daughter 
 who had died in infancy. The photo was that 
 of a young lady. I said, "Do you recognize it?" 
 "Not positively," he answered, "for she has grown 
 to be a young woman since she left here." There 
 is faith for you! If she can grow from a cell 
 form to a young woman, she can complete the 
 cycle and go to old age and death. If the form 
 and organs are there, all the other phenomena will 
 be there. What would be the use of a spiritual 
 mouth, ears, nose tongue and palate except to 
 eat, hear, smell and taste with ? 
 
 "Ella Wheeler Wilcox assures us in a recent 
 poem that when she dies she will 'run and run 
 and run' till she finds her dead mate . . . and 
 she no doubt thinks she will find him dressed as
 
 64 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 he was. If she delays her dying too long he may 
 have found another mate. 
 
 "The whole conclusion is bristling with absurdi- 
 ties. For if all forms of life have spiritual bodies 
 and carry their natures with them, then our 
 bodies will carry their parasites along and we 
 shall have the same woes and pains to fight. We 
 cannot think of spiritual fish without thinking 
 of spiritual waters, nor of snakes or parasites 
 without their proper pabulum. The struggle for 
 food will exist there as here, and the survival of 
 the fit be the supreme law. In other words, the 
 spiritual explanation leaves us where it found us, 
 and explains nothing." 
 
 To similar effect is a criticism in the same ex- 
 cellent paper by Donald Grey 17 of a book by one 
 Severence : 
 
 "One great point they overlook is the fact that 
 man's reason being but a part of nature, neces- 
 sarily the thoughts and reasonings of man can- 
 not exceed, or reach beyond the limits of nature. 
 Man, thinking and speaking, is actually a part of 
 nature thinking and speaking of itself! 
 
 "Sir Oliver Lodge says that if they have ma- 
 terial bodies, such bodies must be made of ether 
 or a like substance. Now can you imagine a mor- 
 tal man in evolution, with a man's senses and in- 
 telligence with the ability to think and speak 
 to mortals on earth by 'table-moving, rappings, 
 voices, lights,' directing pencils and such like ab- 
 
 17 February 1, 1919.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 65 
 
 surdities as claimed in a body made of ether! 
 'It is unthinkable.' 
 
 "We all know that a man's intelligence and 
 memory cells are a matter of brains ; how, then, 
 can his intelligence and memory survive the death 
 of his brain? Yet this impossibility is the very 
 test Sir Oliver Lodge and others suggest as the 
 only feasible proof of the genuine survival of the 
 spirit. He also says of spiritism that it is "a 
 universe where the orinary laws of matter are 
 inoperative!", Did anyone ever distinguish be- 
 tween ordinary and extraordinary laws in the 
 universe of nature? 
 
 "One writer shows the weakness of his reason- 
 ing by admitting that because 'certainly every- 
 one wishes it' (spirit life) that is 'the greatest ar- 
 gument in its favor!' 
 
 " 'Professor Crookes thought he had sufficient 
 evidence to establish man's continuity of con- 
 sciousness, and he said so' (says Mr. Severance), 
 yet with all the public confidence and hopes placed 
 in a scientist of his eminence, 'when judged by 
 results he was repudiated' in other words, he 
 failed to make good his assertions. So did Sir 
 Oliver Lodge, who admits that it cannot be sat- 
 isfactorily proven, tho he himself is satisfied! 
 One of the great weaknesses of spiritism that 
 tho all humanity live again as spirits, yet of all 
 these myriads only a 'chosen few' . . . can com- 
 municate ! This is about as bad as priest-craft. 
 
 "Finally, Mr. Severance upholds the study of
 
 66 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 spiritism amongst thinkers and philosophers ; but 
 thinking and philosophy can never elucidate such 
 a purely scientific subject. On the contrary, I 
 hold that its study and belief by unscientific minds 
 have pernicious tendencies. It encourages the 
 charlatan and makes ready tools of the credulous, 
 as does religion." 
 
 That seances can be turned to pecuniary profit 
 by the "insiders" is known to those who've been 
 reading the accounts of the intrigues which lead 
 to the fall of the Romanoff dynasty; or to those 
 who may have seen in the San Francisco papers 
 for February or the Chicago Tribune for March, 
 1908, 17 the account of Bartlett, Dalzell, Brown, 
 Treadwell, and the "spirits" by whose aid they 
 defrauded a bank. Today we stand toward spirit- 
 ism in somewhat the same relation that Pagan 
 Lowe stood toward the then young spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. Logic has little power to check it be- 
 cause its nature is illogical and emotional. 
 
 "Persons with habitual hallucinations, and also 
 the inspired, exhibit these states; they draw the 
 attention of the crowd to themselves, now as poet 
 or artist, now as savior, prophet, or founder of a 
 new sect. The genesis of the peculiar frame of 
 mind of these persons is for the most part lost in 
 obscurity," hence Jung 18 contributes the follow- 
 ing observations on the case of a so-called spir- 
 itualistic medium : 
 
 "These dates are to the best of our remembrance. 
 18 Jungr Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, Ch. 1 on the. 
 Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 67 
 
 Subject: Miss S. W., 15i/ 2 years old (1899- 
 1900). Paternal grandfather, a clergyman 
 "with frequent waking hallucinations (generally 
 visions, often whole dramatic scenes with dia- 
 logues," etc). Paternal grandmother, at 20 went 
 into a trance for three days; later had fainting 
 fits, followed by "brief somnambulism during 
 which she uttered prophecies." The mother has 
 an inherited mental defect often bordering on 
 psychosis. Other relatives were either odd, pe- 
 culiar characters, or hysterics and visionaries. 
 
 Miss S. W. is slenderly built, skull somewhat 
 rachitic, face rather pale, eyes dark with a pe- 
 culiar penetrating look. Her preference is for 
 handwork and day-dreaming. "Often absent- 
 minded ; misread in a peculiar way when reading 
 aloud. . . There were no other abnormalities . . . 
 no serious hysterical manifestations." Her father 
 died when S. W. was not yet grown up. She was 
 unhappy; often afraid to go home; her interests 
 were limited, also her knowledge of literature. 
 When she began to take an interest in table-turn- 
 ing, it "was discovered that she was an excellent 
 'medium.' Some communications of a serious na- 
 ture arrived which were received with great as- 
 tonishment. Their pastoral note was surprising. 
 The spirit said he was the grandfather of the 
 medium." 
 
 The first attacks of somnambulism took place in 
 Jung's presence. S. W. became cataleptic. "In 
 somnambulic dialogues she copied in a remark-
 
 68 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ably clever way her dead relations and acquaint- 
 ances, with all their peculiarities so that she made 
 a lasting impression upon unprejudiced persons." 
 There were attitudes passionelles, and complete 
 dramatic scenes. "She then made use exclusively 
 of a literary German which she spoke with an 
 ease and assurance quite contrary to her usual 
 uncertain and embarrassed, manner in the waking 
 state." 
 
 "In addition to these great attacks which 
 seemed to follow a certain law in their course, 
 S. W. produced a great number of other automa- 
 tisms. Premonitions, forebodings, unaccountable 
 moods and rapidly changing fancies were all in 
 the day's work. ... In the middle of a lively 
 conversation S. W. became quite confused and 
 spoke without meaning in a peculiar monotonous 
 way. . . . These lapses usually lasted but a few 
 minutes. . . . Later she simply said They are 
 there again,' meaning her spirits. . . . The hal- 
 lucinations involved all the sense organs equally. 
 ... It is remarkable with what curious sincerity 
 she regarded her dreams. . . . She was unswerv- 
 ingly convinced of the reality of her visions. . . . 
 She once said : 'I do not know if what the spirits 
 say and teach me is true, neither do I know if 
 they are those by whose names they call them- 
 selves, but that my spirits exist there is no ques- 
 tion. I see them before me, I can touch them, I 
 speak to them about everything I wish, as natural- 
 ly as I'm now talking to you. They must pe
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 69 
 
 She absolutely would not listen to the idea that 
 the manifestations were a kind of illness. In 
 time . . . three of her brothers and sisters like- 
 wise began to have hallucinations of a similar 
 kind." 
 
 "This particular type of attack with the com- 
 plete visions and ideas had developed in the 
 course of less than a month, but never afterwards 
 exceeded these limits." "She is fully orientated 
 to the external world, but seems to stand with one 
 foot, as it were, in her dream-world." "She 
 speaks quietly, clearly, and promptly, and is al- 
 ways in a serious, almost religious frame of mind. 
 Her bearing indicates a deeply religious mood." 
 "To every one who did not know her secret she 
 was a girl of fifteen and a half, in no respect un- 
 like a thousand other such girls." 
 
 Jung gives accounts of the seances at which he 
 was present, discusses the development of the 
 somnambulic personalities, with a study of the 
 way in which S. W.'s mind reacted to Justinus 
 Kerner's book, "Die Seherin von Prevorst," and 
 also gives a quite full account of her scheme of 
 "mystic science." Her visions seemed to lose 
 plasticity and form, and six months after Jung 
 withdrew from the seances, she was caught cheat- 
 ing. 
 
 "Deducting the want of balance due to puberty, 
 there remains a pathological residue which ex- 
 presses itself in reactions which . . . have a 
 bizarre unaccountable character. . . Traits which
 
 70 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 can certainly be regarded as hysterical." Mis- 
 reading was due to a "hysterical dispersion of at- 
 tention." This is "a quite elementary automatic 
 phenomena." "A healthy person only exceptional- 
 ly allows himself to be so engaged by an object 
 that he fails to correct the errors of a dispersed 
 attention those of the kind described. The fre- 
 quency of these occurrences in the patient point 
 to a considerable limitation of the field of con- 
 sciousness." "We thus find . . . rudimentary au- 
 tomatisms, fragments of dream manifestations, 
 which imply . . . the possibility that some day 
 more than one association would creep in between 
 the perception of the dispersed attention and 
 consciousness. The misreading shows us, ... 
 a certain automatic independence of the psycho- 
 logical elements, . . . and can be thus conceived 
 as a prodromal symptom of the later events ; spe- 
 cially as its psychology is prototypical for the 
 mechanism of somnambulic dreams, which are in- 
 deed nothing but a many sided multiplication and 
 manifold variation of the elementary processes. 
 In course of time the states of dispersed attention 
 . . . have grown into these remarkable somnam- 
 bulic attacks; hence they disappeared from the 
 waking state, which was free from attacks." "In 
 the semi-somnambulism one has the impression 
 of a mature woman possessed of considerable dra- 
 matic talent. The reason for this seriousness . . . 
 is given in her explanation that at these times 
 she stands at the frontier of this world and the
 
 71 
 
 other, and associates just as truly with the spirits 
 of the dead as with living people. And, indeed, 
 her conversation is usually divided between an- 
 swers to real objective questions and hallucina- 
 tory ones." 
 
 In the automatic movements of the table there 
 was no question of intentional and voluntary 
 pushing or pulling on the part of the patient. Un- 
 conscious motor phenomena are easily produced 
 even in normal persons. They are powerfully 
 affected by suggestion or by earlier autosugges- 
 tion. It is a question of partial hypnosis, limited 
 entirely to the motor area of the arm. The best 
 form of suggestion is a series of rhythmic but 
 very slight taps upon the table, and soon the os- 
 cillations become stronger. "By means of this 
 simple mechanism there may arise those cases of 
 thought-reading so bewildering at first sight." 
 
 At another seance the automatic expression of 
 one personality is interrupted unexpectedly by 
 "a new person, of whose existence no one had any 
 suspicion" (who was, according to S. W., Jung's 
 grandfather). That is, automatic phenomena 
 were progressing favorably when darkness came 
 on, and, as the influence of that upon the sugges- 
 tibility of the sense-organs is well-known, it seems 
 to have been the foundation "for a rapid deepen- 
 ing of hypnosis, in consequence of which halluci- 
 nations could be developed." "It is probably a 
 dissociation of the personality already present 
 which seized upon the material next at hand for
 
 72 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 its expression, namely, upon the associations con- 
 cerning" Jung. "The perception of this unex- 
 pected intervention of a new power must inevit- 
 ably excite a feeling of the strangeness of the au- 
 tomatisms, and would easily suggest the thought 
 that an independent spirit is here making itself 
 known. Hence the intelligible association that 
 she would finally be able to see this spirit." 
 
 SECTION 2 
 
 "So many gods, so many creeds, 
 So many paths that wind and wind, 
 When just the art of being kind 
 Is all this old world needs." 
 
 The following sections 2 and 3 of this chapter are 
 so obstrusely dry that only bespectacled scholars will 
 enjoy reading them. The ordinary reader is asked not 
 to make the attempt, but husband his intellectual forces 
 for an attack upon other portions of the book. 
 
 So many of the free will arguments are ad hominem 
 e. g. arguments that if we confess the truth of de- 
 terminism, it will undermine some cherished dogma or 
 institution that we are tempted to offer in return one 
 of the same kind, which you must take cum granum 
 salo. It is, that if we reject causality as absolute, then 
 (worse than all other calamities) this very reasoning, 
 upon which we have spent so much care and time we 
 in writing it and' you in understanding it and fort 
 which you have paid out your good money, would be 
 little better than a deception. You and we therefore have 
 an interest at stake in refuting this theory which de- 
 nies our knowledge and would crown Chance king over 
 Life. Let us rally our forces about our standard and
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 73 
 
 march forth to the battle. Three strong friends, Science, 
 Metaphysics, and Theology, will all be loyal to us in 
 this hour of need. Science will be loyal because all of 
 his discoveries have been made by ignoring any but a 
 material universe, wherein no energy is ever gained or 
 lost in any operation, (a method that hasn't been proven 
 to be inadequate to the severest tasks). Metaphysics 
 will stand by us, because its aim is to arrive at a 
 unified concept of the world, to reduce it to some single 
 principle, ^which it can never do by covering over with 
 some vague term, e. g., the "elan vital" of Bergson), 
 an admission of irregularity in itself. Theology also 
 takes our side if it aspires to be consistent with man's 
 tenet of an omniscient Deity, since how could Deity 
 foreknow the future unless He could predict the part to 
 be played in it by Man; which implies that Man's part 
 is predetermined? 
 
 There are two tremendous consequences of the fact 
 that all things move absolutely obedient to "law." The 
 one is 
 
 "I am the master of my fate, 
 I am the captain of my soul." 
 
 As surely as the future is the fruit of the present, 
 so surely is our destiny bound to be the consequence of 
 what we made it; if the universe is obedient to "law," we 
 actually, by exploring that "law," can trick the universe 
 into slavery to us as its master. The other consequence 
 is, however, that as surely as the present is only a 
 result of the past, so certainly must all the good and ill 
 fortunes of life be looked upon ultimately as fortunes 
 as throws of the dice (even tho, at the same time with 
 apparent, but not actual inconsistency we can continue 
 to recognize many of them as the rewards of conduct), 
 for, were we present at our own first creation, to deter- 
 mine our fate? 
 
 Something like the following must have occurred to 
 us shortly before we even existed at all; we were called
 
 74 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 aside by our Maker, and told that in order that we, and 
 not He, should be the one responsible for our subsequent 
 actions, we must take part in the creation of ourselves, 
 which now was imminent. He did the principal part 
 of making us otherwise, if we existed from eternity 
 could He claim we were His creatures and must obey 
 Him? He knew, however, that by letting us tamper with 
 the work, while He looked out of the window, the said 
 work would be imperfect. Thus, a little spice would 
 be introduced into life and He could still say, "If you 
 suffer, didn't your act bring it upon you?" 
 
 Men, having inherited a belief in an intelligence 
 which preceded and ordained all material crea- 
 tures, sometimes defend their faith by the follow- 
 ing argument: 
 
 "There was once a creation, therefore also a 
 creator, a deus. Otherwise the universe-machine 
 has been running already for an infinity of time, 
 so that by rights all the stars long, long ago, 
 should have gravitated into one inclusive mass 
 :n the middle of the universe, and all energy (that 
 otherwise might hurl them apart) should have 
 bfen raditated away altogether, or at least been 
 frittered down to the one form, evenly distrib- 
 uted, Heat. The fact that the universe hasn't 
 become, and remained, one such single inert luke- 
 warm lump, proves that it's been 'wound up' 
 again by some deus ex machina" 
 
 This argument didn't seem so presumptuous at 
 the time it first was put forth, as it seems to us 
 now; for in those days men supposed that "mat- 
 ter" and "energy" were permanent realities, quite
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 75 
 
 separate and unchangeable ; the men of that time 
 hadn't dreamed our modern visions of the trans- 
 mutability of elements ; of the break-up of atoms ; 
 or of matter itself being but one form of energy, 
 in essence as changeable as any of Energy's other 
 forms. 
 
 Today we're less confident of our omniscence. 
 When the vibrations from our universe reach the 
 limits of the luminiferous ether, who shall say 
 whether they roll backwards upon the centers 
 that shook them forth, or whether they remain 
 there in those uttermost reaches and transmit 
 themselves into gases, liquid, and solids? 
 
 But had men's knowledge of such ultimate 
 things been as correct as they fancied it was, yet 
 they might have reflected that even the least 
 warm bodies are always evaporating their sub- 
 stance into space, and at the same time always 
 sending forth not merely heat, but various other 
 vibrations. To be sure, those of the exhalations 
 which are gaseous will be subject to only the force 
 of gravitation. But we know that solids, if suf- 
 ficiently microscopic, may be impelled, against 
 gravitation, to dart away into space, by the dy- 
 namic pressure upon them of radiant energy. 19 
 Suppose that in Act I, you strip matter of nearly 
 all its energies, and lay it inert in the center of 
 your universe. Act 2 opens with the liberated 
 energies driving in storms thru space catching up 
 
 19 Thig, possibly, is an explanation of why a comefs tail, which is 
 composed of mere dust, is tossed around, and even ahead, of it, as 
 the comet swings around our sun.
 
 76 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 particles from the surface of your central ball 
 of matter, and bearing them to heaven in despite 
 of gravitation. In Act 3, eons afterward, you'll 
 have again the same old universe you started with. 
 Try it and see. Yet, perhaps not quite the same, 
 after all. For, things never really repeat. Fried- 
 rich Nietzsche made famous, the thot, that as 
 space must have its limits, and as the number of 
 ultimate divisibles of energy must be limited, 
 therefore the number of possible combinations of 
 forces must have some limit finally, so in limit- 
 less time identical worlds must happen again and 
 again. When Nietzsche reasoned this way he'd 
 forgotten his elementary geometry. Were the ex- 
 tremest points of the universe only a hair's 
 breath apart, still the number of positions a point 
 could occupy on the line between them, would be 
 limitless. There's no more reason for believing 
 in the "Eternal Recurrence" than for fearing that 
 the universe will "run down." "Progress moves 
 not in circles, which are closed, but in spirals, 
 eternally new." In vain man searches for signs 
 of planned efficiency in the workings of the uni- 
 verse ; or for scrupulousness in its methods, com- 
 parable to even the little refinement to which man 
 himself has attained; and yet, undirected and 
 unmoral to the Cosmos be, still, in changing over 
 from old-time views, we should try to make cer- 
 tain that we're not ignorant of their understand- 
 ing, before we presume to understand their ignor- 
 ance. For Cosmos, spells more than Chaos. It's
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 77 
 
 orderly, and, apparently, it even has a Whence 
 and a Whither. Not, perhaps, a whither in Aris- 
 totle's sense of a purpose, to fulfil which it has 
 come into existence; but a whither, in the sense 
 of a point of the compass, toward which it sets. 
 Herbert Spencer started us upon the road toward 
 a definition of this Whither, in his "Synthetic 
 Philosophy." He declared that things progress 
 from discrete homogeneity to concrete heterogene- 
 ity. We progress from discordant monotony to- 
 ward that harmony consonant with individuality. 
 "Very well," say you, "since science and meta- 
 physics can give me no help, I see that I was 
 foolish indeed ever to have deserted my old pas- 
 tor. I will go back to him, and ask him to help 
 me pray for The Light." Your pastor is very 
 glad indeed to see you back again within the fold 
 and comforts you with a great many "fundamen- 
 tal verities" from the Scriptures. For a time you 
 feel that at last you have indeed found peace. 
 But an uneasy suspicion will not be smothered 
 that it is a dishonorable peace. There are so 
 many things which you have to just "take upon 
 faith." You can take them on faith all right 
 enough so long as they're only a little absurd or 
 improbable; but when, into the bargain they be- 
 gin to be inconsistent, then you find yourself run- 
 ning for help to the theological apologists. "How 
 shall I believe God to be good, if, tho all-powerful, 
 he allows evils to exist?" "Because except thru 
 evil, He has no way of developing character!"
 
 78 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 "Then why doesn't He make another way ?" "My 
 child, it is not for us to weigh His inscrutable 
 motives with our finite minds!" "Because finite 
 minds are the only minds we have, must we let 
 priests do our thinking? Did He give us these 
 minds expecting we shouldn't use them?" And 
 so each reply raises but another question. Unless 
 our theologian is very clever, indeed, at answer- 
 ing these doubts in plausible language, we begin 
 to wonder whether his explanations of things 
 really explain them at all. We ask why there 
 was any more need of a God to make the world 
 than there was of a Super-God to make God. And 
 finally, we come to think the theologian, despite 
 his assumptions, really knows no more about the 
 matter than we do ourselves, and we leave him, 
 to inquire elsewhere. 
 
 The witty Dean Hole has left some good 
 stories scattered through his Memoirs, which will 
 be told and retold until their identity is lost. He 
 tells us that once a country clergyman was asked 
 to pray for rain. He did so, and the rain did fall, 
 and continued to do so. When it had been rain- 
 ing some time, the local farmers met and dis- 
 cussed the situation. "That's the worst of our 
 parson," said one, "he always overdoes every- 
 thing." That story reminds him of another. One 
 farmer stated to another, who was a Methodist, 
 that he intended to ask the rector to use the prayer 
 for rain. "Better ask our parson," said the 
 Methodist, "he can pray your rector's head off!"
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 79 
 
 Little Esther was saying her bed-time pray- 
 ers, and in conclusion, asked: "Please, dear God, 
 make San Francisco the capital of California." 
 
 "Why did you ask that, Esther?" interrupted 
 her mother. 
 
 "Because I wrote it on my examination paper 
 that way." 
 
 What but our underlying religious disbelief 
 makes the above stories seem humorous ? Uncon- 
 sciously, we all accept the fact that all events, 
 including mental events, proceed according to uni- 
 form "laws." 
 
 Of mental events, the first determiner is In- 
 heritance. McKeever 20 says truthfully: "People 
 are by no means all alike at birth, but are born 
 with predispositions to form habits of one kind 
 more readily than another. This is perhaps more 
 readily seen in the case of animals. The offspring 
 of the heavy draught-horse is never expected to 
 develop readily into habits of movement that be- 
 long to the horse of pacing or trotting strain. It is 
 not in accordance with his nature. But he will eas- 
 ily and naturally take up habits that pertain to 
 drawing heavy loads. The young bulldog early 
 falls into habits of surliness and pugnacity, while 
 his young companion of the sheperd-dog variety 
 takes more readily to acts suggesting a kind and 
 gentle disposition. It is the nature of the brute, 
 in each case, that is asserting itself ; and this na- 
 
 : McKeever Psychology and Higher Life.
 
 80 
 
 ture is Inherited. Many more such examples 
 could be given. 
 
 So it is with men. The child is likely to in- 
 herit not only much that is peculiar in the phy- 
 sical form and movement of its parents and more 
 remote ancestors, but also many of the mental 
 traits." 
 
 David Hartley, a psychologist living from 
 1705-1757, based his ideas upon the investigations 
 which physiologists already had made on the 
 nervous system. You probably are aware that 
 the nerve cells differ from other cells of the body 
 physically in their elongation (to sometimes sev- 
 eral feet) and functionally in that the sensitivity 
 which is an attribute of all protoplasm (not to 
 say, of all matter) is greatest in the nerve-cells. 
 They are technically called neurons. Each has 
 a center, or nucleus, from which a long thread- 
 like axis grows in one direction, and root-like 
 branching dendrites in the others. The meeting 
 of the axis of one neuron with the dendrite of an- 
 other is called a synapse. The nerve-current jumps 
 across these synapses as a spark passing along 
 a fuse would jump to a second fuse placed end to 
 end to the first, and when it reaches the brain a 
 sensation is felt that depends not on the nerve 
 along which it travels, as Johannes Mueller (1801- 
 1858) first supposed, nor upon nature of the cur- 
 rent which travelled, but on the part of the brain 
 it reaches. It is as tho we had fuses leading to 
 different kegs, in one of which was powder which
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 81 
 
 would burn with red light, in another, powder 
 which burn with a blue light, etc. Tho as a mat- 
 ter of fact, all these sections of the brain are 
 themselves comprised of simply millions more of 
 nerve-cells, as tho the powder in our kegs were 
 all in the form of coils and coils more of fuse. Of 
 course the brain and nerves are superior to com- 
 mon fuses, in that they are not burned out but 
 renew themselves after the spark has passed 
 along them. 
 
 To illustrate how this chain operates, we'll sup- 
 pose that something touches your foot. From the 
 multiplicity of the nerves which begin sending 
 currents to your brain you get the sensation of 
 the extensiveness of the surface touched; from 
 the intensity of the incoming current you sense 
 the violence of the stimulus ; from one distinct set 
 of nerves you get the impression of pain, from an- 
 other set a sense of heat, from another set a sense 
 of warmth, from another a sense of cold, from 
 another set of nerves you get the sensation of 
 tactile contact (such as a fly would make), from 
 another set the sense of pressure, (as of a weight 
 resting upon the skin), from nerves in the adja- 
 cent joints the sense of strain set up to resist the 
 pressure of your object against my foot, and per- 
 haps from the most elementary nerves of all 
 (without the terminal organs possessed by the 
 others) ending in the internal fibres of those mus- 
 cles, you get also the sense of malaise in the tis- 
 sues themselves. Surgical cases prove that if any
 
 82 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 one of these nerves is severed with a knife, you'll 
 remain thereafter incapable of feeling any one of 
 these sensations from any certain particular re- 
 gion unless the nerve shall knit and grow together 
 again. This shows how dependent you are upon 
 your system of nerves for all knowledge whatever 
 about the outside world; since, of course, your 
 eyes and ears, and all other sense organs have to 
 send their messages over these same nerve-wires. 
 If you could free yourself from the trammels of 
 this body as the Oriental Mahatmas and Adepts 
 are alleged to do, and could go sailing through 
 the air to visit foreign climes, you wouldn't learn 
 very much, would you? Not unless you packed 
 your nervous system in your suit case, and toted 
 it along. By staining with certain dyes, we can 
 follow the course of a particular set of nerves, as 
 they run from the outside of the body to the spinal 
 cord, wherein they ascend to the brain. If a set 
 of nerves has become diseased, the disease some- 
 times mounts gradually up its full length to where 
 it enters an organ of the brain, and by means of 
 the discoloration produced by the disease, we can 
 follow the course of the nerve. In cases where 
 specific parts of the brain have been exposed to 
 pressure or submitted to electrical or other stimu- 
 lation the sensations felt by the owner of the 
 brain are attributed by him to other specific parts 
 of the body. In these various ways, it has been 
 possible to mark out the functions of large tracts 
 of the brain's surface so accurately, that in sev-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 83 
 
 eral cases of invalids who felt some incapacity as 
 though the trouble existed in the body proper, a 
 surgeon has been able to remove, by a correctly 
 directed trephining operation, the true cause of 
 the malady: e. g., perhaps a clot of blood under 
 the skull. Says McKeever: "President G. Stan- 
 ley Hall, of Clark University, performed a most 
 interesting experiment. After the death of Laura 
 Bridgeman, a blind, deaf mute, remarkable for 
 her intellectual attainments, Dr. Hall examined 
 her brain carefully and found that the optic lobes 
 were withered and undeveloped, the gray cover- 
 ing being much thinner over this portion. On the 
 contrary, the lateral portions of the brain, the 
 centers for movement of the secondary muscles, 
 showed unusual development. The absence of the 
 two senses of sight and hearing compelled Miss 
 Bridgeman to depend almost wholly upon the 
 muscular sense and the sense of touch in getting 
 her knowledge about things. Hence the full de- 
 velopment of the lateral brain convolutions. 
 
 "By cutting into the brain of a diseased person 
 who has long been deaf, dumb or blind, or par- 
 tially paralyzed, the scientist finds a nerve struc- 
 ture of a peculiar nature. The center, which, on 
 account of the particular ailment, has not been 
 used, is always found to be shriveled up, atro- 
 phied. On the other hand, unusual ability in 
 the performance of any function is attended by 
 an unusual development of the corresponding 
 brain-center.
 
 84 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 "A soldier receives a bullet-wound in the oc- 
 cipital lobe of the brain and is immediately ren- 
 dered wholly or partially blind. In this case the 
 evidence is fairly conclusive that the center for 
 sight lies in the region of the brain which was 
 struck. If the lesion in the occipital lobe is such 
 as to cause complete blindness, all memory of 
 things seen is als.o obliterated. A person so in- 
 jured can form no visual images whatever. 
 
 "1. For every psychosis (mind-act) there is 
 a neurosis (nerve-act). That is, accompanying 
 every mind-act there is a brain-act. 
 
 "2. All mental processes tend to express them- 
 selves in form of physical acts, although only a 
 few, the most act-impelling ones, succeed in com- 
 ing to expression in such form. 
 
 "4. One's moods change constantly with the 
 ever-varying condition of his health and his en- 
 vironment. He may experience joy, sadness, hope 
 and despair all within a single hour, and shortly 
 afterwards, while deeply absorbed in a problem, 
 none of these. 
 
 "5. The nervous system is composed of (1) 
 afferent nerve-tracts with specialized outer ends 
 to catch the sense of touch, sight, sound, etc. : (2) 
 central organs of re-direction, as the brain, spinal 
 cords, and smaller ganglia; (3) efferent nerve- 
 tracts to direct the movements of muscles, limbs, 
 etc. 
 
 "6. Many of the ingoing nerve currents are 
 re-directed and movements executed correspond-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 85 
 
 ingly without the attention, or often even with- 
 out the knowledge of the person chiefly concerned 
 the subject." 
 
 On each side of the head, just above the temple, 
 is a convolution known as the "Fissure of Ro- 
 lando," of which every part represents a known 
 (experimentally verified) portion of the body; 
 from the facial muscles (at the base of the fissure) 
 to the muscles of the feet (at its top). One 
 part of the fissure is connected with incoming, 
 and the other with outgoing nerves. Just above 
 the temples are located hearing centers, and 
 at the rear of our skulls (not over the eyes, 
 as phrenologists postulate) are the chief centers 
 of vision. Two centers alone those namely, for 
 writing and speech, both located near the top of 
 the head on the left side, represent definite types 
 of activity rather than mere bodily organs. The 
 mid-brain seems to have in general, a supervisory 
 and co-ordinating effect over the lower activities 
 (a frog with its brain removed can still swim, 
 though but blindly) and apparently the fore-brain 
 has higher functions still, since a dog from whom 
 the fore-brain was removed, lived for many days 
 an ordinary existence, being only a bit snappy 
 and irritable, and unable to acquire new tricks. 
 But bear in mind that perception is not completed 
 in the sensory organ itself nor in the nerve. As 
 N. Kostyleff, a Russian psychologist observes, the 
 results of modern investigators show that con- 
 sciousness of what is seen depends on cerebral
 
 86 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 processes. "It is to this cerebration that is given 
 the name of visual representation." (Dr. Nuel 
 La Vision, 1904.) Similar results have been ob- 
 tained for audile images. 
 
 The nerves which bring stimuli from the periph- 
 eries of our bodies can generate sensations only 
 when those nerves connect with the proper or- 
 gans in the brain. Therefore it is brain activity 
 which is normally essential to thought. 
 
 Is it possible for thought to take place without 
 the brain ? The first effect of diseased conditions 
 in a section of the brain is some abnormality in 
 the patient's power or tendency to think or feel 
 as regards the subject of functioning of that 
 brain-section, followed in time, if the disease pro- 
 gresses, by an irreparable loss of the faculty of 
 having any feelings, ideas, dreams, or imaginings 
 whatever, upon that subject, nor of comprehen- 
 sion of such ideas if some other person broaches 
 them. The same loss of faculty of course, fol- 
 lows the surgical removal of a portion of the 
 brain. Isn't this fairly plain proof, that without 
 a brain the so-called "soul" is without perception, 
 without memory, and without reason? The 
 Greeks in speaking of the "soul" of anything 
 meant its entelechy to Aristotle the "soul" of an 
 axe was chopping. But a long line of theologians 
 have distorted the term to mean a sort of little 
 imp inside each of us. But in Givler's happy ex- 
 pression, "Hard atoms and soft souls may suit 
 the temperamentally minded, but whatever van-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 87 
 
 ities science may exhibit, temperament is not one 
 of them. . . . We are then not going to study 
 capital M mind, nor are we to treat of conscious- 
 ness as an inner imp." 21 
 
 Not to dwell longer, however, upon negations, 
 let us try to conceive of how the thinking process 
 is built up. We shall commence by considering 
 actions so primitive as hardly to deserve the 
 name, Intelligent. 
 
 As hereinbefore noted, the air-vibrations (for 
 example) radiated by a warm object affect 
 warmth-end-organs embedded in our skin so these 
 send currents along the nerves to cervical centers 
 located along the posterior side of the fissure of 
 Rolando, the stimulation of which particular cen- 
 ters happens always to be accompanied by an 
 appropriate sensation of warmth. The warmth 
 of the original object consisted in the rapidity of 
 vibration of its molecules; the nervous current 
 is doubtfully a vibratory phenomenon at all; and 
 the resultant sensation we have no reason what- 
 ever to regard as a matter of vibration. Other 
 sensations, as heat, cold, pain or tactile sensa- 
 tion, singly or in any combination, result, not im- 
 mediately because the rapidity of vibrations in 
 the object is different or because of its contact 
 with our skin, but indirectly because entirely dif- 
 ferent sets of end-organs are adapted to be stimu- 
 lated by it in these respective cases, and so send 
 nerve-currents similar to the current sent before 
 
 21 Givler, R. C. The Conscious Cross-section, p. 37.
 
 88 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 except that by traversing other tracts they arrive 
 at other locations on the posterior side of Ro- 
 lando's fissure. 
 
 Right here we're met with one of the greatest 
 questions of all philosophy, namely : how does this 
 happen, that because there existed a vibration of 
 material particles, or a flow of some more or less 
 physical type of energy along nerves, there exists 
 now a sensation, felt by an ego ? 
 
 It appears to us that we must consider Energy 
 and Feeling as outside and inside views of the 
 same reality. What to an outer observer is, say, 
 an electron, is known to the electron (?) itself 
 (shall we say himself?) as ego; what is known 
 to an observer as motion in that electron is known 
 to itself as sensation. 
 
 Imagine the ego i\? a smallest divisible unit of 
 one of the forms which matter or energy can as- 
 sume, and that the elements of its sensation are 
 its own inner view, so to speak, of the motions 
 to which it is subjected. If a rotation eastward 
 was felt to it as the sensation of yellow, a rota- 
 tion northward as redness, and non-rotation as 
 grayness, then a slow rotation northeast might 
 mean the sensation of brown. 
 
 Meantime what function would it subserve? 
 Merely by being conscious the ego would contrib- 
 ute nothing to give it a survival value in the econ- 
 omy of the animal host. It might, however, be of 
 value if it could serve as a unifying agent to the 
 animal receiving the effect of a multitude of nerve-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 89 
 
 currents, combining them in itself, and reflecting 
 back upon the nerves a blend. The analogy which 
 comes to mind is that of a pool of water into 
 which various colored lights are playing, and 
 which irridesces with an effect compounded of 
 them all. Because of the utility to living forms 
 of possessing an ego, we can suppose that it is 
 by the law of the survival of the fittest that there 
 have come to exist the existing fauna of the world 
 endowed with some means of sucking to them- 
 selves at conception, and holding magnetized so 
 long as the bodily processes endure, one of these 
 ego particles, much as a floating cork might be 
 drawn to a vortex in the water, and remain sus- 
 pended over the center of it so long as the vortex 
 continued in motion, after which the cork would 
 be released, or whirled to another vortex else- 
 where in the stream. Our ego, like such a cork, 
 would travel, meantime, everywhere that the vor- 
 tex traveled, whilst retaining the same suspended 
 position in the midst of its activities and of the 
 inrush and outrush of so many gallons of ma- 
 terial substances. If our self indeed endures as 
 the same self from our birth until our death, then 
 it differs herein from all that we know of any of 
 the ordinary material particles of the body. (On 
 an average of seven years the material of the 
 body is renewed completely.) 
 
 For there's need to explain how the unification 
 of perceptions take place. When you stare 
 squarely at an object, the reflections from mil-
 
 90 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 lions of points of its surface are focused onto as 
 many nerve-ends on the retina of my eye, so that 
 a very specific combination of a million nerve- 
 currents flows into your brain. Suppose later 
 that you glimpse that same object again, not 
 squarely, but out of one corner of your eye. Its 
 points now are reflected upon an entirely differ- 
 ent part of my retina, so that the new one million 
 nerve-currents is a different combination entirely 
 from the former one million; yet you recognize 
 these as meaning the same object. Evidently the 
 important thing is never what individual nerve- 
 currents are arriving, but what combination they 
 form. This implies that they are grasped not 
 singly, but as a unit. Now perhaps we can see 
 the functions which would be filled by an ego as 
 lacking in self-activity as the cork floating over 
 the whirlpool, an ego which yet partook of the 
 whirlpool movements, with all their tremulous 
 modifications, of the flood of currents within the 
 brain cortex, and also in turn, by its own very 
 inertia, reshaped the direction of those currents. 
 Let's apply one more analogy. When a strong 
 electric current flows through a cylinder formed 
 of spirals of wire (a helix), it'll cause any adja- 
 cent bar of iron to leap into the center of the 
 helix and remain suspended there between the 
 pulls of gravity and of magnetism. Fluctuations 
 of the electric current cause ossilations of the 
 piece of iron ; but the very inertia of the iron then 
 reacts to check or create currents in the helix.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 91 
 
 The spirals of wire here represent our nerve- 
 system; the currents, our afferent and efferent 
 nerve-currents, and the iron our persisting and 
 unifying (tho inert) ego. 
 
 To form any exact conception of what that ego 
 is which survives the body if anything survives, 
 or which is the unifying element in intelligence 
 if any one entity has a function of unifying intel- 
 ligence, is difficult. True knowledge must wait 
 upon further advances in science. No explana- 
 tion is afforded by merely calling it a different 
 name e. g., "the soul," "the atman." When we 
 have called it "soul" we understand it no better 
 than we did before, therefore let's throw away 
 the concept "soul" as a useless one. It is not an 
 hypothesis, it is not even an impressionistic 
 sketch of processes; it's an ignorance-glossing, 
 pretentious, mountable, empty name. The scien- 
 tific spirit is not to try to cover up thus the limita- 
 tions of our knowledge, but to confess them 
 frankly and thus define problems for future in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 Let's return, therefore, to our discussion of the 
 learning-process. As described by McKeever, at 
 the first moment of a child's existence the "pon- 
 derable objects touching him from without, and 
 the colic and other disturbances from within, be- 
 gin an everlasting irritation of his nervous 
 system. He coos and kicks and screams and 
 otherwise 'fights back.' Thus the environment 
 impresses itself upon him, and thus he reacts upon
 
 92 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 it and acquires the more rapidly the little, simple 
 meanings of things. One of the most interesting 
 pastimes imaginable is to observe closely day by 
 day the conduct of the little child as he proceeds 
 to find out the whole world." 
 
 (On page 136) "I believe that the primary law 
 of earliest development of consciousness in the 
 child is that of change, or variation. His first 
 awareness of things present to sight is of objects 
 moving, and thus causing a change of position 
 of the retinal image. He becomes aware of sta- 
 tionary objects only after he is able to move his 
 head, and thus cause a moving retinal image. His 
 first consciousness of things heard is of sounds 
 that come intermittently, as in the case of the 
 human voice. . . . These changes in the amount 
 and character of the nervous stimuli impart to the 
 brain cortex the many nervous shocks, each with 
 its peculiar quality of feeling. In some such way 
 as this I believe, the child gets his first idea of a 
 . . . 'this different from that/ " 
 
 "Every thought one thinks tends to express it- 
 self in an act. To make this statement clear, sup- 
 pose you meet three good friends on the street- 
 corner, each about to depart in a different direc- 
 fion and each urging you to go with him. You 
 listen to A's plea and feel impelled to go with 
 him, and so afterwards with B and C. But all 
 the time they are talking there keeps coming up 
 in your mind a more impelling thot that either 
 of them can offer ; for example, the thot that you
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 93 
 
 promised your mother that you would return 
 home directly. And so you do go directly home, 
 but you no doubt felt, for a moment, an impulse 
 to act on the suggestion of each of your three 
 friends. So is that every thought tends to express 
 itself in an act, but only one, the one most im- 
 pelling to action, directs your conduct at any 
 given time. Of the thousands of thots that rush 
 thru one's mind in the course of a day, compara- 
 tively few become realized in actual conduct." 
 (This writer would have been more correct had 
 he said that thots themselves are but the sensa- 
 tions of miniature rehearsals of acts.) 
 
 "When one is undergoing deep emotion, he 
 doubtless experiences feelings of a pronounced 
 character. In fear, he has that chilly, drawn-up 
 feeling in the stomach; in anger, a warm feeling 
 of physical comfort about the bowls and chest; 
 in embarrassment, a dry, uncomfortable feeling 
 about the mouth and throat. Other emotions 
 have their peculiar kind of feeling. The one who 
 is experiencing the emotion is not likely to take 
 very close account of the physical expressions ac- 
 companying. An outside observer, however, 
 often may. As a matter of fact you can very 
 easily catch yourself. See, for example, whether 
 in pronouncing p you don't feel a slight tingling 
 of the lips, or whether you can pronounce x, q, or 
 k without a movement in the throat. So that as 
 the Russian Kostyleff (Cerebral Mechanism of 
 Thot, p. 16) observes, The intellectual develop-
 
 94 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ment of the individual comes down to the enrich- 
 ing of the organism in cerebral reflexes,' and 
 (p. 36) 'the reflexes studied by Pawlow and Bech- 
 terew are not the base of a process, the full im- 
 plication of which escapes science, but they are 
 the most essential elements, the very body of 
 what we call mental images or ideas.' " 
 
 It's questionable whether the course of any in- 
 coming nerve-current ends in the production of 
 a sensation. The current continues in existence 
 until it discharges into some mechanism of muscu- 
 lar actions. For example, the organism of most 
 animals is so arranged that if the animal be run- 
 ning half in sun and half in shade, the general 
 bodily temperature determines whether afferent 
 currents from the warmth and from cold-end-or- 
 gans respectively will accelerate or inhabit the 
 running mechanisms for either side of his body, 
 causing a taxis (turning) into more sun or into 
 more shade. The difference between a heliotropic 
 plant (e. g. a sunflower) and a helio-taxic animal 
 (e. g. some of the lower forms) is as follows. The 
 plant reacts to an excess of light upon one side 
 with a flow of sap into the cells of the opposite 
 side, the tumescence (expansion) of which con- 
 tinues to bend the plant toward the sun until the 
 light-effect upon either side is balanced. But the 
 animal reacts generally with more than the swell- 
 ing of muscles on one side of him he reacts with 
 a whole cycle of alternate swellings and contract- 
 ings of such muscles. With the plant it's as tho
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 95 
 
 fluid were admitted into a hydraulic press, and 
 exerted a single push; but in the animal it's as 
 tho fluid were admitted into a steam-hammer or 
 an engine, which continued to give a whole series 
 of strokes until the fluid was turned off. The 
 fact is that in the animal the initial contraction 
 of a muscle causes incoming currents of sensa- 
 tion from the muscle itself, which sensations then 
 become the immediate initiators of say a contrac- 
 tion of some other muscle, sensory currents for 
 which in their turn set off a third part of the 
 process, and so on until the cycle is completed by 
 contracting the first muscle again, and the entire 
 chain repeats itself. The precise course of such 
 a chain depends partly upon the inherited group- 
 ings of neurons, with which were born (reflexes 
 and instincts), and partly upon automatisms we 
 establish after birth (habits and associations) . 
 
 When we first perform an act such as riding a 
 bicycle, we make each muscular adjustment de- 
 liberately and consciously, but so soon as a chain 
 of such adjustments has been repeated many 
 times, its steps follow one another without need 
 of deliberation, and we repress the monotonous 
 complex of processes into our unconscious. Each 
 muscular contraction or inervation built as one 
 element into whole cycle or complex, which no 
 longer disturbs the "higher" brain centers, but 
 is "short-circuited" thru (taken care of by) 
 "lower" centers in the cerebellum (small brain 
 under the main cerebrum) the pons (where the.
 
 96 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 spinal cord enters the brain) or even in the cord 
 (the main rope of nerves from the brain to the 
 points where they individually branch out toward 
 their respective termini) similarly these very 
 cycles, complexes, automatisms, and centers may 
 be made the units of still higher organizations. 
 When we have mastered the muscular automa- 
 tisms of balancing our bodies on our right foot, on 
 our left foot, moving forward, and moving back- 
 ward, we may then build these automatisms as 
 elements into the more complex automatism of a 
 Spanish Fandango. 
 
 In all this process of integrating activities 
 you'll recognize the correlate of what we spoke 
 of before, the unifying of sensations. Here we 
 handle out-going nerve-currents in whole groups, 
 just as there by the action of the ego we handle 
 incoming currents in whole groups. Now besides 
 this integrating there's a process of differentiat- 
 ing a separating and an analysing which you 
 must understand in order to have a clear idea 
 of how we think. 
 
 We may describe it by representing with cer- 
 tain capital letters, V-0-I-C-E-M-O-T-H-E-R-M- 
 I-L-K, a group of realities (phenomena) which 
 the child perceiving as a confusion, reacts to on 
 the first occasion in a haphazard way. When 
 these same phenomena become know to the child, 
 they are known only thru exciting in him certain 
 echoes of sensations and of responsive actions on 
 his part (noumena or ideas) which we shall desig-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 97 
 
 nate by small letters, v-o-i-c-e-m-o-t-h-e-r-m-i-l-k. 
 
 Presently a time comes when one part of the 
 group of phenomena, say V-0-I-C-E, or 
 M-0-T-H-E-R, or M-I-L-K, is manifested alone. 
 It excites in him immediately only the noumena 
 v-o-i-c-e, or only m-o-t-h-e-r, or only m-i-l-k, and 
 by such a process he first comes to distinguish 
 these as not one and inseparable. 
 
 But also V-0-I-C-E has been accompanied so 
 frequently by M-O-T-H-E-R, and M-0-T-H-E-R so 
 frequently by M-I-L-K, that a similar succession 
 v-o-i-c-e-m-o-t-h-e-r-m-i-l-k has come to intercon- 
 nect itself among the noumena. Hence, if 
 V-O-I-C-E occurs and awakes v-o-i-c-e, the other 
 noumena m-o-t-h-e-r and m-i-l-k awaken auto- 
 matically thru their forerunner association with 
 v-o-i-c-e, and without awaiting the actual mani- 
 festation of M-O-T-H-E-R or of M-I-L-K, and 
 this process is what we call Anticipation. The 
 anticipation is Logical if it proceeds step by step 
 thru a long series of middle terms; it is intui- 
 tional if it skips the middle term and flashes at 
 once from premises to conclusion especially if 
 the premises themselves are of a nature somewhat 
 intangible. The anticipation was Truth if ac^ 
 tually thereafter the phenomena M-I-L-K did 
 manifest themselves. The anticipation was 
 Error if these failed to materialize. 
 
 If, as we said, "without a brain, the 'soul' is 
 without memory, without perception and without 
 reason," important correlaries follow. It's evi-
 
 98 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 dent that all post-mortem punishments or re- 
 wards for a soul bereft of power to remember 
 for what it was being punished or rewarded, are 
 ridiculous. It's equally plain that our conduct, 
 while we are living upon this earth is unlikely 
 to add to our souls any accretions of everlasting 
 importance, whether accretions of wisdom, or 
 of superiority to low desires, or of ennobling 
 traits of character, or anything whatsoever. Nor 
 is it reasonable that our conduct (thru "Karma," 
 etc.) affect for better or for worse the state in 
 which we shall be reincarnated (if we are to be 
 so). Our present conduct, indeed, may make this 
 a worse or a better world to be born into, when 
 our chance for that comes around again, but the 
 resulting likelihood of betterment to our own con- 
 dition would be mighty slight. Therefore, these 
 facts appreciated by a majority of mankind (as, 
 unless false, they sooner or later must come to be) 
 will necessitate profound alterations in our 
 methods of seeking to induce mankind to be good. 
 If we're going to let them go seeking a heaven, as 
 reward for their efforts, we must tell them that 
 heaven can be only on this earth, to remain upon 
 which seems to be our destiny not only in the 
 present life, but in any future one. And that 
 heaven will be a social more than it will be an 
 individual salvation, since no one can control the 
 manner of his especial reincarnation, but can only 
 better his chances by initiating currents of gen- 
 eral betterment which will continue multiplying
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 99 
 
 and ramifying in this old world until after his 
 long death-sleep he finds himself again reincar- 
 nated here. For the creator of paradise on a future 
 better earth must be ourselves, mankind. 
 
 Surely this is a wholesome and socially salutory 
 conclusion. Too long have mankind wasted in 
 fruitless preparations for a future state efforts 
 which might have been fruitful if only applied 
 to mundane things. The speculations of meta- 
 physics have resulted at best in a gradual evolu- 
 tion of such ideas, or if not precisely this, at 
 least a refining of the language in which we ex- 
 press them. A doing away with some of the 
 misunderstandings which confused the thinkers 
 of past ages, can be traced thruout all the vicissi- 
 tudes of speculation. 
 
 "Some think one generell soul fills every braine, 
 
 And others thinke the name of soule is vaine, 
 And that we only well-mixt bodies are." 23 
 
 Primitive people 24 if they distinguish the soul 
 from the body at all, think of it as the body's 
 shadow, or its breath. The later Egyptians first 
 imagined that the soul went thru post-mortem 
 meanderings, and that it needed expensive priest- 
 ly administrations; other Oriental peoples re- 
 tained a pantheism which checked the upspring- 
 
 :3 Davies, Sir J. Nosce Teipsum. 
 
 24 Taylor, E. B. Primitive Culture ; first edition, especially chapter 11 ; 
 Marrett, R. R., The Threshold of Religion ; Cawley, A. E., The Idea 
 
 of the Soul.
 
 100 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ing among them of mere individualistic ideas. An 
 evolution of Greek thot on the subject may be 
 traced 25 thru Anaxamander and Diogenes of Ap- 
 polonia; Empedocles (who attempted to com- 
 bine Animism and hylozoism), the Pytha- 
 goreans, such as Diacchus, who were interested 
 chiefly in facilitating, thru their ceremonies, the 
 return "home" of the soul ; and the Stoics. Plato 
 varies his position considerably. He was the 
 first psychophysical dualist.- 6 Even by later 
 thinkers, however, the soul continued to be thot 
 of as something like the use, or at best essence, 
 of its object. Aristotle speaks of the "axness" 
 of an axe, in this way, tho Anaxagoras had pro- 
 gressed to the point of associating intelligence 
 with soul. 
 
 It was from Greek, rather than Hebrew, 
 sources, that Christianity got its ideas, the Schol- 
 astics combining Aristotle's view with the Orien- 
 tal notion of immortality. Descartes for the 
 first time seems to hit upon the idea of a funda- 
 mental duality in essence between material and 
 spiritual, which Spinoza then set himself to ex- 
 plain away. Leibnitz ascribed souls to everything 
 in existence, and Berkeley virtually said that that 
 was all of them that does exist.- 7 Let the reader 
 trace for himself the vagaries of most of the em- 
 piricists and Kantians. Fechner suggests that 
 
 "Davies. Cf. 
 
 20 Roberts, E. J. Plato's View of the Soul. Mind, N. S., vol. 14. 
 
 - 7 A11 the choir of heaven and furniture of earth have not any 
 subsistence without a mind - - their being is to be perceived or 
 known. Berkeley. Of the Principles of Human Knowledge. Sec. 4.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 101 
 
 just as in life Attention moves about from point 
 to point within the body, so after death the soul 
 moves around the world. 
 
 That men should speculate so deeply about 
 death, and come to such strange unnatural con- 
 clusions about it is understandable when we con- 
 sider how profoundly many animals may be ef- 
 fected by the presence of death, if made vivid to 
 them. Read Alphonse Daudet's "La Mort du Dau- 
 phin," in which the little prince has discovered 
 that he must die. We translate freely : 
 
 "But don't cry, Madam Queen ; you forget that 
 I'm the Dauphin, and that the Dauphins don't 
 die in this fashion." 
 
 The Queen still cries more than ever, and the 
 Little Dauphin begins to be frightened. 
 
 "Ho!" says he, "I don't wish Death to come 
 and take me, and I know very well how to prevent 
 him. Let forty very strong lansquenets be sent 
 here immediately to mount guard about our bed ! 
 . . . Let a hundred big cannons watch night and 
 day under our windows, and woe to Death if he 
 dare approach us!" 
 
 In order to please the royal child, the Queen 
 gives the signal. Immediately we hear the big 
 cannons rolling in the court and forty great lan- 
 squenets, with haliberds in their hands, arrange 
 themselves around the room. These are grizzled 
 old veterans. The Little Dauphin claps his hands 
 on seeing them. He recognizes one of them and 
 calls.
 
 102 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 "Lorrain ! Lorrain !" 
 
 The veteran takes a step toward the bed. 
 
 "I love you very much, old Lorrain, . . . Just 
 let me see your big sword. ... If Death comes to 
 take me, you'll have to kill him, won't you?" 
 
 Lorrain answers, "Yes, my Lord." 
 
 And two big tears run down his tanned cheeks. 
 At this moment the almoner approaches the Little 
 Dauphin and talks to him a long time in a low 
 voice, while showing him a crucifix. The Little 
 Dauphin listens with a very astonished air, then, 
 suddenly interrupting him, says: 
 
 "I understand very well what you say to me, 
 Mr. Abbot; but isn't it possible that my little 
 friend Beppo could die in my place if I gave him 
 a lot of money?" . . . The almoner continues to 
 talk with him in a low voice, and the Little Dau- 
 phin resumes with a great sigh: 
 
 "All that which you're telling me is very sad, 
 Mr. Abbot; but one thing consoles me, and that 
 is that up there above, in the Paradise of the 
 Stars, I shall still be the Dauphin. ... I know that 
 the good God is my cousin, and could not fail to 
 treat me according to my rank." 
 
 Then he adds, turning toward his mother: 
 
 "Let them bring me my handsomest clothes, my 
 white ermine doublet, a*nd my velvet slippers. I 
 wish to dress myself up for the angels and to 
 enter Into Paradise dressed like a Dauphin." 
 
 A third time the almoner leans toward the Lit- 
 tle Dauphin and talks to him in a very low voice.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 103 
 
 In the midst of his discourse the royal child in- 
 terrupts angrily: 
 
 "But then," he cries, "to be Dauphin is nothing 
 at all!" 
 
 And without wishing to hear anything more, 
 the Little Dauphin turns toward the wall, and 
 cries bitterly. 
 
 The point which we have reached now neces- 
 sitates a frank discussion of the old problem of 
 determinism versus free-will. Among the fierce 
 controversies which have vexed men's minds since 
 time immemorial, that which has raged about the 
 so-called "Freedom of the Will" has been not the 
 least. 
 
 The following definition is found in the Cyclo- 
 pedia Brittanica, llth Edition: "Determinism in 
 Ethics the name given to the theory that all moral 
 choice, so called, is the determined or necessary 
 result of psychological and other conditions. It 
 is opposed to the various doctrines of Free will, 
 known as voluntarism, libertarianism, indeter- 
 minism. . . " 
 
 Another and helpful definition is that given by 
 Dr. L. C. Givler (The Conscious Cross-section, pp. 
 371-373) . "Purpose is the maintaining of a motor 
 pattern in the midst of various environments. . . . 
 It includes the element of choice. . . . 
 
 "The will is characterized as the dominant pur- 
 pose in the individual ... if we but analyze all 
 cases of the will, we find that the thing done, the 
 thing willed, is the most constant response to that
 
 104 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 environment of which the person is capable. The 
 divided inconstant person alone boasts of the free- 
 dom of the will that is inside of him. The rest' 
 of humanity are even now falling into the habit 
 of desiring to be predictable. The honesty of 
 the bankers, lawyers, merchants, and other per- 
 sons of the social mele is just this predictability 
 of their actions before they are fully functioned." 
 In spite of notable exceptions, it is essentially 
 the Free will position which in the Occident has 
 been connected with the religious way of thinking. 
 Here the array of names is imposing. Chrisos- 
 tom, who gave "choice to man and fulfillment to 
 God;" Clement; Cyril of Jerusalem; Antiochus 
 who said "faithfulness is a matter of self-resolu- 
 tion," in spite of grace; Gregory of Nyssa; 
 Origen; Isaac of Antioch, who held that even 
 regeneration was a personal act of man, who in 
 this was higher than the angels ; Tertullian ; Pe- 
 lagius and Celestinnus who argued that without 
 freedom there could be no guilt; Duns Scotus, 
 who made will the only essence of all ; Albertus 
 Magnus ; Socius, who curiously made God like "a 
 wise pedagogue who will not scrutinize too close- 
 ly" ; Melancthon so far as it may not resist the 
 Word and Holy Spirit; Schopenhauer, who said 
 necessity is the kingdom of nature, but freedom 
 is the kingdom of grace, which has nothing in 
 common with cause and effect; Goethe, who de- 
 fined freedom as the possibility of performing the 
 rational under all circumstances; A. Bellinger;
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 105 
 
 Luthart; and innumerable others. It is natural 
 to understand the bias of theology in favor of 
 free will, without which indeed theology's God is 
 loaded with the responsibility of all sin and evil. 
 Besides these theologians, whose view has al- 
 ways small weight because they're committed in 
 advance to defend their fundamental preconcep- 
 tions, there has been, however, a continuous suc- 
 cession of lay philosophers to defend the free will 
 doctrine. Thus Epicurus consented to "the pre- 
 ponderance of free moral practice to mere under- 
 standing. To the Sophists "the measure of all 
 things" was man. Plato declared virtue un- 
 coerced and free and the individual responsible 
 for an evil destiny. Melancthon thot we're free 
 up to the point of resisting the Word and Holy 
 Spirit. By Descartes' definition even intellectual 
 error is but an affirmation of ideas yet proble- 
 matical Malbranche called will the natural and 
 spontaneous inclination to good. Leibnitz in a 
 curious nescient analogy compared the will to a 
 magnetic needle obeying its "own" laws. Hume, 
 skeptical, attacked the law of causation. Kant 
 declared "thou canst for thou shalt." Shelling 
 was a free wilier, and J. F. Herbart said, 
 "freedom is independence, over against causal- 
 ity as collectivity." Hegel found freedom implied 
 in rational will. To Schopenhauer, "necessity is 
 the kingdom of nature, freedom the kingdom of 
 grace" which had nought in common with cause 
 and effect; this notion was enlarged upon by E.
 
 106 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 v. Hartman. With Fichte, his egoistic doctrine 
 implied free will; and Leibman revived the doc- 
 trine for those "who're not diverted by other mo- 
 tives. To Goethe, "Freedom is the possibility of 
 performing the rational under all circumstances." 
 A Bellinger thought "rational will a potency 
 transcending time/' and hence a reflection of 
 divine freedom. For Luthardt, "freedom results 
 with self determination according to divinely pat- 
 terned nature." L. Clark was for freedom. T. 
 Reid based it upon the consciousness of power and 
 accountability. James considered "free will 
 nothing but real novelty." J. F. Roys says we're 
 "free so far as life is unique." 
 
 But the authoritarian argument from what 
 good men and true have believed about the ques- 
 tion is hopelessly complicated in this case (as in 
 most others) ) from the differences of opinion as 
 among even the religious-minded by themselves. 
 Out of the nebulous past, when all thinking was 
 more or less mystical, come echoes of the battle, 
 in which an indefined Determinism is called by 
 the religious term of Fate. Essentially this is 
 the doctrine of all the Orient; but it has been 
 adopted also by many Occidental theologians. 
 Cyprian said that while salvation was thru faith, 
 yet even our capacity for faith itself was thru 
 God's will. Ambrose held that the efficacious 
 work of redemption requires that initiative 
 should come from God. The council at Ephesus 
 in 431 rejected the Pelagian protest (against Aug-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 107 
 
 ustine) of Freedom. Luther, in order to stress 
 the need of trust in divine grace, harped on the 
 impotence of our will. Calvin was absolutely 
 against Free will. In our own country we had 
 an exampler of this position in Johnathan Ed- 
 wards. Outside religious circles the determinists 
 of course are yet more numerous. Of Greek 
 philosophers, Heraclitus, Pythagoras and the 
 Eleatics were determinists. Socrates at least 
 taught that will is governed by understanding. 
 Zeno postulated six mechanisms by which thot 
 is formed, and the Stoic school held that our basic 
 characters are fixed. 
 
 In modern times we had wholly determinist 
 philosopher in Thomas Bradwardine, Albert of 
 Haberstadt, Spinoza called will a delusion due to 
 failure to comprehend absolute causality. The 
 English and French empiricism of the 17th and 
 18th centuries culminated in such materialism 
 as that of J. B. R. Robinet. Locke considered 
 that the will is moved by the greatest uneasiness. 
 David Hartley and Joseph Priestley accounted for 
 all mentality on a basis of physiological neural 
 antecedents. T. H. Green said that choice merely 
 expresses character, and given the man and his 
 circumstances, the will is given. 
 
 The argument from the number of able think- 
 ers who hold a point of view is always precarious. 
 On almost every subject, the earlier opinions are 
 somewhat, if not almost completely, erroneous. 
 All that is helpful to know on that point is, which
 
 108 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 way does the trend of opinion move? Do men 
 tend to become more determinist or more inde- 
 terminist in their mode of thought? A phil- 
 osophical opinion, like a religion, may, be 
 erroneous and yet so completely self-consistent as 
 to survive the assaults of logic; but when cen- 
 turies, perhaps only when milleniums, of time 
 have flowed by, the race gradually comes to a more 
 sober judgment, and, embracing some newer, but 
 generally lesser, folly, is free to laugh at the old. 
 And we think that whoever is familiar with Dra- 
 per and Lecky, and in general with the history 
 of intellect, must grant that the development of 
 human thot is away from indeterminism as it is 
 away from animism. 
 
 After all, the older conception of the soul has 
 an essentially animistic source. Anthropologists 
 now generally agree that primitive man's concep- 
 tion of the soul was a guess at the origin of 
 dreams and other natural phenomena which we 
 now account for better than he could. 
 
 And as to arguments from the chivalry we owe 
 to God not to make Him culpable of the world's 
 crimes, (the argument of many theologians 
 against Determinism) we may settle that by re- 
 calling that the ways of God are confessedly in- 
 scrutable. HOW CAN IT BE USEFUL TO CON- 
 CERN OURSELVES ABOUT A BEING WHOSE 
 WAYS ARE INSCRUTABLE? 
 
 It is much more profitable for us to take note 
 of many pertinent facts which each of us may
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 109 
 
 observe for himself, such as the fluctuations of 
 his own morale according to the state of his 
 health, the climatic conditions, etc. Few of us 
 feel as strong to resist temptation after 5 P. M. 
 as earlier in the day, and the crime-records con- 
 firm this as a general fact. In gloomy weather 
 the statistics for suicide increase; and in spring 
 and summer immorality Concealing memories, 
 the conventions of the stage in representing to- 
 gether the "soul" plotting crime and nature's "ele- 
 ments" in turbulence imply recognition that an 
 empathy here exists? Again, if will were free, 
 we never could gage from the appearance of a 
 crowd gathered before a church whether they'd 
 proceed to prayers or (changing suddenly their 
 plans) start a riot. We should never know the 
 appropriate thing to say to an old friend, nor 
 know whether a given person Would be suitable to 
 trust with an undertaking since his past reputa- 
 tion and character wouldn't determine his conduct 
 of tomorrow. 
 
 In the literature of the Psychoanalytic move- 
 ment we shall find much to substantiate our argu- 
 ment for determinism. Freud says 2S "These con- 
 ceptions of strict determinism in seemingly ar- 
 bitrary actions have already borne rich fruit for 
 psychology perhaps also for the administration 
 of justice. Bleuler and Jung have in this way 
 made intelligible the reaction in the so-called as- 
 sociation experiments, wherein the test person 
 
 ^Freud Psychology of Everyday Life, p. 303.
 
 110 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 answers to a given word with one occurring to 
 him . . . while the time elapsing ... is measured. 
 . . . Three students of criminology H. Gross . . . 
 Wertheimer and Klein have developed from these 
 experiments a technique for the diagnosis of 
 facts in criminal cases." This book is more than 
 a series of anecdotes of cases where mental events 
 apparently fortuitous or "freely" willed are re- 
 duced to mechanically caused phenomena. Freud 
 takes up systematically various types of mental 
 operation, and gives us his experiences in analys- 
 ing each kind as persons brot them to him to chal- 
 lenge the competence of his hypothesis. Thus 
 his chapters include: (1) Forgetting of Proper 
 Names, (II) Foreign Words, and (III) Names 
 and order of Words, (IV) Concealing memories, 
 (V) Mistakes in Speech and (VI) in Reading and 
 Writing (VII) ) Forgetting Impressions and 
 Resolutions (VIII) Erroneously Carried Out Ac- 
 tions (IX) Symtomatic and Change Actions (X) 
 Errors (XI) Combined Faulty Acts (XII) Deter- 
 minism Chance and Superstitious Beliefs. 
 
 Freud, once speaking to a stranger, couldn't 
 recall the name of the painter Signorelli, could 
 only think of Botticelli and Boltraffio. He had 
 just been discussing the customs of Turks in Bos- 
 nia and Herzegovina and thot of their remark to 
 physicians on the occasion of a relative's death 
 "Sir (Herr) ... if he could be saved you would 
 save him" and their remark about sexual pleasure 
 "Sir (Herr) if that ceases, life no longer has any
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 111 
 
 charm." But this last theme he had repressed; 
 the death theme because a patient had lately com- 
 mitted suicide, the sexual because this patient's 
 malady was sexual and because the theme was too 
 intimate to discuss with a stranger. This double- 
 repression on the word Sir (Herr) and which 
 had been occasioned by the word Herzegovina, 
 caused repression of the equivalent signer of Sig- 
 norelli, so that he united the Bo of Bosnia to form 
 Botticelli and Boltraffio. 
 
 A young man who was bemoaning to Freud that 
 the Jewish race was prevented from realizing its 
 ambitions and desires concluded with the verse in 
 which Dido leaves her vengeance upon Aeneas to 
 posterity; but he omitted from it the word Ali- 
 quis. This omission he challenged Freud to ex- 
 plain. His associations with Aliquis were reliq- 
 ues-liquidation-liquidity-fluid. Then a relique he 
 had seen of St. Simon. Then several saints of the 
 calendar ending with St. Januarius, whose blood, 
 preserved in a phial in Naples, miraculously liqui- 
 fies on a certain holiday. During the French oc- 
 cupation the blood was slow in liquifying, much 
 to the excitement of the people, until Garibaldi 
 pointed out to the priest the soldiers arrayed 
 without and expressed hope the miracle would 
 soon take place which it then did. The next 
 association was only seemingly irrelevant "a wom- 
 an from whom I could . . . get a message . . . an- 
 noying to us both" Namely, "that she missed her 
 courses ?" Freud rightly guessed. For when the
 
 112 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 speaker, deploring the wrongs of his people, had 
 quoted Dido's wish that a new generation would 
 take the vengeance on itself, he was interrupted 
 by the thot "Do you really wish . . . for posterity? 
 Just think ... if you now . . . must expect pos- 
 terity from the quarter you have in mind !" 
 
 "Feeling of conviction that there is a free will 
 . . . exists, but . . . must be justified . . . does not 
 manifest itself in weighty and important deci- 
 sions ; on these occasions one has much more the 
 feeling of a psychic compulsion and gladly falls 
 back upon it. (Of Luther's "Here I stand, I can- 
 not do anything else.") 
 
 "Many things obtrude themselves on conscious- 
 ness in paranoia which in normal and neurotic 
 persons can only be demonstrated thru psycho- 
 analysis as existing in their unconscious. 
 
 "Dr. Ferenczi reports that he was a distracted 
 person . . . considered peculiar by his friends on 
 account of the frequency and strangeness of his 
 failing. But the signs of this inattention have 
 almost all disappeared since he began to practise 
 psychoanalysis with patients, and was forced to 
 turn his attention to the analysis of his own ego. 
 He believes that one renounces these failings when 
 one learns to extend by so much one's own re- 
 sponsibilities. He therefore justly maintains that 
 distractedness is a state which depends on un- 
 conscious complexes, and is curable by psycho- 
 analysis. One day he was reproaching himself 
 for having committed a technical error in the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 113 
 
 psychoanalysis of a patient, and on this day all 
 his former distractions reappeared. He stumbled 
 while walking in the street (a representation of 
 that faux pas in the treatment), he forgot his 
 pocket-book at home, he was a penny short in his 
 car fare, he did not properly button his clothes, 
 etc."- 9 
 
 The recent experiences of psychiatrists with 
 the war-neuroses so-called "shock cases" con- 
 firms the deterministic conception of mental proc- 
 esses. Among the statements in the March, 1919, 
 Atlantic Monthly by F. W. Parsons are many 
 such as this : "A soldier overreaches in an effort 
 to forget painful experiences, and forgets his 
 name, organization, and occasionally all the facts 
 of his early life, reverting to an infantile state. 
 If his reaction is infantile, he is in effect an infant, 
 and infants do not fight obviously the fulfillment 
 of a wish. Such states are transitory episodes, 
 the changes from a lisping, toy-playing infantile 
 state to a normal adult reaction taking place 
 within a few days, the condition having lasted 
 from a few weeks to several months." 
 
 Freud's above cases, and innumerable others 
 like them seem to place psychic events among those 
 which obey strictly the rule of causality. And 
 what more is it to say this, after all, than to in- 
 clude them within the category of all things na- 
 tural? A boy's top takes its spinning course over 
 the ground which couldn't have been predicted 
 
 -"From Psychopathology of Every Day Life by Sigmund Freud, p. 166.
 
 114 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 from a knowledge of the few merely obvious fac- 
 tors involved, such as lay of the land and material 
 of which the top is made. Do you thence con- 
 clude that the top's course is in the least independ- 
 ent of material causes? If not, why deem that 
 the case is otherwise with yourself? If we were 
 the top, doubtless we should say "My sense of un- 
 constraint in spinning assures me that I am a 
 free agent. The air vainly blows against me as 
 I continue my course. Vainly the pebbles get 
 in my way I scatter them in all directions! 
 Whatever I have a turn to do, that I do. For my 
 will is free!" 
 
 Truly we are free only as the spinning top is 
 free. That effects follow solely after causes me- 
 chanically adequate to produce them holds good 
 without exception thruout the whole world and 
 an admission of this invariability is the keystone 
 in the arch of the mathematics and the sciences, 
 upon which rests the human mind's mastery over 
 matter. We daren't pull out that great keystone 
 truth for so small a reason as that somebody's 
 petty system of morals is made by a falsehood by 
 it. A million times young investigators in physics 
 and in chemistry have tried to disprove that every 
 smallest divisible unit of present energy exists 
 as it is solely because of an equivalent unit in the 
 past, they have tried and always in vain. The 
 "law" of conservation of energy stands firm. Con- 
 sequently any control exerted over physical ener- 
 gies by a "soul" would have to be exerted thru
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 115 
 
 something in the nature of a frictionless switch, 
 turned by that soul and operating in the midst of 
 a stream of physical energies. In order to deflect 
 physical energies, such a switch itself would have 
 to belong to the same universe of energies, and 
 to move this switch, the soul also would have to 
 belong to the same universe of energies; that is 
 to say, the soul would have to belong to this uni- 
 verse regarding which we know that every event 
 after being carefully investigated is but the in- 
 evitable effect of antecedent causes. Hence we've 
 not the millionth part of justification for believ- 
 ing that fiats of the soul are other than inevitable 
 effects arising out of the past. 
 
 There be persons known as Mystics, who claim 
 the laws which govern life are inscrutable. Akin 
 to them be these believers in "freedom of will," 
 whose tenet is, that tho we were to ken before 
 the event, all the fixt causes of a man's action, 
 still we couldn't say positively what his act would 
 be; cause and effect hold sway over the material 
 world alone and don't hold true in the world of 
 spirit. 
 
 But if a man's acts weren't determined a billion 
 years before he was born, there's chaos in the 
 cosmos, for if there's a cranny in the whole uni- 
 verse in which purely uncaused things, whether 
 volitions or sorceries, can find lodgement, that 
 cranny is a cavern which may undermine the firm- 
 est ground we build on. If there exists, any- 
 where, a fountain of pure hazard, it will wash
 
 116 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 away every structure founded upon positive 
 knowledge, and sweep us again into the bog of 
 superstition and witchcraft. However small the 
 leak in the dyke, if no man can check it, it ends 
 in inundation. 
 
 "By their fruits ye shall know them" was the 
 test suggested by a great ethical reformer. Apply 
 this test to the loose credulous, animistic thinking 
 of the past, and see its fruit in the hardly pro- 
 gressing civilizations of the Orient, with their 
 swarming populations suffering under a rotation 
 of pestilence, war, famine, and grinding labor. 
 Apply it to the close-knit skeptical, mechanistic 
 thinking which is modern science, and see the 
 populations reduce their birth-rate, disease suc- 
 cumb to sanitation, war coming into disrepute, 
 famine unknown, and labor shortening its hours. 
 
 Indeed, unless our conduct is determined by 
 something more calculable than "free" whim, then 
 of what possible use can be all these discussion! 
 of conduct? As matter of fact, only because of 
 determinism is it worth while making this or any 
 effort to influence conduct. 
 
 The simplest reference to our own conscious ex- 
 perience convinces us that we're free to will any- 
 thing if we conclude to will it. Therein, and in 
 an appeal to the fear of introducing chaos into 
 our moral systems if we should confess to the 
 truth of determinism, lies the whole case for free 
 will. At a superficial glance it appears as tho
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 117 
 
 that is all to be said on the subject. If we feel 
 free, isn't that conclusive that we are free? 
 
 Let's welcome the partial truth contained in 
 this viewpoint, for there undoubtedly is a cer- 
 tain truth contained therein. That truth is: 
 Nothing oppresses us, nothing crushes us down, 
 nothing hurls us back as we stand confidently on 
 the verge of willing. If we've come so far as to 
 conclude to will, we shall will. 
 
 There'd be much less dispute about "freedom of 
 the will" if people would only observe this dis- 
 tinction ; no one tries to deny that you and we are 
 free to act contrary to the influences affecting us, 
 if we choose. All that the determinist asks you 
 to concede is (1st) that whatever choice we make 
 is an expression of character, and (2nd) that our 
 character could only have been just what it was. 
 Suppose you say that a fiat of will was given by 
 an agent outside heredity or environment, called 
 the soul; still you're in no better case for the 
 soul, too, acts in accord with its own character, 
 doesn't it? And given just such a soul, there had 
 to be just such an act. 
 
 To even admit so much, however, isn't to admit 
 that our act of will was uncaused, or that it could 
 have been different from what it was, unless those 
 causes also had been different from what they 
 were. True, that when we are confidently on the 
 verge of willing, nothing then prevents us doing 
 so. Some previous series of experiences, however, 
 caused us to be confident on the verge of willing,
 
 118 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 and but for that cause we should be standing 
 somewhere else. Some cause has brot us so far 
 as wishing to will, without which cause we'd 
 never so have wished at all. If the determining 
 causes aren't felt as hurling us back from a de- 
 sired goal, it's because those forces aren't sim- 
 ply outside us, but within us, in the form of the 
 reasons why we desire that goal. 
 
 A man who answered an advertisement prom- 
 ising, for one dollar, an infallible recipe for be- 
 coming rich, received a neat card on which was 
 engraved "work like the devil and never spend a 
 cent." He was ashamed to complain that he had 
 been defrauded, for he thot that indeed he had 
 received only his deserts for imagining that there 
 existed a short-cut to wealth. 
 
 But indeed the little card was a fraudulent 
 cheat in a high degree. For tho it told the man 
 what to do to gain wealth, it failed to tell the es- 
 sential thing, namely, how to do what it recom- 
 mended. 
 
 Every one knows he can get rich by continually 
 earning and never spending ; but both these things 
 may require a self-control which he lacks. What 
 he wants is not the repetition of an already fa- 
 miliar fact, but knowledge of how to overcome 
 his weakness. 
 
 The present series of essays has been con- 
 structed upon a principle exactly the opposite of 
 that of the card in the above story. That was a 
 trick to defraud the first innocent who answered
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 119 
 
 the advertisement, without hope of meriting the 
 future trade that would come of his pleased rec- 
 ommendations. Whereas we, on the contrary are 
 desirous of satisfying you with so much benefit 
 from the course that you will bring your friends 
 to us; desirous of so impressing you with the 
 value of what is to be gained from this contact 
 that you will wish to continue the relationship 
 by joining an association of people leagued to- 
 gether for mutual support in living their princi- 
 ples set forth in these lessons. To accomplish 
 this end, we'll try to avoid ever telling you what 
 to do whilst leaving you uncertain of how to go 
 about it. 
 
 But first you must of course try really hard to 
 conquer each obstacle without the aid of anyone 
 but yourself. Only that method will give you a 
 sense of mastery and the optimism and aggres- 
 siveness which results from experience of ob- 
 stacles overcome. Similarly the reason for hav- 
 ing you answer some questions before you read 
 the text, is to stimulate you toward original 
 thought on the topics taken up. Afterward, when 
 you have read the text, you should correct any 
 answers you made to questions if you feel they 
 were wrong, and by so doing you are likely to 
 become more exact, as the lessons continue, in 
 your way of expressing yourself. After all, it 
 is in exactness of thought that the efficient man 
 differs from the vagarist.
 
 120 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 SECTION 3 
 
 "Things of an unexperienceable nature may 
 exist ad libitum, but they form no part of the 
 material for philosophic debate." 30 
 
 "There lives more faith in honest doubt, be- 
 lieve me, than in half the creeds." 31 
 
 "The chemist or the physicist can see how the 
 conclusions of his statements ought to reach this 
 or that end, but only the residues in the retort or 
 the pattern of crystallization on the stone shows 
 him what the upshot of his statements should 
 have been." 32 
 
 The real rub in all arguments upon and for 
 determinism, with most people, isn't intellectual, 
 it's the feeling that if we admit a fatalistic ele- 
 ment into our philosophy we take away incentive, 
 or else make it unreasonable for God, parents, or 
 magistrates to reward or blame people for the 
 manner of their behavior. These are argumenta 
 ad hominem; with a logician they don't count, but 
 of every 100 pretended logicians in the world, at 
 least 99 are moralists in disguise. 
 
 But why should the incentive to act rightly be 
 less strong because I know that from the begin- 
 ning of time itself forces were converging which 
 inevitably and eventually have pushed me on to 
 just this act? To be sure, some lazy lookers-for- 
 
 30 Wm. James. 
 
 31 Tennyson, In Memoriam. 
 
 a2 GivIer, R. C. Conscious Cross Section, p. 16.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 121 
 
 excuses 33 will seize upon fate as an apology for 
 their shortcomings, but we doubt whether these 
 wouldn't have found another excuse in any case ; 
 anyhow, they are the persons whose actions are 
 of least consequence to the world. They whose 
 actions do count are the men and women, the 
 youths and maidens, whose lives are no apology, 
 but an eager onrush to discover the utmost profit 
 in their opportunities. We would see a dozen weak- 
 lings complaining for the want of their crutches, 
 rather than one of these strong ones should lack 
 fire-wood to cook his dinner. A weakling fallen 
 by the wayside touches our sympathies, but a 
 strong man down endangers the general safety. 
 
 Most assuredly, people of purpose are buoyed 
 up and steeled against the reverses of life by the 
 feeling that they are no whimsical eddies in the 
 ocean of life, but a part of its great central cur- 
 rent, sweeping on irresistibly. To the question, 
 "Why keep up the good fight?" they answer, "Ask 
 the sun and moon to halt in full career, as 
 Joshua is alleged to have done, but as for me, an 
 invincible momentum compels me to> go on and 
 on." We believe that much of the power of the 
 German army can be traced to a feeling among 
 its units, that they are advance-agents flung from 
 Heaven's own hand to scatter effete or barbarous 
 people, and spread "das Kultur." Napoleon felt 
 
 ^"If the will at the opportune moment has not sought to make 
 use of the moral forces at its disposal, it is because the ego . . . 
 sympathized with the cause of temptation, appropriated it to itself, 
 made it its own. But this very thing proves the evilness of the ego." 
 Tarde.
 
 122 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 this sense of inner urgency; 34 so do you and we 
 at times, all great men do. 
 
 One feels that the approach by Loeb and Ver- 
 woin is essentially the promising approach, yet 
 as someone has objected, there still is much to do 
 because while we can see why, e. g., a current 
 causes certain responses, it remains almost as 
 hard as ever to see why a situation should do so. 
 We can understand the tropism (taxis) of an ani- 
 mal toward a general source of illumination, but 
 not its tropism (taxis) toward the changing, 
 metamorphasing perceived image of prey or of 
 its mate. To effect a tropism (taxis) we have 
 had hitherto some comparatively simple unit ele- 
 ment. It would seem, therefore as tho the psycho- 
 physical mechanism of the animal must reduce 
 to terms of a unit element the complex and varia- 
 ble stimuli it receives from the image of prey or 
 of its mate, now full face and now in profile, fall- 
 ing now on one portion of the reting and now on 
 another. This unit element, identical with the 
 meaning of the perception is doubtless comprised 
 in terms of the animal's own bodily reactions to 
 the situation. Even so, how is the unification, 
 whether of sensations or of outgoing reactions, 
 achieved ? 
 
 The need of attempting some answer to this 
 
 3 *"In men of the world-shaking type, the Napoleons, Luthers, etc., 
 . . . the resolution is probably of this catastrophic kind. The flood 
 breaks out quite unexpectedly through the dam. That it should so 
 often do so is quite sufficient to account for the tendency of these 
 characters to a fatalistic mood of mind and the fatalistic mood itself 
 is sure to reinforce the strength of the energy." p. 533 of ch. 26, 
 vol. 2, Psychology by Wm. James.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 123 
 
 question before we can pursue further our pres- 
 ent inquiry is our excuse for dragging in here a 
 short metaphysical discussion of the concept of 
 an "ego." We hypothecate this "ego" as a small- 
 est divisible unit of one of the forms which mat- 
 ter or energy can assume, and that the elements 
 of its sensation are its own inner view, so to 
 speak, of the motions to which it is subject. If 
 a rotation eastward meant to it the sensation of 
 yellow, a rotation northward meant redness, and 
 non-rotation meant blackness, then a slow rota- 
 tion northeast meant the sensation of brown. Be- 
 cause of the utility to living forms of an ego, 
 we'll suppose that it is by the law of the survival 
 of the fittest that there have come to exist the 
 existing fauna of the world endowed with some 
 means of sucking to themselves at conception, and 
 holding magnetized so long as the bodily processes 
 endure, one of these ego particles, much as a float- 
 ing cork might be drawn to a vortex in the water, 
 and remain suspended over the center of it so 
 long as the motion continued, after which it would 
 be released until whirled to another vortex else- 
 where in the stream. Our ego, like our cork would 
 meantime travel everywhere that the vortex trav- 
 eled, whilst retaining the same suspended posi- 
 tion in the midst of its activities and of the inrush 
 and outrush of so many gallons of material sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Meantime what function would it subserve? 
 Merely being conscious to itself, the ego would
 
 124 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 contribute nothing giving it a survival value in 
 the economy of the animal host. It might how- 
 ever be of value if while of itself as inert as the 
 cork in the whirlpool it partook of the whirl- 
 pool movements, with all their tremulous modifi- 
 cations, of the flood of currents within the brain 
 cortex, and also in turn reacted upon these by its 
 own inertia. 
 
 In another analogy, we may suppose that the 
 ego is like a pool of liquid into which various col- 
 ored lights from as many respective nerve cen- 
 ters play, and which absorbs and blends all these 
 different hues, so x that it reflects back to the neu- 
 rons a light of different tinge from any one which 
 it received, because it is a unification of many. 
 But perhaps the best analogy I can give is the 
 following: We know how electric currents in a 
 helix may draw into the center of the helix and 
 suspend there a piece of iron. We know that not 
 only the movements of the iron respond to fluctua- 
 tions in the electric current, but that the move- 
 ments of the iron in turn effect alterations of the 
 current within the wire of the helix. Similarly, 
 fluctuations of nervous current might be induced 
 among the neurons Of the brain cortex by the 
 inert bobbing about of an ego suspended without 
 contact somewhere among them, and of which 
 the momentum had been imparted by previous 
 currents among those same neurons. 
 
 But let us leave, now, these meta-physical con- 
 cepts, which have served their purpose if they
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 125 
 
 in any way make it easier to bridge the gap be- 
 tween Loeb's tropisms and Verworn's taxis mech- 
 anisms to the concept of Woodworth and others 
 of certain fundamental drives, such as hunger, 
 sex, etc., and in which in each case the first part 
 of the act is recognition, easier to bridge the 
 gap between Loeb's tropisms and Verworn's 
 taxis mechanisms to the concepts of Woodworth 
 and others, of certain fundamental drives, such 
 as hunger, sex, etc., and in which in each case 
 the first part of the act is recognition. The theory 
 of evolution now is the basis of all the biological 
 sciences, now established so soundly that to be 
 heralded by the newspapers as having "over- 
 thrown" it is a notoriety attained by a perpetual 
 succession of dabblers in every science; and now 
 so tacitly accepted by all that every Religion al- 
 ways at first the opponent of new truth today 
 hunts and "reinterprets" its scriptures for evi- 
 dence that evolution was taught by it from the 
 beginning. To question this great hypothesis is 
 today less a proof of independent thinking than 
 a confession of unfamiliarity with the evidence; 
 but the credit for all this is due to a change in 
 our method of proof. 
 
 The arguments of the ancient philosophers, 
 both Oriental and European, were frequently 
 subtle and abstruse, but to a sophisticated mod- 
 ern, they appear wholly childish. Today we find a 
 firmer argument for evolution in convergence of 
 inductive testimony from many separate sources.
 
 126 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 In astronomy the nebular (evolutionary) hypo- 
 thesis was arrived at independently by the mathe- 
 matics of La Place and the searchings of Lavoi- 
 sier; it is, moreover, supported by the spectro- 
 scopic analysis which shows similarity of composi- 
 tion of nebulae and stars thruout the heavens, and 
 by the uniform direction of rotation and the re- 
 spective sizes and temperatures of satellites. In 
 geology proof of the world's age since water could 
 exist on it in liquid state, and of evolutionary 
 processes at work, is uniform from the nature of 
 successive layers of the earth, crust, the erosion of 
 rocks, and the quantity of salt thus far dissolved 
 by its waters; this time period (50,000,000 to 
 90,000,000) is in remarkable agreement with 
 what is required for the evolutionary process by 
 other sciences. Ornithology shows that in the 
 successively deeper and necessarily earlier- 
 formed strata of rock, lie embedded bones of 
 ever more simply-organized animals; that the 
 modifications of structure are gradual from the 
 upper, more recent forms resembling animals now 
 living to the extinct creatures of the age-old past ; 
 and that as we go backward the multiplicity di- 
 minishes and we approach a common ancestry for 
 the most diverse present types, just as in ascend- 
 ing a tree the twigs at the top are seen to be 
 sprung from common branches and eventually 
 form a single trunk. The Distribution of animal 
 types is not haphazard, nor do similar species 
 necessarily inhabit regions similar in climate, but
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 127 
 
 the distribution is well accounted for by suppos- 
 ing that an evolutionary process was in progress 
 whilst continents and islands were being formed, 
 separated, or connected at the times specified by 
 geologists. The Classification of animals extant 
 today according to their degrees of resemblance 
 is explainable only if the resembling groups are 
 descended from less or more remote common an- 
 cestry. The argument from the Structure of Ani- 
 mals is borne out too from the fact that quite 
 similar types will interbreed, and that between 
 slightly more removed types transfusion of blood 
 is possible. Embriology calls attention to a par- 
 allel between ontogenesis and philogenesis which 
 is surely significant. The hypothesis of an evo- 
 lutionary origin of species and descent of man 
 was substantiated with observations enormous in 
 amount though often anecdotally unscientific or 
 even credulous in character, by Charles Darwin; 
 and by him, simultaneously with Herbert Spencer, 
 provided with an explanation which renders the 
 process comprehensible the doctrine, as since 
 modied by de Vries, that thru some accidental in- 
 fluence upon the reproductive cells, an animal 
 occasionally is born with an inheritable muta- 
 tion (say a modified pair of limbs) or an impul- 
 sion toward some type of conduct; in some few 
 cases the mutation will be of nature equipping 
 the animal better to find food, say, or foil its ene- 
 mies ; finally the result will be that these favored 
 animals, as the more fit in the struggle for exist-
 
 128 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ence, will leave more progeny to inherit their 
 characteristics (including the new mutation) than 
 will their competitors. Thus, by accumulation 
 of new mutations, new species originate upon the 
 earth in profusion, replacing their fewer, more 
 simple predecessors. Though the span of man's 
 recorded history is infinitessimal in the time dur- 
 ing which this process has been going on, and 
 though to look for noticeable changes in forms 
 during that time is as though within its own life- 
 time a fly should ask to see the changes in girth 
 of an aged tree, even so we do sometimes see 
 small-scale modifications in animal species occur- 
 ring before our eyes at least where man usurps 
 nature's place as selector and breeder. But when 
 we say that "nature breeds for" greater beauty 
 or skill or group solidarity or whatever, that is 
 only our convenient expression for the fact that 
 in a particular case these qualities increase the 
 chances of survival of the group of animals they 
 characterize. Evidences of intention and a goal 
 in the workings of nature, or of a benevolent dis- 
 position toward her creatures, have been read 
 into her by devout men, rather than read out of 
 her by scientic men. 
 
 Science has been called organized knowledge. 
 But many of the ideas of the ancients and they 
 couldn't see but those ideas were "knowledge" 
 were organized even to the point of becoming fine- 
 spun metaphysical systems. Science is even more 
 a method, a discipline. The pseudo-scientist
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 129 
 
 notes only evidence for his theory and suppresses 
 or ignores all against ; the idealized scientist gath- 
 ers all evidence indifferently and then frames the 
 hypothesis which seems to be indicated and which 
 does violence to no fact. For the former is moved 
 by desire for notoriety or at best by fanatic or 
 patriotic desire to justify a preconceived theory; 
 the latter is moved, if not by innate curiosity 
 after the facts, at least by the desire to figure in 
 the eyes of posterity as one who judged carefully; 
 "most men wish to have truth on their side, but 
 few care to be on the side of truth." The pseudo- 
 scientist, in a corner, will even pretend that evi- 
 dences for his theory are withheld from the vul- 
 gar, but are accessible to those like himself who 
 have special gifts or have achieved thru study 
 and ascetic practices to superhuman powers ; but 
 the true scientist is democratic, and invites critics 
 to witness the experiments, and repeat the meas- 
 urements, upon which he bases his conclusions. 
 The pseudo-scientist seeks to- astonish his public 
 with the bizarre or even the super-natural; but 
 the true man of science is he who tries to ex- 
 plain the complex in terms of the simple, the mys- 
 terious in terms of the familiar, and is inevitably 
 a skeptic as regards the supernatural. In always 
 maintaining this attitude, the typical scientist 
 may be called biassed. But it is the bias at least 
 of experience. The credulous animistic way of 
 thinking was the old-world way; what progress 
 either material or spiritual can it claim? The
 
 130 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 skeptical, mechanistic way of thinking is essen- 
 tially the modern way; its resultant material 
 progress looms on every hand, and its application 
 to the moral field will result in progress at least 
 as great. Every great reformer has been less 
 supernaturalist than his age. 
 
 So let each one for himself dare to explore the 
 unknown. Let him like a new Columbus bring 
 his barkentines over the curly-waved horizon of 
 blue Ocean, to the discovery mayhap of a new 
 world. The free wind that fills the bellying sails 
 is no more free than the spirit of such a cap- 
 tain. 
 
 "No other pleasure is comparable to standing 
 upon the vantage-ground of truth." And the proc- 
 ess of attaining to such truth is as zestf ul as any 
 physical exploration. Memory takes us back to the 
 time when as a boy we led a party to the discovery 
 of a cave that we had sighted in the mountains. 
 Early was the hour when we forsook our beds to 
 commence our journey under the still glimmering 
 stars before the dawn. Hot grew the sun when 
 afternoon found us still toiling up the laborious 
 flanks of mountain and precipice, still uncertain 
 whether our route would lead to any conclusion. 
 But at last our doubts were dispelled as we swung 
 into full view of the yawning cavern; a last 
 scramble up the heap of granite detritus, and we 
 entered its cool shade. Then we looked back 
 upon the toilsome ascent that had taken so many 
 hours, and felt that it was worth while. None
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 131 
 
 but the aboriginal Indians had attained to this 
 place before us. 
 
 Since then we have explored many places, and 
 have lost that feeling that we must be absolutely 
 the first who ever trod the native heath. It is no 
 longer anything that millions have been there be- 
 fore us, so long as to our own experience the ad- 
 venture comes as new. 
 
 Standing once on Tiger Hill in the Himalayas, 
 we were grateful that others had already seen, 
 had told the story of its wonders till it reached 
 our far off ears, and had built this turret on its 
 summit with the charts identifying all the neigh- 
 boring peaks. All around, below, rolled cloud- 
 land's billowy ocean, pearl-colored in its troughs, 
 its crests and sprays touched pink with the flush 
 of dawn. This downy sea drifted in wraiths past 
 us, sometimes engulfing too our scant fire ; again 
 it ebbed down, leaving our island stark in con- 
 trast above its whiteness. Once as it ebbed, the 
 sun's disk showed clear on the horizon; and op- 
 posite, a glittering ice peak like a diamond 
 sparkled in that first ray. Then, thanks to the 
 chart, which earlier comers had erected, we knew 
 that this was Kichenjunga, 28,000 feet above the 
 sea. As the cloud floor ebbed further, its mas- 
 sive ice-crest higher soared, the white cloud-land 
 becoming gray by comparison with its ineffable, 
 celestial purity. Imagination staggered at the 
 picture ! Yet we waited for a sight of a still more 
 stupendous mountain Everest which we
 
 132 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 should know by its resemblance to the picture on 
 that panoramic chart upon the tower. Three 
 rounded peaks scarcely visible in the far distance 
 for then we still scanned the mists. Meantime 
 rents and rifts appeared in the cloud floor, thru 
 which we looked awe-struck down into dark green 
 depths of warm valleys, thousands and thousands 
 of feet beneath that sea, as when one peers down 
 thru the flat lily-pads and sees under the clear 
 water the bottom of the pool. But the rifts closed 
 again, and we peered forth over the surface, and 
 thot we saw for one moment but never shall be 
 sure far in the distance, across the cloud sea, 
 three close-clustered glittering islands. Everest. 
 
 The reason we've placed so much emphasis in 
 this chapter upon the ideal of science is that until 
 mankind have not merely information but real 
 love of truth and willingness to submit to truth's 
 discipline, little progress can be made toward any 
 other goal. Love of truth comes before loyalty 
 to the doctrine or the organization. 
 
 Referring to the defences of the old creeds 
 Lecky argues : 
 
 "If it is said that plagues or pestilences are sent 
 as a punishment of error or of vice, the assertion 
 must be tested by a comprehensive examination 
 of the history of plagues on one hand, and of 
 periods of great vice and heterodoxy on the other. 
 If it be said that an influence more powerful than 
 any military agency directs the course of battles 
 the action of this force must be detected as we
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 133 
 
 would detect electricity, or any other force, by 
 experiment. If the attribute of infallibility be 
 ascribed to a particular Church, an inductive 
 reasoner will not be content with enquiring how 
 far an infallible Church would be a desirable 
 thing, or how far certain ancient words may be 
 constructed as a prediction of its appearance ; he 
 will examine, by a wide and careful survey of 
 ecclesiastical history, whether this Church has ac- 
 tually been immutable and consistent in its teach- 
 ing; whether it has never been affected by the 
 ignorance or passion of the age; whether its in- 
 fluence has uniformly exerted on the side which 
 proved to be true ; whether it has never supported 
 by its authority scientific views which were after- 
 wards demonstrated to be false, or countenanced 
 and consolidated popular errors, or thrown ob- 
 stacles in the path of those who were afterwards 
 recognized as the enlighteners of mankind. If 
 ecclesiastical deliberations are said to be espe- 
 cially inspired or directed by an illuminating and 
 supernatural power, we should examine whether 
 the councils and convocations of clergymen ex- 
 hibit a degree and harmony of wisdom that can- 
 not reasonably be accounted for by the play of 
 our unassisted faculties. If institutions are said 
 to owe their growth to special supernatural agen- 
 cies, distinct from the ordinary system of natural 
 laws, we must examine whether their courses are 
 so striking and so peculiar that natural law fails 
 to explain them. Whenever, as in the case of a
 
 134 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 battle, very many influences concur to the result, 
 it will frequently happen that that result will 
 baffle our predictions. It will also happen that 
 strange coincidences, such as the frequent recur- 
 rence of the same number in a game of chance, 
 will occur. But there are limits to these varia- 
 tions from what we regard as probable. If, in 
 throwing the dice, we uniformly attained the 
 same number, or if in war the army which was 
 destitute of all military advantages was uni- 
 formly victorious, we should readily infer that 
 some special cause was operating to produce the 
 result. We must remember, too, that in every 
 great historical crisis the prevalence of either 
 side will bring with it a long train of conse- 
 quences, and that we only see one side of the pic- 
 ture. If Hannibal, after his victory at Cannae, 
 had captured and burnt Rome, the vast series of 
 results that have followed from the ascendancy of 
 the Roman Empire would never have taken place, 
 but the supremacy of a maritime, commercial and 
 comparatively pacific power would have produced 
 an entirely different series, which would have 
 formed the basis and been the essential condition 
 of all the subsequent progress ; a civilization, the 
 type and character of which is now impossible to 
 conjecture, would have arisen, and its theologians 
 would probably have regarded the career of Han- 
 nibal as one of the most manifest instances of 
 special interposition on record. 
 
 "If we would form sound opinions on these mat-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 135 
 
 ters, we must take a very wide and impartial sur- 
 vey of the phenomena of history. We must ex- 
 amine whether events have tended in a given 
 direction with uniformity or a presistence that 
 is not naturally explicable. We must examine 
 not only the facts that corroborate our theory, 
 but also those which oppose it. 
 
 "That such a method is not ordinarily adopted 
 must be manifest to all. As Bacon said, 'men 
 mark the hits, but not the misses;' they collect 
 industriously the examples in which many, and 
 sometimes improbable, circumstances have con- 
 verged to a result which they consider good, and 
 they simply leave out of their consideration the 
 circumstances that tend in the opposite direc- 
 tion." 35 
 
 The thotf ul man, therefore, gives over all hopes 
 of supernatural consolation, and schools himself 
 to meet facts as they are, without seeking a false 
 refuge. In place of "pie in the sky by and by" he 
 goes about in an effective way to make conditions 
 better on this earth; he presumes that if he is 
 ever to live again it will foe on this same old 
 planet. Instead of trying, thru spirit-mediums, 
 to get into communications with the (non-exist- 
 ant) personalities of departed dear ones, he ex- 
 erts himself to improve the world into which they 
 and he must (if ever) come again to live. There 
 even are reasons of personal advantages why a 
 man should become an idealist. 
 
 "Lecky, W. E. H. ( History of European Morals.
 
 136 PHILOSOPHY OP HELPFULNESS 
 
 We don't say it's always to man's personal ad- 
 vantage to do a good act. If a man loves evil, 
 performing a good act mayn't make him either 
 healthy, wealthy or wise. Also, a man truly good, 
 but who is such only from a sense of duty, may 
 live and die friendless and miserable, probably 
 will. But we do say this : that no other type of 
 man is half so happy as he who is good thru 
 LOVE of goodness. No other CAN be. For as 
 a man judges a tool to be worth anything, not 
 when it is good to itself, but good FOR SOME- 
 THING, just so he inevitably judges himself to 
 be of use to something greater. But who can be 
 genuinely happy without self-respect? 
 
 SECTION 4 
 
 "Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt; 
 Nothing's so hard but search will find it out." 36 
 
 In great centers of civilization, religion soon 
 becomes organized for the purpose of sanctioning 
 laws and morals. "These attempts at religious 
 reform are interesting as showing the anxiety 
 of the human mind to sublimate its religious creed 
 to the level of the moral and intellectual standard 
 it has attained, and to make religious ordinances 
 in some degree the instruments of moral improve- 
 ment." 37 What is most striking to the real spirit 
 of human helpfulness of the founders, Christ, 
 
 36 Except in the case of the hen on the China egg. 
 
 37 Lecky, W. E. H., History of European Morals, vol. 1, p. 324.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 137 
 
 Buddha, etc.? When the moral or intellectual 
 composition of a group is low, it has no difficulty 
 in dragging its religion down to a corresponding 
 level; a fact which indicates that the rare cases 
 of genuine reform thru religion are of an hyp- 
 notic nature and probably could the connection 
 between religion and pure living in the remaining 
 instances be known it would be seen that it was a 
 merely chance one ; if a pious person is also good, 
 every one praises God for such a shining example 
 of what is conceived to be cause and effect ; but let 
 an atheist be equally good, and if people find a 
 flaw in his goodness, they will ascribe that flaw 
 to his atheism. That superstition is dangerous 
 to the public weal thru promoting emotionalism 
 and non-sanity should be evident. 
 
 But this chapter wasn't intended to be mere 
 negations, except in so far as negations are al- 
 ways necessary to sweep away the obstacles that 
 hinder affirmation, the real power. Says Fonte- 
 nelle, "It is not science to fill one's head with all 
 the extravagances of the Phoenicians and the 
 Greeks, but it is science to know what led the 
 Phoenicians and the Greeks into these extrava- 
 gances. All men are so much alike that there is 
 no race whose follies should not make us tremble." 
 
 "We live spiritually," says Prof. Royce, "by out- 
 lining our forms and thus enriching our sense of 
 their deeper meaning." What once was thot to 
 be final truth, becomes more pregnant if we regard
 
 138 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 it as showing how man progresses continually 
 from relatively false to relatively more exact. 
 
 Science has been defined as "organized knowl- 
 edge ;" but, more than that, it's a method. When 
 your black priest from Africa tells a miraculous 
 tale of Mohammed, your white priest may go 
 him a better one of Christ ; but your brown priest 
 can tell one about Krishna's miracles which 
 makes both the others look as commonplace as 
 pages from a dictionary. Each one can tell a won- 
 derful story to prove his own point, but the world 
 makes no advance thru such methods. 
 
 At the beginning of all spiritual life, must come 
 the determination to be sincere. If a creed won't 
 stand skepticism, won't bear critical examina- 
 tion, regards any matters as "mysteries" too holy 
 to be investigated, and tells us we "must have 
 faith." we're false to the highest in us if we 
 accept that creed, however much comfort it seems 
 to afford us. True, that in accepting the word of 
 an eminent scientist upon some discovery he has 
 made, we may be as gullible as any other doc- 
 trinaire. E; g., The "law of universal gravita- 
 tion" sometimes is taught in school as a truth 
 which it would be naughty, or impious, not to be- 
 lieve. But that's not true science at all, that's 
 only weak human nature asserting itself again in 
 a new mask. Genuine science consists in per- 
 forming personally the experiments which sub- 
 stantiate a hypothesis. And where it is impos- 
 sible to do this, the next best thing is, to demand
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 139 
 
 that the scientific men in whom one puts trust as 
 one's competent envoys, shall be men of skeptical 
 and accurate habits, whose reputation for im- 
 partial veracity has stood the test of an army of 
 co-investigators constantly ready to expose them, 
 should they claim a discovery which others, work- 
 ing independently with proper apparatus, can't 
 certify. 
 
 "It is a sign of mediocrity to have settled 
 opinions on unsettled subjects," 38 and in the realm 
 of ideas and ideals, as everywhere else, "eternal 
 vigilance is the price of liberty." 
 
 What ideals of character must become that of 
 the race? Certainly a character creative of Hap- 
 piness first of all for we are so made that we 
 can't think of anything as being good, that doesn't 
 somehow make someone happier. And then the 
 idea of fairness. In fact, the idea of The Great- 
 est Happiness For the Greatest Number. 
 
 Will a time come when all men shall hold this 
 ideal? It will. For thru Force, Custom, Sugges- 
 tion, and Reason, the law of natural selection 
 stamps out all that's not sincere and true. 
 
 "Till o'er the wreck emerging from the storm, 
 Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form; 
 Mounts from her funeral pyre on wing of flame, 
 And soars and shines, another and the same." 39 
 
 Good men live in mutual helpfulness; evil men 
 in destructiveness and misery. The most like- 
 
 S8 C. E. Jemingham Maxims of Marmaduke, p. 6. 
 
 "Erasmus Darwin Botanic Garden. Pt. L. Canto IV, L. 399.
 
 140 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 able 40 fellows are surest to mate and leave chil- 
 dren to inherit their good qualities. History is 
 the story of how societies built on egoistic lines 
 always are conquered by societies built on more 
 altruistic lines; therefore the sense of self-inter- 
 est of societies continually suggests an atmos- 
 phere more favorable to altruism. 
 
 Our philosophy is too negative! we're ruled by 
 immediate emergencies because we have no higher 
 vision to dwell on. How shall we attain one? 
 Only by forgetting that semi-fiction, Selfhood. 
 
 We may have one immortal "soul," or we may 
 have a dozen, or there may be a myriad of us 
 living together in this body, one soul to every 
 living cell, and each imagining that he is the only 
 inhabitant, exalted into higher consciousness than 
 it could be if alone, because of the "crowd psy- 
 chology" of living integrally in a community of 
 so many. . . . So, too, in a nest of bees, EACH 
 tiny individual may pulsate with the WHOLE 
 feeling of being what Maeterlinck 41 called the 
 "spirit of the hive." Ecstasy the Orientals be- 
 lieve to be the union of the soul of an individual 
 with the great total of all souls. And tho there 
 is an ecstacy which is sensual and fleeting, yet 
 indeed one may attain an excitement of enduring 
 and sustaining value, by becoming, thru the 
 power of wisely directed effort, less a microcos- 
 mic, more a macrocosmic, kind of self. 42 
 
 40 I wish I also could say, the most ABLE. 
 41 M. Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee. 
 
 "For all creatures to reach this state togethei-, would be no less 
 than in a sense to create God.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 141 
 
 But let's return to the relation of sexuality to 
 certain religious phenomena. 
 
 The multiplication of new cults indicates, to 
 my mind, that men crave some intellectualization 
 of the tendencies toward idealism which they feel 
 within themselves, as well as crave some clearer 
 guide to right action than instinct alone affords. 
 The supplying of such a philosophy explains the 
 partial success of so many recent "cults." But 
 these cults are the product of uneducated think- 
 ers, who, though intending well, yet under-esti- 
 mating the enormous necessity of academic train- 
 ing. No one would dream of employing such 
 people as chemists, locomotive builders or sur- 
 geons. "Evil is wrought by want of thought as 
 well as by want of heart." 
 
 Love you then mother, father, sibling, sweet- 
 heart? What profits it to give them this mo- 
 mentary embrace if almost within your grasp 
 they whiten with age or, caught in fever's or 
 disease's clutch, they pass from sight? They re- 
 turn, if ever, to an earth as full of woes and part- 
 ings as that they so lately left. 
 
 Count not on heavenly meetings, future recog- 
 nitions, supernatural consolations. Faith in such 
 things is but the delusion of a hope, resting on 
 hearsay evidence. If something in us yet sur- 
 vives the- grave, where shall that something dwell, 
 unless here upon this same old earth? What 
 should drive us hence? Pray not; therefore, to 
 God, the deaf, the impossible of existence, for
 
 142 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 your loved one. Work rather with your own two 
 hands to beautify this world, that his soul may 
 find it lovelier to abide in; and create therefore 
 kindness and the spirit of good will toward every 
 creature, for who may say what form your friend 
 shall next inhabit? 
 
 A good way is to regard our "self" as the 
 BUNDLE OF THE SEVERAL ASPIRATIONS, 
 DESIRES AND SYMPATHIES WHICH ARE 
 DEAR TO US. We like this view of the ego 43 
 because it lets us look upon "selfishness" in the 
 common acceptance of the term and our ignor- 
 ance, etc., as the ego's primitive, small, undevel- 
 oped or shrunken conditions; and upon generos- 
 ity and wisdom as equally the ripened fruit of its 
 larger growth; that puts these types of char- 
 acter in the position we feel they ought to 
 occupy. The self -feeling of some persons scarce- 
 ly passes beyond the limits of their corporeal 
 bodies and of the raiment that tricks them out. 
 Whereas the ambitions of some (however few 
 doesn't concern this argument) others include the 
 whole world in their ken; 44 to these salt of the 
 earth let their high opportunities be made known, 
 that they may slough off the blindness which hides 
 them from their best selves, and seek the sunlight 
 
 pe 
 hat 
 
 43 Thus Lotze makes such a great point of the extension of our 
 srsonality to the tip of the cane we carry in hand, the top of the 
 
 "James, Wm., Psychology, ch. 14, pp. 550-604.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 143 
 
 wherein to be warmed to the uttermost unfolding 
 and to a life of vigorous activity. 
 
 We wish you to remember this way of consid- 
 ering the self, because it'll be the basis of figures 
 of speech which we shall use thruout this book. 
 What do people mean by the word "self?" Do 
 they mean their own bodies? And if so, why not 
 just as much their hair, finger-nails, etc., which 
 are a part of their bodies, and their clothes with 
 which they adorn themselves? If to an outside 
 eye, too often "the clothes make the man," so 
 why not consider them PART of the man? Or, 
 if their self is a matter of innerconsciousness and 
 sensation, must it not be made to include the 
 sensations of mothers, small brothers, and others 
 whom they love? Whose injuries they feel quite 
 as acutely as they would injuries to their own 
 proper persons? For, if they are going to draw 
 distinctions between sensations felt immediately 
 and those only felt in that other manner thru 
 sympathy, why shouldn't they confine themselves 
 just as much to the sensations of the immediate 
 moment and refuse to admit as of themselves any 
 sensations of the future? It will be evident 
 after a little thinking that the self is not any fixed 
 and static thing, but something that grows, send- 
 ing out shoots as does a plant. It sends out some 
 shoots, like Deceit, Meanness, Vice, and Unfit- 
 ness, which (for reasons we shall give) need to 
 be pruned off; but it also grows another and for- 
 tunately a very opposite kind of shoots, like Un-
 
 144 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 derstanding, Helpfulness, Virtue, and Efficiency. 
 It's a question how far we should either prune 
 off, or cultivate, other people's shoots for them, 
 by using force, or blindly forming their habits, 
 or even implanting subtle suggestions; but one 
 thing we certainly MAY do we may argue, we 
 may tell them our own experiences, we may fore- 
 stall their being deceived. If we thoroughly at- 
 tend to that, and are everlastingly patient, we 
 find that boys, at least, will prune, of their own 
 accord, the bad shoots that weigh them down; 
 and will direct their forces into the shoots better 
 poised and upright. If boys why not adults? 
 
 Those who have attained to the above concep- 
 tion of the self, henceforth in a measure are fore- 
 armed against depression from the loss of hope 
 that our memories and other personal character- 
 istics survive death. For if we live and think 
 aright, our interests continue to prosper after the 
 destruction of this bodily instrument. The high- 
 est interests indeed, Truth, of Goodness, are like 
 the phoenix ; tho they be killed, still in time they 
 are sure to be resurrected. Identify your soul 
 with these eternal interests, and tho it be be- 
 trayed and seemingly lost, there shall come in 
 time its savior. 
 
 Yet tho it is so possible to resuscitate a soul 
 even to the point of giving it more vitality than 
 ever it possessed in the original body, (a thing 
 Mencius' writings did for Confucius) yet for 
 souls there nevertheless is death. There are death
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 145 
 
 by neglect, and the more fearful death by poison- 
 ing. In the old Egyptian myth, when Isis made 
 an adder to sting Osiris, she molded it out of his 
 own spittle mixed with clay, and so gained power 
 over him, according to the rule of magic that that 
 which proceeds from us has power to bind us. 
 Under a superstitious awe for the spoken word 
 and for all cast-off things as magically potent 
 over a person, the ancients may well have sym- 
 bolized the truth, that out of a man's own mouth 
 is he confuted. When a soul is made to betray 
 and confute itself, or frightened into undoing and 
 reversing the labor of its life, it has been pois- 
 oned, and has shrunk back beyond the nothing- 
 ness out of which it was born. In this crooked 
 world, in which every principle must bend a trifle 
 if it is to survive long enough to accomplish any 
 work at all in straightening the crookedness 
 around it, the most difficult of all things is to 
 tell when pliancy has gone far enough, when fur- 
 ther bending threatens loss, not gain. 
 
 In this sense Institutions as well as individuals, 
 have their souls; and all is true of them that we 
 have spoken regarding the souls of individuals. 
 When the spirit of an institution is dead, it were 
 better for itself and for the world that its corpse 
 died too, instead of wriggling on like the behead- 
 ed body of a snake. 
 
 "Be always displeased at what thou art, if 
 thou desire to attain to what thou art not; for
 
 146 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abid- 
 est." 
 
 But let's turn to the other objection that's 
 voiced against determinism; namely, that it 
 makes it unreasonable to encourage good or blame 
 evil. 
 
 Can you justify folk who reward or punish a 
 child just to show good humor or vent their 
 spleen? Rather, aren't they hoping that their 
 treatment will be the cause to produce in him a 
 certain effect, implicitly recognizing in at least 
 a degree that his character can be determined by 
 circumstances? And don't we modify our treat- 
 ment of him in recognition of other influences, 
 such as sickness, fatigue, or bad leadership, that 
 have affected the case? Says a modern criminol- 
 ogist: 
 
 "We know that the ego cannot create itself and 
 that the character has already been formed by a 
 series of anterior facts . . . were this not so, we 
 should be compelled to acknowledge that in each 
 man there takes place at each instant a veritable 
 miracle, that is to say ... an initial movement 
 in nowise the effect of pre-existing or superven- 
 ing conditions. 
 
 "From this standpoint, the problem of punish- 
 ment completely defies solution." 45 
 
 In considering this or any of the following 
 problems under the head of ethical reconstruc- 
 tion, we shall dwell upon the opposition between 
 
 4= Baron Garofolo, Criminology, chap. 2, par. 2.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 147 
 
 the old and the new points of view, namely the 
 opposition of a morality which was formulated 
 by the leading elements, the arisotic elements in 
 a society which was only just merging out of 
 feudalism, as against the morality of a coming 
 regime which we hope may be formulated by those 
 elements at the bottom of the social scale and 
 not at the top of it. We are demanding today a 
 revolution in economic conditions at least as mo- 
 mentous as the last century's revolutions in poli- 
 tical institutions. The older ethics, therefore, 
 upheld in the face of logic the doctrine of free- 
 dom of the will, in order that it might justify a 
 religious conception of personal righteousness or 
 sinfulness. The new ethics instead will incline 
 toward determinism because determinism alone 
 is consistent with the idea that by improving in- 
 stitutions and the environment under which men 
 live, we can alter the moral judgments and con- 
 duct of men themselves. That is to say that every 
 improvement in our system of handling prisoners, 
 every improvement in appealing to the pride of 
 people whom we formerly attempted to help only 
 by "charity," every new application of sugges- 
 tion in giving ideals to the young children, in 
 short, every mode that we take of trying to make 
 people morally better, is based upon the concep- 
 tion that their goodness or badness is to a very 
 large extent determined by the experiences that 
 we from the outside are able to hand on to them. 
 Therefore, as said, mankind passes from the old
 
 148 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 conception of free will to an ethics based upon 
 determinism. 
 
 This needn't, however, imply that passivism, 
 which is so often associated with the idea of fatal- 
 ism. It is true that fatalism typifies most of the 
 philosophies of the Orient, where, because of con- 
 ditions of climate, and most of all, because of the 
 intense crowding of populations, which makes 
 for a low standard of living, men's minds become 
 at once mystic and pessimistic and they lack 
 energy to accomplish active work. It is equally 
 true that the thinking of most energetic charac- 
 ters, as, for example, Napoleon (who constantly 
 referred to "My Star,'') express this determin- 
 istic or fatalistic attitude. For the conception 
 of being driven by inner necessity does not any 
 more lead to saying "What is the use of my try- 
 ing to be better or- to accomplish things," than 
 it leads to saying "How can I help improving or 
 doing right !" 
 
 What indeed is it but a too non-deterministic 
 attitude carried to the point of intellectual dis- 
 honesty, that permits many people of feeble char- 
 acter to live continually in the hope of luck, soft 
 snaps, and short-cuts to success, gambling in lot- 
 teries, and scanning magazines for articles sent 
 "free?" What believer in free-will is inconsist- 
 ent when he "burns the candle at both ends" with 
 late hours, orgies, bad ventilation, drugs (tobacco 
 at least) combined with hectic days? Under de- 
 terminism, however, every idealist is bidden first
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 149 
 
 of all to study the material and psychical require- 
 ments of his own organism, and to relieve it of 
 irritations and disharmonies which else may 
 bring his grander reformatory plans to ruin. 
 
 Finally, to all them who have been disturbed 
 by the fatality taught in these pages, it is to be 
 pointed out that their very concern over their 
 chances of rising out of present selfishness into 
 a better future character, is circumstantial evi- 
 dence that selfishness isn't the fundamental law 
 of their natures, else selfishness would have satis- 
 fied them. A nobler type of living will prove more 
 congenial to them, undoubtedly, when once they've 
 sloughed off old habits of thought and demeanor. 
 To everyone, in short, in whom this chapter finds 
 a responsive echo, or who finds himself ponder- 
 ing its viewpoint after he has laid this book 
 aside, we may say confidently "You're one of 
 those, for whom it was written. Many were not so 
 born for it, but you were. You, even without con- 
 scious effort, are already upon the first step of a 
 new sphere of development; you're beyond pure 
 selfishness because that never was natural to you." 
 Whoever has advanced thus far, will hardly re- 
 verse his evolution, to wallow again in the 
 primaeval slime." 
 
 "For he on honey dew hath fed, 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise." 46 
 
 "'Coleridge Kubla Khan.
 
 150 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 An Atheistic Ethics founded upon the idea of 
 Helpfulness to others must take the place of sup- 
 erstitious ethics built upon tradition. Although 
 their doctrines have been preached to humanity 
 for from 1,500 to 2,500 years you still hear apolo- 
 gies made for the meager fruit of Mohammedan, 
 Christian, and Buddhistic Ethics, on the score 
 that these teachings "have never yet been tried." 
 If after so many centuries these systems haven't 
 recommended themselves sufficiently to the com- 
 mon sense of mankind to receive even a satisfac- 
 tory trial, surely it is time that a more promising 
 code was devised. Superstition in its grossest 
 form is an admixture of greedy supplication of 
 the gods for material goods, together with a 
 scarcely disguised sex-worship, a cringing sup- 
 plication for defense against danger, and an in- 
 vocation of divine wrath against the enemy. To- 
 day the religion of people of ordinary discrimina- 
 tion still contains elements derived from these 
 same emotions hunger, love, fear and hate, but 
 in a form to soothe rather than to excite them. 
 The analytic type of person is apt to pierce with 
 his intellect the whole fallacy of supposing that 
 our personality can survive the disintegration of 
 our brain, and tho he may believe that still the 
 element or elements of our consciousness may 
 recombine in new combinations to live again on 
 this same earth, yet there is no reward or prog- 
 ress beyond the grave save as we may make the 
 whole world a better place to be born again into.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 151 
 
 With this realization, man liberates his spirit 
 from its thralldom to ancestral prejudices. The 
 worker for the good of humanity sees in super- 
 naturalism a barrier to progressive movements 
 and a stronghold of the privileged classes; but 
 in opening fire upon this citadel, he makes atheism 
 one in a program of several proposals for ethical 
 reform.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Beatitude happiness, in intensest degree of 
 the greatest number of living beings for the long- 
 est time as the test of the worth of anything 
 must be another proposition of the new ethics. 
 From this one it follows that the first step in vir- 
 tue is to become either light-hearted or diligent or 
 magnanimous. The second step is to combine two 
 of these qualities. The final step is to combine all 
 three. Generally it may be said that from the 
 point of view of hedonism the lowest type of man 
 is that degenerate type produced by civilization, 
 the worrier. We see him as the sensualist trying 
 consciously to stimulate his jaded senses ; or as the 
 sentimental woman hurrying from cult to cult on 
 account of what someone has named "that stream 
 of emotions she calls her soul." We must entice 
 these people with the value of simple enjoyment 
 of the passing moment. Next there are the but- 
 terfly types, thoroughly natural but forever in- 
 volving themselves not to mention their friends 
 in difficulties by their indiscretions. We must 
 appeal to them in the hour of their trial to be no 
 longer deceived by these illusions, but to drop off 
 what hinders future happiness. Third are those 
 who calmly bend all efforts toward one end, but 
 that end a selfish one these include most ambi- 
 tious and ascetic types ; we must show them how 
 their self -centered interest defeats its own end. 
 and requires the cultivation of a magnanimous
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 153 
 
 purpose. Finally there are the few happy people 
 who have lost themselves in serving others. 
 
 SECTION I 
 
 "Always be cheerful, smile ! A good laugh is 
 the best medicine." 
 
 Why is it, when the evil results of religion 
 would appear to be so evident, men still adhere 
 to it? Partly, as we've shown, because certain 
 parties derive a profit from it and partly because 
 it sublimates our love for it. But there's another 
 reason, in the comfort which many people find 
 in it. It's hard to shake off, just as is a drug. 
 "No one" condones a writer in the Truth Seeker." 1 
 who have had any intimate experience of the sor- 
 rows of life can fail to have a certain sympathy 
 with people whose failing courage on extraneous 
 support. . . We pity, rather than condemn, the 
 man who is driven by insomnia to the relief af- 
 forded by opium. But one consideration emerges 
 . . . from this attempt to answer. . . "Why men 
 believe? by descriptions of the consoling power 
 of Christianity. True though these descriptions 
 may be, they do not prove the truth of Christian- 
 ity. 
 
 The thought that Christ wiped out the sins of 
 men by his death on the cross may be soothing to 
 the man or woman struggling against temptation, 
 but the soothing influence does not prove that 
 that event took place. A dying sufferer may be 
 
 'Feb. 1, 1919.
 
 154 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 comforted with the thought of heaven, but his 
 pleasure in the thought does not demonstrate the 
 existence of a future life. The wish is father to 
 the thought, 'but the thought is not father to the 
 proof. 
 
 It is, surely, only a most pessimistic view of 
 the world that can bring belief through consola- 
 tion into such prominence. Christianity, appar- 
 ently, has been partly responsible for the pessim- 
 ism. It has taught the essential wickedness of 
 man; it has preached the dependence on Provi- 
 dential care; and it has turned the eyes of man 
 from his own vile self and the corrupt things of 
 this world to the beauties of heaven. In this way 
 it has created the very spirit of despair in human 
 effort the power of the human will to overcome 
 trouble is weakened and the soul becomes a prey 
 to its own weakness. 
 
 Surely, when one is asked to choose between 
 a "gospel" which represents man as a care-worn 
 child comforting himself with the alleged prom- 
 ises of an alleged creator, and a view of life which 
 gives man the power of his own salvation and 
 makes him the arbiter of his own destiny, there 
 can be no hesitation. 
 
 Regarding "Theosophy, Spiritualism, and 
 Christian Science," . . . "The extraordinary vogue 
 which they have among women and among men 
 of emotional temperament proves that the ra- 
 tional element does not predominate. Theosophy
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 155 
 
 brings ineffable peace to the soul; Spiritualism 
 comforts us with . . . communication," etc. 
 
 Here we're reminded of R. C. Givler's 2 obser- 
 vation : "I vaguely recall reading somewhere that 
 the word 'Adam' . . . means 'a dam' or 'obstruc- 
 tion,' whence it is proven that mortal mind is 
 very, very impervious to spiritual influences."* 
 
 "In the writings of certan mental healers of 
 today, for example, alliteration is the highest 
 'logical' category; 'experience proves' is a shibol- 
 eth from another quarter, from persons blissfully 
 ignorant of the fact that experience is both a 
 noun and a verb, usually employed in an equivocal 
 sense. 'It is unthinkable,' asserts a third party, 
 and then goes on to state just how carefully the 
 'unthinkable' has been thot out. From such pit- 
 falls of expression one needs to be emphatically 
 warned in psychology." 
 
 An article in The Truth Seeker concluded: 
 
 The situation led a ... cannon to remark, after 
 setting out to convert an Agnostic: "We are on 
 different sides of the stream. You want a re- 
 ligion founded on reason; mine is founded on 
 faith." 
 
 "Belief through consolation may commend it- 
 self to the emotional and imaginative, but such 
 a view of religion adds nothing to the depository 
 of truth, nor does it create an increment in human 
 knowledge and efficiency." 
 
 2 Idem., p. 11. 
 
 *The Conscious Cross-Section, p. 47.
 
 156 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 The above excellent article was followed by this 
 poem: 
 
 THE QUESTION. 
 
 You rob us of all that is sacred, 
 Of Bible, of God, and of grace; 
 
 But when you thus take our religion, 
 What else do you give in its place? 
 
 The Old, Old Story. 
 
 With Bible wide open the preacher, 
 
 As its pages he pounded and pawed, 
 Denounced the devices of Satan 
 
 And exalted the glory of God. 
 "All fable and myth!" cried the Skeptic; 
 
 "Contradictions absurd on their face!" 
 "I know it," assented the other, 
 
 "But what will you give in their place?" 
 
 Deluded, a woman prayed hourly 
 
 Some fancied offense to atone; 
 Far greater her sin, she imagined, 
 
 Than God had the will to condone. 
 "You pine 'without cause," ventured Reason. 
 
 There was end of the devotee's grace; 
 "Away! you would take my loved sorrow, 
 
 And leave not a pang in its place." 
 
 A mendicant sat in the highway 
 
 Where rags half his person disclosed; 
 There were Lazarus sores on his body, 
 
 Which in charity's name he exposed, 
 "I would clothe you in health," proffered Science; 
 
 But the mendicant made a grimace. 
 "My wounds are my wealth," said the fakir, 
 
 "And what could you give in their place?"
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 157 
 
 A traveler once in the Southland 
 
 Discovered a people in chains; 
 When he read them the story of Freedom, 
 
 They gave him sour looks for his pains. 
 Said they: "We are told by our masters 
 
 That chains are God's gift to our race; 
 Before you have riven them from us 
 
 Say what you will give in their place." 3 
 
 Undoubtedly, however, we must recognize from 
 the psychological standpoint that some others, 
 more useful, and more satisfying channel must 
 be found for that portion of the ego which hither- 
 to expressed itself thru religion. 
 
 Let's begin by controverting the philosophy 
 which sets up pleasure as the end of life. An 
 article in the International Encyclopedia states 
 that "psychological hedonism" is "contraverted by 
 well known facts. So far is man from always 
 seeking pleasure that in most of his actions he 
 has no thought of pleasure. He acts from auto- 
 matic impulse, from instinct, from habit, from 
 desire for certain objective ends, as well as oc- 
 casionally from a desire for pleasure." 
 
 Jealousy of admitting that one's fellow crea- 
 tures can possess more than a limited amount of 
 virtue or should I say, the craving to reduce 
 psychology to a few handy empirical rules,? 
 finds expression in old Epicurus' doctrine, that 
 all human conduct is derivable from the selfish 
 craving to be happy. 
 
 *Go. E. Macdonald.
 
 158 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 This view has been begotten (in the face of 
 evident facts) from one of man's principal vices, 
 his lust for metaphysics. The slander, that "crea- 
 tures are moved only by self-interest," is born in 
 our desire to reduce all the complexities of life 
 down to a few handy forumlae. Color has been 
 given to it by old-time notions of the Soul, which 
 was presumed to be the seat of "The Reason," and 
 "The Will," as well as of "Consciousness;" and 
 which the church has tried to bribe into being 
 good by dangling as bait the hope of an after- 
 death reward a tacit admission of, and more- 
 over an emphasis upon, self-interest. 
 
 It was left for writers of the last two or three 
 decades to prove conclusively that the pleasure- 
 seeking selfishness of human nature isn't a hard 
 and fast rule without exceptions, in quite the 
 sense that a prematurely supercilious philoso- 
 phy assumed it to be. Not at least save as our 
 actual actions may symbolize for us other actions 
 which would give selfish pleasure to us. This 
 reservation we make and wish to have understood 
 thru all the following argument, which indeed it 
 largely negatives. 
 
 Professor Wm. James has argued this point so 
 thoroughly and well that for proof we refer the 
 reader to volume two of his Principles of Psychol- 
 ogy, pages 550 to 559. 
 
 "Present pleasures are tremendous reinforcers, rand 
 present pains tremendous inhibitors of whatever action 
 leads to them, so the thoughts of pleasures and pains
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 159 
 
 take rank amongst the thoughts which have most impul- 
 sive and inhibitive power. ... It is almost impossible for 
 a man to cut or mutilate himself slowly or deliberately 
 his hand invincibly refusing to bring on the pain. Many 
 pleasures . . . when once we have begun to taste them 
 make it all but obligatory to keep up the activity to which 
 they are due. So widespread and searching is this influ- 
 ence of pleasures and pains upon our movements that a 
 premature philosophy has decided that these are our only 
 spurs to action, and that therever they seem to be absent 
 it is only because they are so far on among the 'remoter' 
 images that prompt to action that are overlooked." 
 
 "This* is a great mistake, however. Important as is 
 the influence of pleasures and pains upon our movements, 
 they are far from being our only stimuli. With the mani- 
 festations of instinct and emotional expression, for ex- 
 ample, they have absolutely nothing to do. Who smiles 
 for the pleasure of the smiling, or frowns for the pleas- 
 ure of the frown? Who blushes to escape the discom- 
 fort of not blushing? Or who in anger, grief, or fear 
 is actuated to the movements which he makes by the 
 pleasures which they yield? In all these cases the move- 
 ments are discharged fatally by the vis a tergo which 
 the stimulus exerts upon a nervous system, framed to 
 respond in just that way. The objects of our rage, love, or 
 terror, the occasions of our tears and smiles, whether they 
 be present to our sense, or whether they be merely rep- 
 resented in idea, have this peculiar sort of impulsive 
 power. The impulsive quality of mental states is an at- 
 tribute behind which we cannot go. Feelings of pleasure 
 and pain have it, but neither have it exclusively or pecu- 
 liarly. It is of the essence of all consciousness (or of 
 the neural process which underlies it) to instigate move- 
 ment of some sort. That with one creature and object 
 it should be of one sort, with others of another sort, is a 
 problem for evolutionary history to explain. However, 
 
 4 James : Psychology, vol. II, pp. 550-559.
 
 160 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 the actual impulsions may have arisen, they must now 
 be described as they exist; and those persons obey a 
 curiously narrow teleological superstition who think them- 
 selves bound to interpret them in every instance as effects 
 of the secret solicitancy of pleasure and repugnacy of 
 pain. 5 
 
 "... These motives are supplied by innumberable ob- 
 jects, which innervate our voluntary muscles by a process 
 as automatic as that by which they light a fever in our 
 breasts. If the thought of pleasure can impel to action, 
 surely other thoughts may. Experience only can decide 
 which thoughts do. The chapters on Instinct and Emotion 
 have shown us that their name is legion; and with this 
 verdict we ought to remain contended, and not seek an 
 illusory simplification at the cost of half the facts. 
 
 "If in these our first acts pleasures and pains bear no 
 part, as little do they bear in our last acts, or those ar- 
 tificially acquired performances which have become ha- 
 bitual. All the daily routine of life, our dressing and un- 
 dressing, the coming and going from our work or carry- 
 ing through of its various operations, is utterly without 
 
 (James' note) 5 "The silliness of the old-fashioned pleasure-philoso- 
 phy saute aux yeux. Take for example Prof. Bain's explanation of 
 sociability and Parental love by the pleasures of touch : "Touch is 
 the fundamental and generic sense. . . The combined power of soft 
 contact and warmth amounts to a considerable pitch of massive pleas- 
 ure. . . . The sort of thrill from taking a baby in arms is something 
 beyond mere warm touch ; and it may rise to the ecstatic height. . . . 
 In mere tender emotion not sexual, there is nothing but the sense of 
 touch to stratifying. Touch is both the alpha and omega of affec- 
 tion. . . . Why should a more lively feeling grow up towards a fellow- 
 being than toward a perennial fountain? (This 'should' is simply de- 
 licious from the more modern evolutionary point of view). To ac- 
 count for this, I can suggest nothing but the primary and independ- 
 ent pleasure of the animal embrace." (Mind, this is said not of the 
 sexual interest, but of 'Sociability at Large.') . . . Prof. Bain does 
 not explain why a satin cushion kept at about 98 F. would not on 
 the whole give us the pleasure in question more cheaply than our 
 friends and babies do. It is true that the cushion might lack the 
 'occult magnetic influences." Most of us would say that neither a 
 baby's nor a friend's skin would possess them, were not a tenderness 
 already there. The youth who feels ecstasy shoot through him when 
 by accident the silken palm, or even the 'vesture's hem of his idol 
 touches him, would hardly feel it. were he not hard hit by Cupid in 
 advance. The love creates the ecstasy, not the ecstasy the love.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 161 
 
 mental reference to pleasure and pain, except under rarely 
 realized conditions. 
 
 "... As I do not breathe for the pleasure of the 
 breathing, but simply find that I am breathing, so I do 
 not write for the pleasure of the writing, but simply be- 
 cause I have once begun, and being in a state of intel- 
 lectual excitement which keeps venting itself in that way, 
 find that I am writing still. Who will pretend that when 
 he idly fingers his knife-handle at the table, it is for the 
 sake of any pleasure which it gives him, or pain which he 
 thereby avoids ? We all do these things because at the 
 moment we cannot help it; our nervous systems are so 
 shaped that they overflow in just that way; and for many 
 of our idle or purely 'nervous' and fidgety performances 
 we can assign absolutely no reason at all. 
 
 "Or what shall be said of a shy and unsociable man 
 who receives point-blank an invitation to a small party? 
 The thing is to him an abomination; but your presence 
 exerts a compulsion on him, he can think of no excuse, and 
 so says yes, cursing himself the while for what he does. 
 He is unusually sui compos who does not every week of 
 his life fall into some such blundering act as this. Such 
 instances of voluntas invita show not only that our acts 
 cannot all be conceived as effects of represented pleasure, 
 but that they cannot even be classed as cases of repre- 
 sented good. The class 'goods' contains many more gen- 
 erally influential motives to action than the class 'pleas- 
 ants.' Pleasures 6ften attract us only because we deem 
 them goods. Mr. Spencer, e. g., urges us to court pleas- 
 ures for their influence upon health, which comes to us as 
 a good. But almost as little as under the form of pleas- 
 ures do our acts invariably appear to us under the form 
 of goods. All diseased impulses and pathological fixed 
 ideas are instances to the contrary. It is the very bad- 
 ness of the act that gives it then its vertiginous fascina- 
 tion. Remove the prohibition, and the attraction stops. 
 In my university days a student threw himself from an
 
 162 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 upper entry window of one of the college buildings and 
 was nearly killed. Another student, a friend of my own, 
 had to pass the window daily in coming and going from 
 his room, and experienced a dreadful temptation to imi- 
 tate the deed. . . His director said, 'all right! if you must, 
 you must. Go ahead and do it,' thereby instantly quench- 
 ing his desire. . . . But we need not go to minds diseased 
 for examples of the occasional tempting-power of simple 
 badness and unpleasantness as such. Every one who has 
 a wound or hurt anywhere, a sore tooth, e. g., will ever 
 and anon press it just to bring out the pain. If we are 
 near a new sort of stink, we must sniff it again just to 
 verify once more how bad it is. This very day I have 
 been repeating over and over to myself a verbal jingle 
 whose mawkish silliness was the secret of its haunting 
 power. I loathed yet could not banish it. 
 
 "Believers in the pleasure-and-pain theory must thus, 
 if they are candid, make large exceptions in the applica- 
 tion of their creed. . . . 
 
 "Accordingly, where Professor Bain finds an exception 
 to this rule, he refuses to call the phenomenon a 'gen- 
 uinely voluntary impulse.' The exceptions, he admits, 'are 
 those furnished by never-dying spontaneity, habits, and 
 fixed ideas.' Fixed ideas 'traverse the proper course of 
 volition.' 
 
 "Disinterested impulses are wholly distinct from the 
 attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. . . . The 
 theory of disinterested action, in the only form that I 
 can conceive it, supposes that the action of the will and 
 the attainment of happiness do not square thruout." 
 
 "Sympathy has this in common with the Fixed Idea, 
 that it clashes with the regular outgoings of the will in 
 favor of our pleasure." 
 
 "Prof. Bain thus admits all the essential facts. Pleas- 
 ure and pain are motives of only part of our activity. But 
 he prefers to give to that part of the activity exclusively 
 which these feelings prompt the name of 'regular out-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 163 
 
 goings' and 'genuine impulses' of the will, and to treat 
 all the rest as mere paradoxes and anomalies, of which 
 nothing rational can be said. This amounts to taking one 
 species of a genus, calling it along by the generic name, 
 and ordering the other co-ordinate species to find what 
 names they may. At bottom this is only verbal play. . . . 
 
 "There is, it is true, a complication in the relation of 
 pleasure to action, which partly excuses those who make 
 it the exclusive spur. . . . 
 
 "... To have compassed the steps towards a proposed 
 sensual indulgence also makes us glad, and this gladness 
 is a pleasure additional to the pleasure originally pro- 
 posed. On the other hand, we are chagrined and dis- 
 pleased when any activity, however instigated, is hind- 
 ered whilst in process of actual discharge. We are 'un- 
 easy' till the discharge starts up again. And this is just 
 as true when the action is neutral, or has nothing but pain 
 in view as its result, as when it was undertaken for pleas- 
 ure's express sake. The moth is probably as annoyed if 
 hindered from getting into the lamp-flame as the rogue is 
 if interrupted in his debauch; and we are chagrined if 
 prevented from doing some quite unimportant act which 
 would have given us no noticeable pleasure if done, merely 
 because the prevention itself is disagreeable. 
 
 "... A pleasant act and an act pursuing a pleasure 
 are in themselves, however, two perfectly distinct con- 
 ceptions, though they coalesce in one concrete phenom- 
 enon whenever a pleasure is deliberately pursued. I can- 
 not help thinking that it is the confusion of pursued pleas- 
 ure with mere pleasure of achievement which makes the 
 pleasure-theory of action so plausible to the ordinary 
 mind. We feel an impulse, no matter whence derived; we 
 proceed to act; if hindered, we feel displeasure; and if 
 successful, relief. Action in the line of the present im- 
 pulse is always for the time being the pleasant course; 
 and the ordinary hedonist expresses this fact by saying 
 that we act for the sake of the pleasantness involved. But
 
 164 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 who does not see that for this sort of pleasure to be 
 possible, the impulse must be there already as an inde- 
 pendent fact? The pleasure of successful performance 
 is the result of the impulse, not its cause. You cannot 
 have your pleasure of achievement unless you have man- 
 aged to get your impulse under head-way beforehand by 
 some previous means. 
 
 "It is true that on special occasions (so complex is the 
 human mind) the pleasure of achievement may itself be- 
 come a pursued pleasure; and these cases form another 
 point on which the pleasure-theory is apt to rally. Take 
 a foot-ball game or a fox-hunt. Who in cold blood wants 
 the fox for its own sake, or cares whether the ball be at 
 this goal or that? We know, however, by experience, that 
 if we can once rouse a certain impulsive excitement in our- 
 selves, whether to overtake the fox, or to get the ball 
 to one particular goal, the successful venting of it over 
 the counteracting checks will fill us with exceeding joy. 
 We therefore get ourselves deliberately and artificially 
 into the hot impulsive state. It takes the presence of 
 various instinct-arousing conditions to excite it; but lit- 
 tle by little, once we are in the field, it reaches its par- 
 oxysm; and we reap the reward of our exertions in that 
 pleasure of successful achievement which, far more than 
 the dead fox or the goal-got ball, was the object we orig- 
 inally pursued. So it often is with duties. Lots of ac- 
 tions are done with heaviness all through, and not till 
 they are completed does pleasure emerge, in the joy 
 of being done with them. Like Hamlet we say of each 
 successive task, 
 
 'O cursed spite, 
 
 That ever I was born to set it right!' 
 
 and then we often add to the original impulse that set us 
 on, this additional one, that 'we shall feel so glad when 
 well through with it,' that thought also having its impul- 
 sive spur. But because a pleasure of achievement can
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 165 
 
 thus become a pursued pleasure upon occasion, it does not 
 follow that everywhere and always that pleasure must 
 be what is pursued. This, however, is what the pleasure- 
 philosophers seem to suppose. As well might they sup- 
 pose, because no steamer can go to sea without incidental- 
 ly consuming coal, and because some steamers may oc- 
 casionally go to sea to try their coal, that therefore no 
 steamer can go to sea for any other motive than that of 
 coal-consumption. 6 
 
 "As we need not act for the sake of gaining the pleas- 
 ure of achievement, so neither need we act for the sake 
 of escaping the uneasiness of arrest. This uneasiness is 
 altogether due to the fact that the act is already tending 
 to occur on other grounds. And these original grounds 
 are what impel to its continuance, even though the un- 
 easiness of the arrest may upon occasion add to their 
 impulsive power." 
 
 James thus ends his argument: "To conclude, 
 I am far from denying the exceeding prominence 
 and importance of the part which pleasures and 
 pains, both felt and represented, play in the mo- 
 tivation of our conduct. But I must insist that 
 it is no exclusive part, and that co-ordinately with 
 these mental objects innumerable others have an 
 exactly similar impulsive and inhibitive power." 7 
 
 6"How much clearer Hume's head was than that of his disciples' ! 
 It has been proved beyond all controversy that even the passions 
 commonly esteemed selfish carry the Mind beyond self directly to the 
 object ; that though the satisfaction of these passions gives us en- 
 joyment, yet the prospect of this enjoyment is not the cause of the 
 passions but, on the contrary, the passion is antecedent to the enjoy- 
 ment, and without the former the latter could never possible exist," 
 etc. 
 
 Tin favor of the view in the text, one may consult H. Sedgwick, 
 Methods of Ethics, book I, chap. IV ; T. H. Green, Prolegomena to 
 Ethics, bk. iii. chap. 1. p. 179 Carpenter, Mental Physiol., chap. VI; 
 J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, part 11, bk. 1, chap. 11. i, 
 and bk. 11, branch 1. chap. 1. i 3. Against it see Leslie Stephen, 
 Science of Ethics, chap. 11 ; H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, 9-15 ; D. G. 
 Thompson, System of Psychology, part Ix, and Mind vi, 62. Also 
 Bain, Senses and Intellect, 38-44, Emotions and Will, 436."
 
 166 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 McDougall 8 adds: 
 
 "None of the doctrines of the associationist 
 psychology was more profoundly misleading and 
 led to greater absurdities than the attempt to ex- 
 hibit pleasure and pain as the source of all activi- 
 ties. What could be more absurd than Professor 
 Bain's doctrine that the joy of a mother in her 
 child, her tender care and self-sacrificing efforts 
 in its behalf, are due to the pleasure she derives 
 from bodily contact with it in the maternal em- 
 brace? Or what could be more strained and op- 
 posed to hundreds of familiar facts than Herbert 
 Spencer's doctrine that the emotion of fear pro- 
 voked by any object consists in faint revivals, in 
 some strange cluster, of ideas of all the pains suf- 
 fered in the past upon contact with, or in the 
 presence of, that object? (cf. Bain's "Emotions 
 and the Will," chap. VI ; and H. Spencer's "Prin- 
 ciples of Psychology," vol. I, part IV, chap. VIII, 
 3rd Ed.) 
 
 Now that the fallacy of the extreme form of 
 pleasure-philosophy, has been exposed, we're in a 
 position to discuss impartially the time function 
 of displeasure and other factors in conduct. 
 
 One of the new psychological concepts, for 
 which the Russian school (especially Pavlov) is 
 chiefly to be credited, is that of the Conditioned 
 Reflex. Within certain ranges of stimulus, ani- 
 mals are motived to outgoing activities; but a 
 different range of the same stimuli causes with- 
 
 8 McDougall Instincts, p. 45.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 167 
 
 drawing reactions. Thus, small enough doses of 
 any drug are in their effect stimulant, large doses 
 are narcotic. Hints of the conditioned reflex idea 
 occur in Thorndike's "instinct of general physical 
 activity." It's more emphasized by Pavlov, Wood- 
 worth, Holt, and to a degree Le Dantec and others. 
 Comparison is valuable with Bleuler's theories of 
 Schizophrenic negativism, ambivalency, and am- 
 bitendency. 
 
 "Oltmanns had observed that Phycomyces is 
 positively heliotropic in weak light, indifferent in 
 somewhat stronger light, and negatively helio- 
 tropic in still stronger light." 9 
 
 We can detect in ourselves the reversal of the 
 mechanism of response when the tension is too 
 great. As Dr. Allport suggested in a seminar, 
 with too intense a stimulus we feel that the situa- 
 tion is "over our head" and become indifferent to 
 it. Also a chick may become simply "blind" to 
 caterpillars as food to be pecked at after the chick 
 has experienced their wooliness. 
 
 On the subject of habit, Loeb makes this con- 
 tribution under the head of "memory impulses 
 and Tropisms:" 
 
 "When a muscle is stimulated several times in 
 succession, the effect of the second or third or 
 later stimulation may be greater than that of the 
 first. A consistently anthropomorphic author 
 should draw the inference that the muscle is 
 gradually learning to react properly. What seems 
 
 9 Loeb Tropisms, p. 117.
 
 168 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 to happen is that the hydrogen ion concentration 
 is raised by the first stimulations to a point where 
 the effect of the stimulation becomes greater. 
 When the stimulations continue and the hydrogen 
 ion concentration becomes still greater, the re- 
 sponse of the muscle declines and finally becomes 
 zero; the hydrogen ion concentration has now 
 become too high. The writer observed that when 
 winged plant lice of a Cineraria were taken di- 
 rectly from the plant, they did not react as 
 promptly as after they had gone through several 
 heliotropic experiments. There is nothing to in- 
 dicate that this is a case of "learning" since it 
 may also be the result of a change in the hydrogen 
 ion concentration or of some other reaction prod- 
 uct. 10 
 
 "Learning is only possible where there exists a 
 specific organ of associative memory, the physi- 
 cal mechanism of which is still unknown!" 11 
 
 And again: "Memory images may have a di- 
 rect orienting influence. The chemotropic phe- 
 nomenon of an insect laying its egg on a sub- 
 stance which serves as food (for both mother and 
 off -spring) and for which the mother is positively 
 chemotropic, may be modified by an act of asso- 
 ciative memory, e. g., when a solitary wasp drags 
 the caterpillar on which it lays its eggs to a pre- 
 viously prepared hole in the ground. The essen- 
 tial part of the instinct, the laying of the eggs on 
 
 10 Loeb, Jacques Tropisms, p. 164. 
 "Idem., p. 165.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 169 
 
 the caterpillar, does, perhaps, not differ very much 
 from the fly laying its eggs on decaying meat; 
 and the solitary wasp may be strongly positively 
 chemotropic for the caterpillar on which it lays 
 the eggs, although this has not yet been investi- 
 gated. But the phenomenon is complicated by a 
 second tropism, which we will call the "orienting 
 effect of the memory image. As is well known, 
 the wasp before 'going for' the caterpillar, digs 
 a hole in the ground to which it afterwards drags 
 the caterpillar, often from a distance. The find- 
 ing of this previously prepared hole by the re- 
 turning wasp, the writer would designate as the 
 tropistic or orienting effect of the memory image 
 of the location of this hole ; meaning thereby that 
 the memory image of the location of this hole 
 makes the animal return to this location." 
 
 Thorndike, in his experiments with cats, who 
 learned to get out of boxes by manipulating 
 latches, noted that the animals tended to keep all 
 learned elements in the same order. In this he 
 differs from Jennings. 
 
 The proper way to commence the study of any 
 psychic function is by considering first its simpler 
 forms of manifestation. This method pursued in 
 the case of voluntary action has led to the modern 
 theory of Conditioned Reflexes. According to 
 this, we're endowed at birth, not so especially 
 with an assortment of specific instincts, as with 
 a fund of energy seeking outlet in any available 
 channel (Thorndike's "Instinct of General Physi-
 
 170 PHILOSOPHY OP HELPFULNESS 
 
 cal Activity"). This energy takes the form of 
 efferent (out-going) nervous currents to one or 
 another group of the centers which control muscu- 
 lar actions. Like the flow of compressed air into 
 an automatic rock-drill, so the nervous energy of 
 a new-born chick floods into centers which con- 
 trol certain muscles of his neck and elsewhere, 
 and cause up-and-down pecking movements. In 
 the chick, however, there's a mechanism, the 
 nerve-endings in eyes, the taste bulbs, etc., which 
 now sends back to the controlling centers other, 
 afferent (in-coming) currents, which may as it 
 were close the valve and shut off any further sup- 
 ply of air from our rock-drill; that is, stop the 
 pecking movements of the chick. Actually, thinks 
 Hobhouse, when the chick say, who has been peck- 
 ing at gravel, seeds, worms, etc., pecks at a cater- 
 pillar, this "incongruous" morsel stimulates the 
 release of energy into withdrawing movements, 
 and it is the antagonism of the old and new move- 
 ments which is the "asynergie" or non-active con- 
 duct we observe. 
 
 Thorndike here makes the criticism that "con- 
 gruous" and "incongruous" have in themselves 
 no power of making connections between neurons. 
 We suspect that one must read into the chick's 
 situation an element of pleasure when he pecks 
 at the worms, and of displeasure when he gets the 
 caterpillar. Pleasure, as Cannon* and others have 
 so well shown, causes a secretion of certain sub- 
 stances by special glands within the body, where- 
 
 * Cannon Bodily Changes.
 
 171 
 
 as displeasure causes other and very different 
 secretions. Isn't it possible that the pleasure- 
 secretions cause growth towards each other of 
 the nerve ends, or otherwise reduce the synoptic 
 resistance to passage of nerve-currents, whereas 
 displeasure-secretions cause shrinkage apart of 
 these ends or otherwise increase the resistance? 
 
 Pavlov, Woodworth, and others yield allegiance 
 to the conditioned reflex. Prof. Holt, of Harvard, 
 holds that the early random movements may be 
 tropisms to various stimuli, like that of the flower 
 which turns toward the sun. We shall discuss 
 tropisms in our next essay. Le Dantec, a noted 
 French psychologist, points out that eight of the 
 "ten commandments" are negative an indication 
 that the prevailing tendency of organisms is pos- 
 itive or out-going. 
 
 An important fact about the conditioned re- 
 flexes is the way in which one and the same stimu- 
 lus, according as it is now moderate or now in- 
 tense may excite now out-going now withdraw- 
 ing actions, now attack and now fear, or now love 
 and now disgust. Perhaps these effects operate 
 thru the medium of the secretions they generate 
 within the body, by a chemotropic mechanism 
 similar to that of our response to drugs. A small 
 amount of alcohol or caffeine, or whatever, stimu- 
 lates; but a sufficiently large dose narcotizes. 
 
 As we shall show with more detail in later es- 
 says, much havoc is wrot within the organism by 
 the conflict of the out-going and the withdrawing
 
 172 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tendencies, when they are charged with strong 
 impulsive values, at least when the issue is re- 
 pressed instead of being faced frankly and on the 
 conscious plane. Hitchman tells how while the 
 great French physician "Charcot was engaged in 
 the study of the hysterical paralyzes which follow 
 dreams, the idea came to him to reproduce these 
 artificially and to this end he made use of hysteri- 
 cal patients whom he brought into the sonnambul- 
 istic state by hypnosis. He succeeded that these 
 paralyses may be the result of ideas which have 
 gained the mastery of the patient's brain in mo- 
 ments of special disposition."* 
 
 It was finally revealed that behind sexual erotic 
 events of puberty are still more far-reaching ex- 
 periences of infantile life, which are also of sexual 
 content. . . . Since these infantile experiences 
 of sexual content can produce a psychic effect only 
 by the aid of the memory, here is revealed the 
 insight that hysterical symptoms never arise 
 without the co-operation of the memory. Hysteri- 
 cal patients suffer from "reminiscences." (Freud- 
 Hitschman, pp. 8-9.) "A definite complex is in 
 every case the occasion and content of the neu- 
 rosis it is the ruling power in the diseased 
 mind." 
 
 However, it's explicitly stated now that "the 
 neurotic constitution pre-exists" or antedates, 
 the specific occasion of the neurosis. What is this 
 neurotic constitution? C. G. Jung implies a con- 
 
 *Freud-Hitschnian Theories of the Neuroses, pp. 5-6.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 173 
 
 nection between it and an abnormal degree of 
 "extraversion" or of "introversion." To explain 
 these terms he cites the two-type division of men 
 made by so many writers, to which we shall come 
 in a moment. 
 
 We, all of us, possess dual nature, at once for 
 and against each proposal, the tendency techni- 
 cally called Bi-valence. The conception of Bi- 
 valence is due, we believe, chiefly to Freud and 
 Adler, and it may be explained somewhat as fol- 
 lows. Whenever we have an impulse to perform 
 an act of a certain kind, there goes with it always 
 an impulse in exactly the opposite direction ; and 
 positive conduct is possible only as one of these 
 tendencies continuously outbalances the other. 
 This doubleness of value in our impulses is called 
 ambi-tendency. When, however, we have lived 
 out to the point of surfeit our tendencies in one 
 direction, it will often happen that the directly 
 opposite tendency then gains the ascendency. This 
 is why frequently an individual whose life has 
 been most unexceptionable will suddenly seem to 
 change his character completely and commit acts 
 of a scandalous nature. It explains, on the other 
 hand, why persons who have lived out only the 
 evil side of their characters, as e. g., gamblers, 
 prostitutes, etc., astonish those who do not well 
 understand human nature by manifesting a 
 wholly unexpected self sacrifice, generosity, etc. 
 The libido, surfeited with evil, craves good. 
 
 In each of us exists this complex nature, result-
 
 174 
 
 ing from his multitude of contradictory instincts, 
 and it is true that every impulse that prompts us 
 to act in one direction is accompanied by a con- 
 trary tendency to act in precisely the opposite 
 manner. We cannot think, for instance, of re- 
 maining seated without the idea occurring to us of 
 getting up. Where the individual completely de- 
 nies all expression, even in sublimated or symboli- 
 cal form, for a long period of time, to any element 
 of his nature, that neglected tendency is likely at 
 some time to completely overbalance his whole 
 system of life and cause him to run amuck to the 
 astonishment no less of himself than of his 
 friends. The saint will become sinner; and the 
 sinner will experience emotional religious conver- 
 sion, throw himself ecstatically into work of re- 
 form or whatever it may be, or perhaps will show 
 a degree of kindness and self-sacrifice that the or- 
 dinary good person despairs of. This explains 
 many of the inconsistencies of life. 
 
 Moreover, where our natural desires are 
 slighted in a way that we find it impossible to 
 remedy directly, our nature tends to compensate 
 itself for these injuries in some other direction. 
 In the case of a normal person, the repression of 
 his personality which he has experienced may 
 spur him to renewed effort and to the achieve- 
 ment of extraordinary success. Thus we find 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, in his childhood, when 
 scorned by all his playmates at the aristocratic 
 French military academy, plunging into His
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 175 
 
 studies and evolving his plans for future great- 
 ness with a concentration of energy which goes 
 far to explain his subsequent career. Again, the 
 philosopher Kant produced his system of meta- 
 physics as a means of withdrawing from the 
 physical pain which his illness caused him. The 
 neurotic is the person in whom this compensation 
 takes a useless channel, a symbolical and merely 
 delusive channel, or in which it goes to an extreme 
 that is as bad as or worse than the original 
 trouble itself. This last case, that of swinging 
 too far in an opposite direction, is called over- 
 compensation, and it is part of the explanation of 
 our tendency to balk our own conscious desires, 
 offend our patrons, or do the inappropriate action. 
 
 The simplest classification of conduct is into 
 dichotomies (division of two). A conveniently 
 twice dichotomised classification (Hopkins) is 
 into two out-going drives, Assimilative and 
 Erotic, and their two reversals, the Rejective and 
 Jealous. We shall use this somewhat in this book. 
 Preference is given the term Rejective over 
 the term Fugitive, as indicating either Fear or 
 Disgust reactions, and agreeing with the reflex 
 noted by Wm. James, "turning the head aside." 
 
 James discusses men under head of two types 
 "Tough-minded" (emperical) and "Tender- 
 minded" (loving theory). Warringer's two oppo- 
 sites were typified respectively by Sympathy and 
 Abstraction. For Schiller they were the Naif and 
 the Sentimental. Nietzsche mentions Appollonian
 
 176 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 and Dionysian. Gross gives Weakness and Rein- 
 forcement of consecutive function. Freud and 
 Adler dwell upon Casualism and Sentimentality. 
 C. G. Jung, who has made this list, prefers his 
 own division into Extravert and Introvert. The 
 Extrovert is wrapped up in the outer world ; con- 
 sciously his is what Thorndike calls an "interest 
 in people and their feelings;" he compromises 
 readily to meet facts. The introvert is self- 
 centered; consciously his is what Thorndike calls 
 the "interest in things and their mechanisms;" 
 and he would rather go thru the mountain than 
 around. 
 
 One of Jung's favorite contributions is this di- 
 vision of man into two psychological types the 
 extra vert type and the introvert type. Some of 
 us are familiar with classifications made by vari- 
 ous men, for example, Professor James divided 
 man into the tough-minded and the tender- 
 minded, meaning by the latter the men who reflect 
 upon their ideas they create philosophical sys- 
 tems, and meaning by tough-minded those who 
 are imperical in their point of view, deal with 
 facts rather than with ideas, etc. Nietzsche spoke 
 of the Appolonian and Dionysiac types of men, 
 meaning by them much the same thing. We think 
 Jung's classification is really the clearest; by in- 
 trovert he means the type of man whose gaze 
 turns inward, who translates the whole world in 
 terms of himself, and makes it simply a stage for 
 his own acting. On the other hand, he means by
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 177 
 
 the extravert the man whose gaze is turned out- 
 ward upon the world and who projects into that 
 world all his own feelings, reading into every- 
 thing around him interpretations which really 
 represent himself. The introvert is the man of 
 strong character becoming often perverse and 
 stubborn; he is also the intellectual man and the 
 sentimental. The extrovert is the matter-of-fact 
 man, the materialist in philosophy, the pliable 
 and adaptable individual, hardly understanding 
 the meaning of the word principle. 
 
 By the introvert, Jung means the man who is 
 all absorbed in his own ideas and interprets every 
 phenomenon in terms of its subjective value to 
 himself. This type it is which elaborates phil- 
 osophical and ethical and religious systems, which 
 tries to cut its way directly through every obstacle 
 instead of seeking the easier way around. The 
 extrovert, on the other hand, is the pliable man 
 who is little concerned with the inner principles, 
 but adapts himself to the facts of the world as 
 they exist and who, indeed, interprets his own 
 feelings only as manifestations of the attitude of 
 the world outside. When they become pathologi- 
 cal, the introvert engrossed in himself tends to 
 insanity ; the extravert, on the other hand, attrib- 
 uting his own lack of balance entirely to the sup- 
 posed malevolence of the outside world, becomes 
 hysterical. We were much interested in what Mr. 
 Farrington said about the tendency of hysteria 
 to manifest itself only among the men and non-
 
 178 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 commissioned officers. He quoted Arian and Yea- 
 land on a report of 250 cases as saying: "The 
 majority of the patients are below the average 
 of intelligence as judged by the Binet-Simon scale 
 and others who are more highly equipped prove to 
 have an unstable history, either personally or in 
 the family." Another quotation was, on the other 
 hand, that regarding war psychasthenia "among 
 officers neurasthenic symptoms are much more 
 frequent than hysteria, and MacCurdy states that 
 in a pure state it occurs almost exclusively among 
 officers." If these authorities can be relied upon, 
 rt would seem that the more ardent objectively 
 looking natures found their places among the 
 ranks and among those non-commissioned officers 
 whose business it is to deal most directly with the 
 humanity under their charge and not to have the 
 handling of the mathematical and technical prob- 
 lems of management ; and as if, on the other hand, 
 the introversive intellectual calculating type of 
 mind tended predominantly to assume the respon- 
 sibilities of officership. 
 
 And this final dichotomy of characters is based 
 upon an alleged division of the mind itself into 
 two compartments, conscious and unconscious. 
 But these are not equal in volume. The mind 
 rather is like an ice-berg seen at sea, a little part 
 of it is evident, the part called the conscious, 
 and a great part is submerged out of sight, the 
 unconscious. 
 
 Due to this fact that far the larger part of our-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 179 
 
 self is in the unconscious, we continually are de- 
 ceiving ourselves about what we really desire. 
 Because a thing is abstractly good, or good for 
 mankind in the large, and because we have a good 
 opinion of our own character, we proudly say we 
 wish that thing. Still more often, the opposite 
 to this takes place ; our 0wn desire for something 
 is so urgent that we decide that that thing is 
 broadly right and good. 
 
 That happiness now or in the future, for one's 
 self or for others, is the supreme end to be worked 
 for, is a postulate that has appealed, since ancient 
 times, to the wise. We believe that proof whether 
 or not an act promotes such happiness, would be 
 accepted as final tesf of the goodness or evil of 
 the act by more people than would agree to any 
 other test. 
 
 Biologically considered, happiness is the indi- 
 cation of right adjustment. If creatures were 
 happy normally in what was harmful for their 
 species, their kind soon would cease to exist. Let 
 us, by explaining one or two facts of heredity and 
 evolution, substantiate this. 
 
 The principle of inheritance sometimes is thot 
 to mean that a parent transmits all his traits to 
 his offspring. No such theory is advanced by 
 scientists. The extreme contrary opinion of de 
 Vries is now prevalent, that the offspring inherits 
 no traits whatever except about half those which 
 its parents themselves inherited at conception 
 nothing that the parents acquired after conception
 
 180 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 and further that there may appear in the off- 
 spring, to be handed down to future descendants, 
 freakish new "mutations" which never before ap- 
 peared in any ancestor. These and some other 
 laws of inheritance have been adduced by statisti- 
 cal methods and experiments, of which the classi- 
 cal ones are those of Karl Pearson and of Gregor 
 Mendel. They show that improvements of our 
 race will be limited until Eugenics the breeding 
 from the stock of highest inborn (not acquired) 
 endowments is applied. The fact that some en- 
 thusiasts for eugenics habitually over-state their 
 case and ignore obvious economic and other en- 
 vironmental factors, shouldn't obscure this truth, 
 which is substantiated by all we know of biologi- 
 cal evolution. 
 
 Modern ideas of evolution date from Charles 
 Darwin. He called attention to the improvement 
 of breeds of domestic animals which resulted 
 from man selecting only the most desirable types 
 to be parents. In his "Origin of Species" he col- 
 lected observations sometimes credulously ac- 
 cepting anecdotes on hearsay, but usually more 
 irrefutable material in so stupendous quantity 
 as to bear down all opposition, to show that a 
 competition for food constantly goes on between 
 all kinds of animals, wherein the less well-adapted 
 succumb and leave few progeny. Hence, succeed- 
 ing generations are descended from the more suc- 
 cessful types, and inherit their traits ; and by ac- 
 cumulation of new traits new species originate.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 181 
 
 Thus were originated men as well as other ani- 
 mals. Herbert Spencer simultaneously working 
 out in his armchair what Darwin was observing 
 as the result of explorations named this process 
 "the survival of the most fit." (Sometimes, of 
 course, the best and most highly evolved creature 
 is less "fit" to survive than some noxious para- 
 sites, and little-evolved forms ; e. g., the mammoth 
 was less fit than the bacterium.) The evolutionary 
 hypothesis has become the underlying concept of 
 all the biological sciences. To question it is less 
 a mark of independence than a confession of ig- 
 norance of the immense and constantly increas- 
 ing weight of evidence on which it rests. We 
 can indicate here merely some fields in which 
 these proofs will be found; as: (1) animal 
 breeding, as above indicated. (2)' embryology. 
 The developing embryo recapitulates roughly the 
 successive primitive types thro which presumably 
 the animal in question is descended. (3) Pale- 
 ontology. Buried in the earth are found skeletons 
 of living and of extinct forms of animals. As we 
 explore the successively deeper and older strata 
 of the earth's crust, the skeletal forms become 
 ever more similar and more simple, indicating 
 that eventually all types are derived from a com- 
 mon origin. (4) Distribution of flora and fauna 
 over the earth's surface aren't strictly such as 
 climate and other obvious influences will account 
 for, especially is this true of outlying islands 
 like Australia. But as we know the approximate
 
 182 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 date when these now separated continents and is- 
 lands were so connected "by land, that immigra- 
 tion of animals was possible, an estimation by 
 the evolutionary theory of the then existing flora 
 and fauna of neighboring regions enables us to 
 account very well for the distribution observed 
 today. (5) Structural and functional resem- 
 blances in animals are accounted for only by the 
 evolution-hypothesis. (6) Classification into 
 species, genera, sub-genera, etc., follows the lines 
 hypothecated by evolution. (7) Biology finds 
 certain organs, and psychology certain mental 
 dispositions, which are unexplained by present 
 usefulness, but can be accounted for on the theory 
 of evolutional descent. (8) The elapse of time 
 demanded for the evolution of existing life-forms 
 checks up moderately well with the time calcu- 
 lated by geologists as having elapsed since the 
 earth cooled sufficiently to be habitable. (9) 
 Biological evolution would seem reasonable in the 
 light of cosmic evolution generally, which has its 
 own proof in each of its special fields. 
 
 We return to the remarks which preceded the 
 above two paragraphs. The high value men place 
 upon happiness indicates that happiness is usual- 
 ly the sign of biologically, right conditions. For 
 as one authority* says, this emphasis "occidental 
 speculation" appeared very early and vigorously 
 asserted by many. Sophist Aristippus and his 
 Cyrenaic School made hedonism their central 
 doctrine. . . . Aristippus seems at times to
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 183 
 
 have insisted upon the supreme value of the pleas- 
 ure of the moment and to have lost sight of the 
 necessity, even for securing pleasure, of consider- 
 ing the future. . . ," 14 
 
 Such a view undoubtedly was narrow. In these 
 pages we'll show that we've the right to (and a 
 reason for) classifying motives into the following 
 four divisions; themselves an evolutionary hier- 
 archy: Group 4 (highest) all our yearnings to 
 make an objective contribution toward the greater 
 happiness of the world which Group 1 arbitrar- 
 ily shall call "helpful" tendencies. Group 3 (the 
 next highest) the yearning to establish ourselves 
 individually on the way to a maximum of enjoy- 
 ment of our life a group we'll call the "Privately 
 Ambitious" tendencies. Group 2, the desires of the 
 most simple unperverted and undeveloped men. 
 Group 1, all remaining desires or motives a 
 group we'll call, very arbitrarily no doubt, "Sen- 
 sual-erratic" tendencies. 
 
 To each of these groups of motives corresponds 
 a certain type of character, which in the degree 
 that it is a pure type, expresses itself thru acts 
 of one or the other kind, and is itself happy there- 
 in. It is folly to teach, as did the old Sunday 
 school text, that Mr. X, whose character is nar- 
 row and crabbed, would be happy if he were to 
 spend his time ministering to others instead of 
 being ministered unto for so long as no change 
 of heart has come from within, Mr. X would feel 
 
 ^International Encyclopaedia,
 
 184 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 that in so doing he was acting like a silly senti- 
 mentalist. No more use is it to argue, as many 
 philosophies have done that Miss Y, whose char- 
 acter is weak and sensual, would find more happi- 
 ness in a life of self -disciplined abstemiousness 
 for so long as she remains a sensualist every in- 
 dulgence missed seems an irreparable loss, and 
 rankles in her conscience. These arguments over- 
 stated the case just enough to give it all away 
 to give away the fact that they were not ingenu- 
 ous, but were designed to persuade all hearers to 
 behave in the way that was considered to be 
 moral. So they smacked of insincerity, and failed 
 to reform the world. 
 
 Yet in saying that they overstated their case 
 we're tacitly admitting that such arguments just 
 missed the point of a great truth. That truth is, 
 that the sensualist, tho happier in acting as most 
 natural to him rather than as would be natural 
 say for a schemer or an idealist or least of all an 
 altruist to act, yet is on the whole the least happy 
 type of being. It will pay him to change his char- 
 acter if he can even by the uncongenial method 
 of practicing virtues that conform to a more stable 
 disposition. 
 
 And the ambitious person, tho happier when 
 absorbed in promoting his own interests than 
 when trying to play idealist or altruist, and tho 
 not subject to the physical aftermaths suffered 
 as result of his debauches by the sensualist, yet 
 must endure great despairs. If all is for self, he
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 185 
 
 will surely find that all is not worth while. It 
 will profit him to cultivate deliberately the qual- 
 ities of higher types of character. 
 
 A happier lot is that of the idealist. He flits 
 about from illusion to illusion, coloring the gray 
 stones of rife for us with bright-hued paint. He 
 reads ir.oral purposes into the universe, and ex- 
 cuses himself from seeing the world's misery or 
 from helping quite effectively, on the score that 
 this is a moral universe in which all must be for 
 the best. But in the end the shams have a way of 
 crushing in this delicate rosy shell in which he 
 has enclosed his life, and then he feels the un- 
 satisfactoriness of mere ideals in themselves, and 
 the need of founding them upon a plan to do defi- 
 nite good in the world. 
 
 Finally, you may expect us to say that com- 
 plete happiness comes in proportion to the attain- 
 ment of complete selflessness. Unfortunately 
 we're not convinced that completely selfless exist- 
 ence ever is actually attained. Moreover, as one 
 approximates more perfectly the type of charac- 
 ter which has identified itself with the yearnings 
 of humanity, one may find that it has taken on 
 many new sorrows on this behalf, and certainly 
 it will be compelled to hold itself ever ready to 
 make a supreme sacrifice even of health, liberty 
 and life for the cause it espouses. Nevertheless, 
 this acquisition of world-cares is compensated for 
 by a dropping off of petty private worries, which 
 now seem too trivial. Sacrifices themselves,
 
 186 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 when demanded from one who has attained true 
 devoteeship, find such a one prepared to yield 
 them. It's because this type has in loftiness of 
 motive a source of strength above that of ordi- 
 nary men, that the latter are bewildered to see him 
 emerge triumphant over their persecutions. So 
 we think he is, after all, the happiest kind of be- 
 ing, the type into which it will pay all others to 
 try to evolve. He alone amid privation constant- 
 ly experiences ecstacy. 
 
 In order to be happy, the first essential 15 is right 
 desires. It's self-evident that if we desire only 
 what's wholesome, right, and obtainable, our 
 health'll be good, ouv desires in the process of 
 satisfaction, and consequently we are always 
 happy. But how shall we gain this friendliness 
 on the part of our desires ? How reach them ? 
 
 "Tomorrow's desires are crystalized from the 
 ocean of today's purposive conduct; they're the 
 salt that its waves will leave behind. That ocean 
 itself is being formed every moment, from clouds 
 of self-suggestion and nebulous impression and 
 habits, borne hither on yesterday's winds of time 
 and circumstance. Started fortunately in the de- 
 sire for self -improvement, our task is to control 
 the influences that are likely to be assimilated un- 
 consciously, and purge one's self of all cant and 
 cobwebs that interfere with diligent earnestness. 
 As a last step in this cycle of growth, we must 
 ensure the success of the whole process, by doing 
 it in a normal, happy spirit."
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 187 
 
 We still need to consider how far the need to 
 take on an unpleasant attitude toward the world 
 may or may not be demanded by one's condition 
 as a competitor in the economic market. 
 
 First, one needs to take a certain shrewd and 
 cynical view of the likelihood of affairs, or of 
 people, turning out as beneficent and honest as 
 we should like to have them, even tho one may 
 find it expedient pu'blicly to pretend that he be- 
 lieves in them (in order not to make their chances 
 any slimmer than they already are). 
 
 Secondly, a state of complete satisfaction 15 is 
 a state not merely of no progress, but of no effort 
 to stem the currents of disintegration which 
 everywhere make true "standing still" an impos- 
 sible thing in life. 
 
 To be sure the state of Happiness does give a 
 certain spontaneity of performance, a light-heart- 
 edness in the execution of duties that are plain to 
 view, which, far from seeming to accomplish less 
 progress than before, rather seems to accomplish 
 more. Yet a careful examination of the facts will 
 show that this efficiency in activity is only in the 
 settlement of problems that have been forced upon 
 our attention, already, in less happy periods, and 
 that the hour of happiness is the hour of forget- 
 fulness of problems, not of raising them or hold- 
 ing them in mind. The fact seems to be corrobor- 
 
 ^May we be unsatisfied, yet happy ? Recently a. Freudian asked 
 us to substitute "greatest satisfaction" for "greatest happiness ;" w 
 declined to do so. They're hardly equivalent, since we may be most 
 happy in the initial process of satisfying a desire, or even in mere 
 anticipation of doing so.
 
 188 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ated by history, that periods of a people's greatest 
 joyousness nearly always are followed by periods 
 of retrogression and decline. (That the epoch of 
 the greatest Grecian Art, the Golden Age, the 
 very embodiment of Joy, should be followed by 
 Grecian decadence, may be thus a more significant 
 fact than has been realized. One people may be 
 inherently more joyous than another and at the 
 same time more progressive because endowed with 
 great virility. We have a tendency to think that 
 qualities in people necessarily balance up to about 
 the same value in the end. We repeat, "quickly 
 learned, as quickly forgotten," and many similar 
 catch-words till we believe them; but psychology 
 gives them no support. On the contrary, experi- 
 ment shows that super-excellence in one quality 
 generally gives a slight probability of superiority 
 in other qualities also. 
 
 SECTION 3 
 
 "No profit grows where is no pleasure ta 'en 
 In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 17 
 
 "If you mean to profit, learn to please." 18 
 "Everywhere a magnetic personality wins its 
 way." "A pleasant smile brings the largest re- 
 turns on the investment." 
 
 The present section of this chapter is intended 
 for the person whose interest is in promoting 
 his own future well-being. Compared with An- 
 
 "Shakespeare Taming: the Shrew Act 1, Scene 1, Line 39. 
 18 Churchill Gotham Book II, Line 88.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 189 
 
 axagores "Epicurns laid more value on the neces- 
 sity of choosing 'productive' pleasures, to use 
 Bentham's phraseology, i. e., pleasures whose con- 
 sequences were not painful." 19 
 
 The normal person, even the normal child, will 
 admit that whatever he desires for himself he 
 wouldn't desire were he convinced he'd be un- 
 happy with it, and that by a similar logic what 
 he wishes for the sake of another, or for the sake 
 of religion, he'd no longer wish were he convinced 
 it wouldn't affect as he now anticipates the happi- 
 ness of his friend, or of God, or of someone. 
 
 Examinations that have been made of the per- 
 spiration exuded by men in varying emotional 
 moods, show that in malevolent moments, as in 
 miserable ones, certain poisons are secreted which 
 aren't given off in kindly moods any more than 
 in agreeable moments. This seems to be one of 
 the reasons why evil as well as unhappy disposi- 
 tions so often can be read by the ugly effects these 
 have upon the body and face, while good as well 
 as happy dispositions favor beauty. It's a matter 
 of health to be kindly; to be angry limits us; 
 wherever we'd expand, hatred makes us feel that 
 enemies shut us in. We become a part of all that 
 we love, through affection we experience the air 
 of a new and wonderful freedom. No power can 
 give us joy and freedom save we accept the gift. 
 
 Yet that men may differ from this point of view 
 is proven by the numbers who actually do so 
 
 1!> Inten\ational Encyclopaedia.
 
 190 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 differ. How shall we expect all men ever to agree 
 upon anything, when we see great numbers seri- 
 ously affirming that the very noses on their faces 
 are "error?" 20 And indeed when men accept the 
 happiness-motive in the narrow sense of believ- 
 ing they must live for themselves alone, their high 
 expectations are so thoroly disappointed, that it's 
 no wonder many of them in disgust conclude that 
 something other than happiness at all must be 
 the final good. 
 
 We may sum up this section of our essay by 
 saying that as man isn't necessarily driven by a 
 desire for immediate indulgences, he may well 
 choose to postpone indulgences for the sake of 
 more enduring happiness for himself, and that 
 this course has been advocated by many philoso- 
 phers among whom, in ancient times, perhaps the 
 most famous was Epicurus. 
 
 But the man who has chosen a philosophy of 
 Egoism seldom fellows it consistently. Somehow 
 it fails to satisfy his whole nature. How often we 
 hear of one to whom apparently life held out 
 every allurement of health, wealth, friends, etc., 
 but who sickened of it all and perhaps even killed 
 himself? This is because a self -centered life isn't 
 a mentally wholesome life. "Think about your- 
 self if you want to be miserable," runs a proverb. 
 Insanity frequently developes out of this attitude. 
 Does this indicate that perhaps the egotist's logic 
 
 20 Tho petitioning for a Rovernment pension when said "error" is 
 shot off in the war. See The Truth Seeker, March, 1919.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 191 
 
 is somewhere wrong has his cynical calculation 
 been, after all, blind? 
 
 The yearning of the idealist to devote himself 
 to some activity for its own sake, or for some ef- 
 fect not reducible into terms of happiness, is 
 therefore quite admissible as a psychological pos- 
 sibility. 
 
 "For as man is naturally a gregarious animal, 
 so is he in need of maintaining his heart warm, 
 as well as his head cool. Toward his kindred and 
 indeed toward all living creatures, his attitude in- 
 variably must be one of benevolence. Toward 
 their follies, and even their apologies, he must be 
 good naturedly tolerant. 
 
 "In the form of a pretty fairy tale, 'La Foret 
 Enchantee et le Petit Enfant,' 21 Mme. Perrier 
 tells how the innocent and happy eyes of children 
 discover beautiful realities which can't endure the 
 rough presence of sordid adults; 'ils marchaient 
 sans les voir sur toutes les petites fleurs at tous 
 les oiseaux effrayes se taisaient dans les 
 branches.' ' 
 
 But can he carry this to the point of actually 
 omitting self entirely as a factor in the problem? 
 Motives in the best of us are so infinitely complex, 
 that to assert of any act that it's a pure expres- 
 sion even of one of the lower tendencies is always 
 pVecarious; much more hazardous would it be to 
 designate a case of unalloyed altruism, at least 
 before the most exhaustive analysis. 
 
 21 Mme. Jeanne Perrier, Pendant qu'on Dort, published by Lamertin. 
 Bruxelles.
 
 192 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 SECTION 4 
 
 "The true measure of a man's success is the 
 service which he renders, not the pay he exacts 
 for it. The true measure of a man's ability is 
 the power to help others and to contribute to their 
 advancement." 22 
 
 "By love, serve one enother." 
 
 "Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge." 23 
 
 This fourth section will deal with the will to 
 bring the greatest happiness to the greatest num- 
 ber. 
 
 If the desire for humanitarian service be at 
 first lacking, it can, with patience, be cultivated. 
 McKeever 24 gives a helpful hint on this point: 
 "While engaged in giving a public address, he 
 has often found it possible to engender in himself 
 a pronounced emotion of sympathy by means of 
 lowering his voice" and otherwise assuming a 
 sympathetic manner. 
 
 That acts of pure goodness on rare occasions 
 actually may be performed is the belief of com- 
 petent psychologists today, in contrast to what 
 was held true in old time. 
 
 "All the ancients," says the International En- 
 cyclopaedia, "were agreed that the pleasure of 
 the agent was for the agent himself, the supreme 
 end. A disinterested desire for someone else's 
 
 "President Hadley of Yale. 
 
 -^Shakespeare. 
 
 "Psychology and Higher Life.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 193 
 
 good was not recognized as possible; or if pos- 
 sible, it was regarded as perverse. Early modern 
 Hedonists (Hobles, Locke) were almost or quite 
 as individualistic as the ancients. But with Cum- 
 berland, Hutcheson, and Hume, a new phase of 
 hedonism was introduced, viz., the theory that not 
 the agent's greatest pleasure, but 'joy in widest 
 comonalty spread' is the supreme end of moral 
 action (universalistic hedonism, or utilitarian- 
 ism)." 
 
 As a sample of the positions of modern 
 psychologists, we may take that of Pillsbury.* 
 "The gregarious animals exert themselves and 
 even suffer in behalf of the herd, as the male deer 
 are said to form a circle about the females and 
 the young and to risk their own lives in defense 
 of the unit. This instinct may be justified teleo- 
 logically, since the survival of the race depends 
 upon the survival of the larger. . . ." 
 
 Ellwood, again, in his "Sociology in its Psycho- 
 logical Aspects" states: "Quite as much is to be 
 said for sympathy as a universally important ele- 
 ment in human society as for imitation. In the 
 history of sociology, when it is finally written, 
 Professor Giddings, who has especially stood for 
 the recognition of this element of sympathy, will 
 be accorded as large a place as Tarde. . . ,.* 
 
 "All sympathy, Ward thinks, comes from re- 
 flection. . . . Hence sympathy, he thinks is 
 essentially egoistic. The correct statement, how-
 
 194 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ever, would be that sympathy is at first entirely 
 organic and instinctive, and altruistic." 
 
 On page 313 he continues, "The sympathetic 
 emotions are the accompaniments of altruistic 
 impulses. . . . Sympathy accompanies altru- 
 istic activity and reinforces it everywhere. . . . 
 Philanthropic activities must be regarded as very 
 largely a development due to the increase of sym- 
 pathy in the sense of altruistic feeling in human 
 society." 
 
 Even the individualistic Metchinkoff, in his 
 "Prolongation of Life," page 221, admits that "in 
 times of want the worker-bees sacrifice their own 
 lives and give the queen the last remnants of the 
 food supply so that she survives them." 
 
 John Muir says of his boyhood companions : 
 
 "We delighted in dog-fights, and even in the hor- 
 rid red work of slaughter-houses, often running 
 long distances and climbing over walls and roofs 
 to see a pig killed. 
 
 "But here is an illustration of the better side 
 of the boy nature. In our back yard a pair of 
 robin-redbreasts had their nest (and a soldier) 
 climbed the tree and robbed it. ... I remem- 
 ber to this day how my heart fairly ached and 
 choked me. . . . Again and again we rehearsed 
 the sad story of the poor bereaved birds and could 
 not be comforted. . . , 24 
 
 Lecky says that 
 
 J4 Muir, John. "My Boyhood and Youth," pp. 26-28.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 195 
 
 "When Plutarch, after the death of his daugh- 
 ter, was writing a letter of consolation to his wife, 
 we find him turning away from all the common- 
 places of the Stoics as the recollection of one sim- 
 ple trait of his little child rushed upon his mind : 
 'She desired her nurse to press even her dolls to 
 the breast. She was so loving that she wished 
 everything that gave her pleasure to share in the 
 best of what she had.' "- 6 
 
 The best proof, however, because it can raise no 
 possible suspicion that any factor other than in- 
 stinctive nature plays any part, is that taken from 
 the world of lower animals. And here we shall 
 again quote from our old friend, Prince Kropot- 
 kin: 
 
 "Facts illustrating mutual aid amidst the 
 termites, the ants and the bees are too well known 
 to the general reader, especially thru the works 
 of Romanes, L. Buchner and Sir John Lubbock, 
 that I may limit my remarks to a very few hints. 
 If we take an ant's nest, we not only see that 
 every description of work bearing of progeny, 
 foraging, building, bearing of aphides, and so on 
 is performed according to the principles of 
 voluntary mutual aid; we must also recognize 
 with Forel that the chief, the fundamental feature 
 of the life of many species of ants is the fact and 
 the obligation for every ant of sharing its food, 
 already swallowed and partly digested, with every 
 
 "Lecky. W, E. H. "History of European Morals," pp. 242-243.
 
 196 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 member of the community which may apply for 
 it." 27 
 
 "The numberless associations of locusts, vanes- 
 sae, cicindelae, cicadae, and so on, are practically 
 quite unexplored ; but the very fact of their exist- 
 ence indicates that they must be composed on 
 about the same principles as the temporary asso- 
 ciations of ants or bees for the purposes of migra- 
 tion. As to the beetles, we have quite well-ob- 
 served facts of mutual help amidst the burying 
 beetles (Necrophorus)." 
 
 ". . . As a rule, they live an isolated life, but 
 when one of them has discovered the corpse of a 
 mouse or a bird, which it hardly could manage to 
 bury itself, it calls four, six or ten other beetles 
 to perform the operation with united efforts. . . 
 without quarreling as to which of them will 
 enjoy the privilege of laying eggs in the buried 
 corpse. And when Gleditsch attached a dead bird 
 to a cross made out of two sticks, or suspended a 
 toad to a stick planted in the soil, the little beetles 
 would in the same friendly way combine their 
 intelligences to overcome the artifices of man. 
 The same combination of efforts has been noticed 
 among the dung-beetles." 28 
 
 "As to the big Molucca crab (Lumulus), I was 
 struck (in 1882, at the Brighton Auarium) with 
 the extent of mutual assistance which the clumsy 
 animals are capable of bestowing upon a comrade 
 
 "Kropotkin, P., "Mutual Aid," p. 12. 
 J8 Kropotkin, P., "Mutual Aid," p. 10.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 197 
 
 in case of need. One of them had fallen upon 
 its back in a corner of the tank" and "its com- 
 rades came to the rescue, and for one hour's time 
 I watched how they endeavored to help their fel- 
 low prisoner." And, "after many attempts, one 
 of the helpers would go in the depths of the tank 
 and bring two other crabs, which would begin 
 fresh forces the same pushing and lifting of their 
 helpless comrade," and, "since I saw that, I can- 
 not refuse credit to the observation quoted by Dr. 
 Erasmus Darwin namely, that 'the common 
 crab during the moulting season, stations as senti- 
 nel an unmoulted or hard-shelled individual to 
 prevent marine enemies from injuring moulted 
 individuals in their unprotected state.' 
 
 "When a new swarm of bees is going to leave 
 the hive in search of a new abode, a number of 
 bees will make a preliminary exploration of the 
 neighborhood, and if they discover, say, an old 
 basket, they will take possession of it, clean it, 
 and guard it sometimes for a whole week, till the 
 swarm comes to settle therein." 29 
 
 "The sociability of the bees is the more instruc- 
 tive as predatory instincts and laziness continue 
 to exist among the bees as well about the sugar 
 plantations of the West Indies and the sugar re- 
 fineries of Europe, robbery, laziness and very 
 often drunkenness becomes quite usual with the 
 bees. We thus see that anti-social instincts con- 
 
 ia George J. Romanes' "Animal Intelligence," 1st edition, p. 233. 
 Quoted by Kropotkin, P. Mutual Aid.
 
 198 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tinue to exist amidst the bees as well ; but natural 
 selection continually must eliminate them, be- 
 cause in the long run the practices of solidarity 
 proves much more advantageous to the species 
 than the individuals endowed with predatory in- 
 clinations. The cunningest and shrewdest are 
 eliminated in favor of those who understand the 
 advantages of sociable life and mutual support." 
 "I need not dwell upon the association of male 
 and female for rearing their offspring, for provid- 
 ing it with food during their first steps of life, or 
 for hunting in common ; tho it may be mentioned 
 by the way that such associations are the rule 
 even with the least sociable carnivores and rapa- 
 cious birds ; and that they have a special interest 
 from being the field upon which tenderer feelings 
 may develop even amidst otherwise most cruel 
 animals. It may also be added that the rarity of 
 associations larger than that of the family among 
 the carnivores and the birds of prey, tho mostly 
 being the result of their very modes of feeding, 
 can also be explained to some extent as a conse- 
 quence of the change produced in the animal 
 world by the rapid increase of mankind. At any 
 rate, it is worthy of note that there are species 
 living a quite isolated life in densely inhabited 
 regions, while the same species, or their nearest 
 congeners, are gregarious in uninhabited coun- 
 tries. Wolves, foxes and several birds of prey 
 may be quoted as instances in point." 30 
 
 ""Kropotkin, P., "Mutual Aid," p. 20.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 199 
 
 "The fishing associations of the pelicans are 
 certainly worthy of notice for the remarkable or- 
 der and intelligence displayed by these clumsy 
 birds. They always go fishing in numerous bands, 
 and, having chosen an appropriate bay, they form 
 a wide half -circle in face of the shore, and narrow 
 it by padding toward the shore, catching all fish 
 that happen to be enclosed in the circle. On nar- 
 row rivers and canals they even divide into two 
 parties, each of which draws up on a half-circle, 
 and both paddle to meet each other." . . . "No 
 one has ever seen them fighting for the posses- 
 sion of either the bay or the resting place. In 
 South America they gather in flocks of from forty 
 thousand individuals, part of which enjoy sleep 
 while others watch, and others again go fishing. 
 And finally, I should be doing an injustice to the 
 much-calumniated house-sparrows if I did not 
 mention how faithfully each of them shares any 
 food it discovers with all members of the society 
 to which it belongs." 31 
 
 "The cranes are extremely sociable and live in 
 most excellent relations, not only with their con- 
 geners, but also with most aquatic birds." . . . 
 "Their sentries always keep watch around a flock 
 which is feeding or resting, and the hunters know 
 well how difficult it is to approach them. If man 
 has succeeded in surprising them they will never 
 return to the same place without having sent out 
 one single scout first, and a party of scouts after- 
 
 3I Kropotkin, P., "Mutual Aid," p. 24.
 
 200 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 wards ; and when the reconnoitering party returns 
 and reports that there is no danger, a second 
 group of scouts is sent out to verify the first re- 
 port, before the whole band moves. With kin- 
 dred species the cranes contract real friendship; 
 and in captivity there is no bird save the also so- 
 ciable and highly intelligent parrot, which enters 
 into such real friendship with man." 32 
 
 "And feelings of justice develop, more or less, 
 with all gregarious animals. Whatever the dis- 
 tance from which the swallows or the cranes 
 come, each one returns to the nest it has built or 
 repaired last year. If a lazy sparrow intends ap- 
 propriating the nest which a comrade is building, 
 or even steals from it a few sprays of straw, the 
 group interferes against the lazy comrade; and 
 it is evident that without such interference being 
 the rule, no nesting associations of birds could 
 exist. Separate groups of penguins have separ- 
 ate nesting places and separate fishing abodes, 
 and do not fight for them. The droves of cattle 
 in Australia have particular spots to which each 
 group repairs to rest, and from which it never 
 deviates; and so on. We have any number of 
 direct observations of the peace that prevails in 
 the nesting associations of birds, the villages of 
 the rodents, and the herds of grass-eaters." . . . 
 Leaving aside the really touching facts of mutual 
 attachment and comparison which have been re- 
 corded as regards domesticated animals and with 
 
 ^Kropotkin, P., "Mutual Aid,'" p. 27.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 201 
 
 animals kept in captivity, we have a number of 
 well certified facts of compassion between wild. 
 animals at liberty. Max Perty and L. Buchner 
 have given a number of such facts (2). J. C. 
 Wood's narrative of a weasel which came to pick 
 up and carry away an injured comrade enjoys a- 
 well-merited popularity. So also the observations 
 of Captain Stansburg on his journey to Utah 
 which is quoted by Darwin ; he saw a blind peli- 
 can which was fed, and well fed, by other pelicans 
 upon fishes which had to be brought from a dis- 
 tance of thirty miles. And when a herd of. 
 vicunas was hotly pursued by hunters, H. A. Wed- 
 dell saw more than once during his journey to 
 Bolivia and Peru the strong males covering the 
 retreat of the herd, and lagging behind in order 
 to protect the retreat. As to facts of compassion 
 with wounded comrades, they are continually 
 mentioned by all field zoologists. Such facts are 
 quite natural. Compassion is a necessary out- 
 come of social life." 
 
 "Brehm has so admirably summed up the man- 
 ners of life of the parrot." . . . "The members 
 of each band remain faithfully attached to each 
 other and they share in common good or bad 
 luck." . . . "They post sentries to keep watch 
 over the safety of the whole band." 33 
 
 A more concise argument on the possibility of 
 unselfish conduct is found in the second part of 
 
 33 Kropotkin, P., "Mutual Aid," pp. 28-29.
 
 202 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Dewey and Tufts' Ethics, from which the follow- 
 ing is taken : 
 
 "1. The Theory" (namely that all conduct is 
 necessarily egoistic) "exaggerates the role of an- 
 tagonistic competitive struggle in the Darwinian 
 theory." 34 (a) The initial step in any "prog- 
 ress" is variation; this is not so much struggle 
 against other organisms, as it is invention or dis- 
 covery of some new way of acting, involving bet- 
 ter adaptation of hitherto merely latent natural 
 resources, use of some possible food or shelter not 
 previously utilized. The struggle against other 
 organisms at work preserves from elimination a 
 species already fixed quite a different thing 
 from the variation which occasions the introduc- 
 tion of a higher or more complex species, (b) 
 Moreover, so far as the Darwinian theory is con- 
 cerned, the "struggle for existence" may take any 
 conceivable form ; rivalry in generosity, in mutual 
 aid and support, may be the kind of competition 
 best fitted to enable a species to survive. It not 
 only may be so, but it is so within certain limits. 
 The rage for survival, for power, must not be as- 
 serted indiscriminately ; the mate of the other sex, 
 the young, to some extent other individuals of the 
 same kind are spared, or, in many cases, pro- 
 tected and nourished, (c) The higher the form 
 of life, the more effective the two methods just 
 suggested: namely, the method of intelligence in 
 discovering and utilizing new methods, tools and 
 
 34 Dewey & Tufts' Ethics.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 203 
 
 resources as substituted for the direct method of 
 brute conflict; and the method of mutual protec- 
 tion and care substituted for mutual attack and 
 combat. It is among the lower forms of life, not 
 as the theory would require among the higher 
 types, that conditions approximate its picture of 
 the gladiatorial show. The higher species among 
 the vertebrates, as among insects (like ants and 
 bees), are the "sociable" kind. It is sometimes 
 argued that Darwinism carried into morals would 
 abolish charity : all care of the hopelessly invalid, 
 of the economically dependent, and in general of 
 all the weak and helpless except healthy infants. 
 It is argued that all current standards are senti- 
 mental and artificial, aiming to make survive 
 those who are unfit, and thus tending to destroy 
 the conditions that make for advance, and to in- 
 troduce such as make towards degeneration. But 
 this argument (1) wholly ignores the reflex effect 
 of interest in those who are ill and defective in 
 strengthening solidarity in promoting those ties 
 and reciprocal interests which are as much the 
 prerequisites of strong individual characters as 
 they are of a strong social group. And (2) it 
 fails to take into account the stimulus to fore- 
 sight, to scientific discovery, and practical inven- 
 tion, which has proceeded from interest in the 
 helpless, the weak, the sick, the disabled, blind, 
 deaf and insane. Taking the most coldly scien- 
 tific view the gains in these two respects have 
 thru the growth of socialism, particularly of care
 
 204 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 for the unfortunate, been purchased more cheaply 
 than we can imagine there being bought in any 
 other way. In other words the chief objection 
 to this "naturalistic" ethics is that it overlooks 
 the fact that, even from the Darwinian point of 
 view, the human animal is a human animal. It 
 forgets that the sympathetic and social instincts, 
 those which cause the individual to take the in- 
 terests of others for his own and thereby to re- 
 strain is sheer brute self assertiveness, are the 
 highest achievements, the high-water mark of 
 evolution. The theory urges systematic relapse 
 to lower and foregone stages of biological develop- 
 ment." 
 
 We omit, until our discussion, in a later essay 
 on sympathy, the rest of Dewey's argument, save 
 only his conclusion : 
 
 "1. THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER-RE- 
 GARDING SPRINGS TO ACTION. Only the 
 preconceptions of hedonistic psychology would 
 ever lead one to deny the existence of reactions 
 and impulses called out by the sight of others' 
 misery and joy and which tend to increase the 
 latter and to relieve the former. Recent psycholo- 
 gists (writing, of course, quite independently of 
 ethical controversies) offer lists of native instinc- 
 tive tendencies such as the following: Anger, 
 jealousy, rivalry, secretiveness, acquisitiveness, 
 fear, shyness, sympathy, affection, pity, sexual 
 love, curiosity, imitation, play, constructiveness. 
 In this inventory, the first seven may be said to
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 205 
 
 be aroused specially by situations having to do 
 with the preservation of the self ; the next four 
 are responses to stimuli proceeding especially 
 from others and tending to consequences favor- 
 able to them, while the last four are mainly im- 
 personal. But the division into self-regarding 
 and other-regarding is not exclusive and absolute. 
 Anger may be wholly other-regarding, as in the 
 case of hearty indignation at wrongs suffered by 
 others; rivalry may be generous emulation or be 
 directed toward surpassing one's own past record. 
 Love between the sexes, which should be the 
 source of steady, far-reaching interest in others, 
 and which at times expresses itself in supreme 
 abnegation of devotion, easily becomes the cause 
 of brutal and persistent egoism. In short, the 
 division into egoistic and altruistic holds only 
 'other things being equal.' 
 
 "Confining ourselves for the moment to the na- 
 tive psychological equipment, we may say that 
 man is endowed with instinctive promptings 
 which naturally (that is, without the interven- 
 tion of deliberation or calculation) tend to pre- 
 serve the self (by aggressive attack as in anger, 
 or in protective retreat as in fear) ; and to de- 
 velop his powers (as in acquisitiveness, construc- 
 tiveness, and play) ; and which equally without 
 consideration of resulting ulterior benefit either 
 to self or to others, tend to bind the self closer 
 to others and to advance the interests of others 
 as pity, affectionateness, or again, constructive-
 
 206 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ness and play. Any given individual is naturally 
 an erratic mixture of fierce insistence upon his 
 own welfare and of profound susceptibility to 
 the happiness of others different individuals 
 varying much in the respective intensities and 
 proportions of the two tendencies." 
 
 Conceding the point that no inherent principle 
 of his organization absolutely requires mankind 
 to pursue happiness as its goal, still sentiment is 
 growing that all other values are reducible ulti- 
 mately into terms of happiness for self or happi- 
 ness for someone else. 
 
 This doctrine, termed "hedonism," is thus traced in 
 the International Encyclopaedia. 
 
 "The term 'Utilitarian' was put into currency by J. S. 
 Mill, who noticed it in a novel of Gait; but it was first 
 suggested by Bentham. . . . 
 
 "The history of Utilitarianism . . . falls into three divi- 
 sions which may be termed theological, political, and 
 evolutional respectively. 
 
 "It is in a clerical work written to refute Bishop 
 Cumberland De Legibus Naturae (in 1672) that we find 
 the beginnings, of utilitarianism. Hobbe's conception of 
 the state of 'nature antecedent to organization as a 
 state of war . . . was . . . offensive. Cumberland .... 
 does .... lay much stress upon the naturally social 
 character of man .... The further development of the- 
 ological utilitarianism was conditioned by opposition to 
 the moral sense doctrine of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. 
 Both these writers, more particularly the latter, had 
 postulated in controverting Hobbes the existence of a 
 moral sense to explain the fact that we approve benevo- 
 lent actions, done either by ourselves or others, which 
 bring no advantage to ourselves. There was a general
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 207 
 
 feeling that the advocates of the moral sense claimed too 
 much for human nature and that they assumed a degree 
 of unselfishness and a natural inclination toward virtue 
 which by no means corresponded with the hard facts. 
 The fire of human enthusiasm burnt low in the 18th 
 century, and theologians shared the general conviction 
 that self-interest was the ruling principle of men's con- 
 duct. Moral sense seemed to them .... dangerous to the 
 interest of religion .... for what should be said to a 
 man who might affirm that, just as he had no ear for 
 music, he was insensitive to ethical differences . . . ? 
 Moreover if mere sense were sufficient to direct our con- 
 duct, what need had we for religion? .... John Gay,. . . . 
 in a dissertation prefixed to Laws' translation of .... 
 Origin of Evil (... 1731) ... .says. . . .this that vir- 
 tue is benevolence, and that benevolence is incumbent 
 upon each individual because it leads to his individual 
 happiness .... Further advances along the same line of 
 thought were made by Abraham Tucker in his Light of 
 Nature Pursued (. . . . 1768-74). Gay and Tucker sup- 
 plied nearly all the important ideas of Paleq's Principles 
 of Moral and Political Philosophy (.... 1785) .... 
 Hume's Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals 
 (. ...1751).... though utilitarianism is very far from 
 being theological .... points out that the essence of 
 benevolence is to increase the happiness of others. Thus 
 he establishes the principle of utility. "Personal merit" 
 he says, "consists entirely in the usefulness or agreeable- 
 ness of qualities to the person himself possessed of them, 
 or to others who have any intercourse with him . . . ." 
 
 "Political utilitarianism .... Abstractly .... Ben- 
 tham .... like Paley .... regards men as moved en- 
 tirely by pleasure and pain .... but his purpose was the 
 exalted one of effecting reforms in the laws and consti- 
 tution of his country. He took up the greatest happiness 
 principle not as an attractive philosopheme, but to dis- 
 tinguish good laws from bad. Sir John Bowring tells us
 
 208 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 that when Beuthain was casting about for such a cri- 
 terion, "he met with Humes' Essays and found in them 
 what he sought. This was .... as he expressed it .... 
 the doctrine that the only test of goodness of moral 
 precepts or legislative enactments is their tendency to 
 promote the greatest possible happiness of the greatest 
 number.) These opinions are developed in his Princi- 
 ples of Morals and Legislation (. . . 1789) and in De- 
 on-ology (. . . . posthumously in 1834) .... These princi- 
 ples of Bentham were the inspiration of that most im- 
 portant school of practical English thinkers, the Philo- 
 sophic Radicals of the early 19th Century From 
 
 Bentham the leadership passed to James Mill .... and 
 from him to John Stuart Mill .... His essay on Utili- 
 tarianism (...1863) ....is a little masterpiece worthy 
 to be set beside Kant's Metaphisic of Morals .... Mill 
 belonged to a generation in which the most remarkable 
 feature was the growth of sympathy; he puts greater 
 stress* than his predecessor upon sympathetic pleasures 
 .... it is in sympathy that he finds the obligation and 
 sanction of morality ^Morality' he says 'consists in con- 
 scientious shrinking from the violation of moral rules, 
 and the basis of this conscientious sentiment is the social 
 feelings of mankind, the desire to be in unity with our 
 fellow creatures, which is already a powerful principle 
 in human nature, and happily one of those which tend to 
 become stronger from the influences of advancing civili- 
 zation.' Such passages in Mill have their full signifi- 
 cance only when we take them in connection with that 
 rising tide of humanitarian sentiment which made itself 
 felt in all the literature and in all the practical activity 
 of his time. The other notable feature of Mill's doctrine 
 Is his distinction of value between pleasures .... It is 
 commonly said that in making this distinction Mill has 
 practically given up Utilitariasm because he has applied 
 to pleasure (alleged to be the supreme criterion) a fur- 
 ther criterion which is not pleasure. But . . this .
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 209 
 
 may be questioned. . . . The merest pleasure-lover may 
 -consistently say that he prefers a single glass of good 
 champagne to several bottles of cooking sherry .... So 
 Mill is justified in preferring a scene of Shakespeare .... 
 to a great mass of lower pleasure. The last writer who, 
 though not a political utilitarian, may be regarded as 
 belonging to the school of Mill is Henry Sidgwick, whose 
 elaborate Methods of Ethics (. . . . 1874) may be re- 
 garded as closing this line of thought. His theory of 
 conduct is a sort of reconciliation of utilitarianism with 
 intuitionalism, a position which he reached by studying 
 Mill in combination with Kant and Butler. His recon- 
 ciliation amounts to this, that the rule of conduct is to 
 aim at universal happiness, but that we recognize the 
 reasonableness of this rule by an intuition which cannot 
 be further explained. 
 
 "Even before the appearance of Sidgewick's book utili- 
 tarianism had entered upon its third or evolutional 
 phase, in which principles borrowed from biological sci- 
 ence make their entrance into philosophy. The main 
 doctrine of evolutional or biological ethics is stated". . . . 
 in the third chapter of Darwin's Descent of Man (. . . . 
 1871). . . . he approached the subject "exclusively from 
 the side of natural history." Theological and political 
 utilitarianism alike had been individualistic. But Dar- 
 win shows how the moral sense or conscience may be re- 
 garded as derived from the social instincs, which are 
 common to men and animals. To understand the genesis 
 of human morality we must study the ways of sociable 
 animals such as horses and monkeys, which give each 
 other assistance in trouble, feel mutual affection and 
 sympathy, and experience pleasure in doing actions that 
 benefit the society to which they belong. Both in ani- 
 mals and in human society individuals of this character, 
 being conducive to social welfare, are encouraged by 
 natural selection they and their society tend to disap- 
 pear and to destroy the society to which they belong.
 
 210 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Thus, in many do sentiments of love and mutual sym- 
 pathy become instinctive and, when transmitted by in- 
 heritance, innate. When man has advanced so far as 
 to be sensitive to the opinions of his fellow-men, their 
 approbation and disapprobation reinforce the influence 
 of natural selection. When he has reached the stage 
 of reflection there arises what we know as conscience. 
 He will approve or disapprove of himself according as 
 his conduct has fulfilled the conditions of social wel- 
 fare. 'Thus the imperious word ought seems to imply 
 the consciousness of a persistent instinct, either innate 
 or partly acquired, serving as a guide, tho liable to be 
 disobeyed. 
 
 "The most famous of the systematic exponents of 
 evolutional utilitarianism is in Herbert Spencer, in whose 
 Data of Ethics (1879). ... He shows how morality can 
 be viewed . . . psychologically, as evolving from a state 
 in which sensations are more potent than ideas so that 
 the future is sacrificed to the present to a date in which 
 ideas are more potent than sensations (so that a greater 
 but distant pleasure is prefrred to a less but present 
 pleasure) ; sociologically as evolving from approval of 
 war and warlike sentiments to approval of the senti- 
 ments appropriate to international peace and to an in- 
 dusarial organization of society. The sentiment of ob- 
 ligation Spencer regards as essentially transitory; when 
 a man reaches a condition of perfect adjustment, he 
 will always do what is right without any sense of be- 
 ing obliged to do it. The best feature of the Data of 
 Ethics is its anti-ascetic vindication of pleasure as man's 
 natural guide to what is physiologically healthy and 
 morally good. . . . Following up the same line of thought, 
 Leslie Stephen with . . . more attention to scientific 
 method has worked out in his Science of Ethics (1882) 
 the conception of morality as a function of the Social 
 organism, while Professor S. Alexander in his Moral 
 Order and Progress (1899) has applied the principles of
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 211 
 
 natural competition and natural selection to explain the 
 struggle of ideals against each other within society. 
 "'Moral Evil," says Professor Alexander, "is in great part 
 a defeated variety of moral ideal. ... A. Southerland's 
 Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct (. . . 1898) is 
 a capable piece of work in this direction." 
 
 A year or two before his death, our father took 
 us upon a fishing trip, and he was amused when 
 we took upon us by preference all the labor of 
 rowing the boat, and left entirely to him and to 
 our guide the actual catching of fish. Neither 
 then nor subsequently were we able to find pleas- 
 ure in killing things. In regard to hunting it is 
 the same with us as in regard to angling ; we love 
 to roam thru the wild, nor does a year pass but we 
 make one or more camping trips, and yet the most 
 deadly weapon we'll carry is a camera. 
 
 Notwithstanding that this attitude has become 
 a matter of principle, still we're inclined to wonder 
 whether fundamentally it mayn't have some other 
 origin, the more potent precisely because the less 
 obvious. So often, our strong aversions are trace- 
 able to childhood experiences. Many a would-be 
 swimmer, his ambition balked by an insuperable 
 unwillingness to confide his body completely and 
 lovingly to the water as a swimmer must, will tell 
 you that as a boy he was thrown into the middle 
 of a deep stream, or was unmercifully "ducked" 
 by older boys. So it may be that the surest guar- 
 antee against cruelty in adulthood (for wanton 
 game-killing is cruelty) is that in youth we should
 
 212 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 have been tragically impressed by the spectacle 
 of animals suffering. 
 
 The childhood picture which we now recall in 
 this connection is nothing of an extreme character 
 like a bull-fight to excite the anticipations of 
 the reader. It is simply that of a small boy who 
 stoned a cat out of a tree and then was struck 
 by remorse at sight of the little creature's 
 shrunken body. 
 
 It happened at the rear of a big stable. A dog 
 first sighted the cat, nosed her out of her hiding 
 and when she streaked across the yard toward 
 that tree, he gave fast and furious chase. The 
 small boy was just coming around the corner of 
 the stable, dreaming about a flying machine. he 
 intended to build, when this animal whirlwind 
 flashing past awakened him to a sense of ex- 
 ,hilarating realism, and sucked him along in its 
 vortex after it to the base of the tree. Herein 
 the cat had found refuge, and the baffled dog was 
 cogitating how best to renew the attack, while 
 hiding his immediate embarrassment under a 
 .noisy assumptipn of bragadoccio. 
 
 We distinctly recollect that the small boy the 
 writer had a moment of uncertainty as to what 
 course it would be ethical for him to pursue, and 
 as to which contestant he ought to abet, and we re- 
 call that his decision was finally rendered upon 
 the precedent of the immense majority of alli- 
 ances being notoriously between boy and dog ; and 
 seldom between boy and cat. Like a good legalist,
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 213 
 
 he no sooner made sure of what was the boys' 
 international code on such matters, than he hero- 
 ically repressed all compunctions, and openly en- 
 tered the field with shouts and exhortations as the 
 avowed ally of dog. 
 
 Both combattants during this time had not 
 failed anxiously to eye the boy as a possible and 
 deciding participant in the fray. So, when it was 
 seen which side he had chosen, the barking as- 
 sumed a confident tone, and the mewing took on 
 a note of pitiful despair. On the ground, jubila- 
 tion clamored loud; but in the tree horror 
 crouched. 
 
 The failure of the dog's offensive had been due, 
 of course, to his inadequacy in the air. So long 
 as operations had been confined to the ground, he 
 had vanquished the foe completely; but in the 
 high altitudes he was powerless. This defect his 
 new ally was to remedy, by bringing to his assist- 
 ance an artillery fire of bricks and stones which 
 drove pussy into the topmost branches. At last 
 the barrage attained its effect, and the unequal 
 battle ended. An ugly stone hit the poor little 
 creature squarely, and with a cry of pain she tum- 
 bled from the tree. 
 
 The dog gave a yelp of triumph and jumped 
 to seize his prey. But the boy drove him away 
 angrily. Filled with no feeling except deep re- 
 morse, which had flooded over him like a torrent 
 at the instant that he saw his stone strike true, 
 the boy took his victim into his arms and tried
 
 214 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 vainly to nurse her back to life. But it was too 
 late. 
 
 When the little body became quite cold and 
 stiff, it was given a decent burial. And the one 
 mourner who attended was sincere in his devo- 
 tion, nor ever passed that way again without ex- 
 periencing sharp remorse. 
 
 This experience may well be one reason why 
 invitations to go hunting or fishing now awake in 
 us only repulsion. For the rest, we leave it 
 to Dr. Freud and the psychoanalysis to point out 
 learnedly the importance of childhood experiences 
 in predetermining character. 
 
 But after all, what anomalies are hunting and 
 fishing, in this day of abattoirs and of steam 
 fishing-vessels ! sportsmen, are not camping 
 and boating in the free air and amid the beauty 
 of nature enough delight in themselves, without 
 the bloody superfluity of butchery? 
 
 The only rational meter of the ultimate right 
 or wrongness of actions is that all goods must 
 be measured in terms of the amount of happiness 
 somebody derives from them. You'll find reams 
 of argument for this theorem among the writings 
 of Utilitarians and Hedonists. We don't imply 
 that the common run of people actually do, in a ma- 
 jority of cases, guide themselves by this considera- 
 tion, but merely that it's the only rational, sane, 
 standard; for to act rationally means to act to- 
 ward the procurement of something desired, 
 whether good or bad. Here are some typical ob-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 215 
 
 jects of desire: food, sleep, money, social recog- 
 nition, to attain Heaven, to obey God's command- 
 ments, to see some creature suffer, to attain cul- 
 ture, to down our enemies, and to be of service to 
 mankind. While the desire for food is a blind 
 instinct that seldom stops to ask "Why?" yet we'd 
 consider a person to be hardly amenable to reason 
 who deliberately ate food that he knew would 
 cause a surplus of crying over smiling. Again, 
 fatigue-toxins may so drug a tired person that 
 for the sake of sleep he'll jeopardize his very life; 
 but his action under such circumstances can't be 
 called rational; if a person isn't too drowsy to 
 reason clearly, he isn't tempted to seek sleep when 
 he believes that by doing so his rest will end in 
 misery, unless that misery is to be balanced by 
 more happiness, (e. g., as the misery of struggling 
 to remain awake when lost at night in a snow- 
 storm, might be balanced by the presumed hap- 
 piness of escaping death thereby) , but if a person 
 is tempted to woo sleep, when his rational powers 
 are in abeyance to the excitement of present ac- 
 tivity, he realizes that sleep (say because it favors 
 health) will result ultimately in a net surplus of 
 happiness over any misery of foregoing present 
 excitements. The accumulation of money may 
 become a mania as difficult to curb as is the use 
 of opium or hashish, but who, in dispassionate 
 moments, unblinded by the glamor of some glit- 
 tering new project, who, but feels in the depths of 
 his heart that gold, finally, is no more than an in-
 
 216 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 surance against the day of wretchedness and cry- 
 ing or at best, is a means of having and giving 
 smiles ? As to social recognition, would it be half 
 so keen but for the sense that in obscurity we 
 shan't be quite smiling? What's the meaning of 
 "Heaven" except that it be a place or state of 
 supreme happiness? Would you still wish to 
 obey God's commandments if you really and keen- 
 ly felt that to do so was the way to make every- 
 one (including yourself and God himself) forever 
 unhappy? Would you seek as keenly after cul- 
 ture, if you believed (what non-Teutons represent 
 to be the German conception of it) that culture 
 means for all mankind, crying? Would you in 
 your rational moments really desire that a fellow 
 creature should suffer punishment merely "be- 
 cause he so well deserves it," unless you feel that 
 you yourself would then be able to smile and crow 
 over a fallen foe, or because God in His inscrut- 
 able wisdom would be displeased, i. e., unhappy, 
 were it not so, or because you hope the sufferer 
 may, through thus suffering, become a more hap- 
 piness-giving sort of man, or because the example 
 of his sufferings may deter others from following 
 misery-creating kinds of conduct? In sum, I 
 think you must agree that when not enslaved to 
 appetites, nor drowsy, nor drunk with excitement, 
 nor a truth-despising fanatic, nor enraged, nor 
 insane, nor an infant, nor stupid, in short, when- 
 ever for a moment you're truly rational, you know 
 that happiness is the one thing in the world which
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 217 
 
 in itself is worth while and the one quality which 
 gives merit to articles of value. 
 
 To be bad means to be unfavorable in the long 
 run to happiness, whereas to be good means to 
 be favorable (when all the ramifications and after- 
 effects of the matter have been counted) to hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Too often in our judgments of human beings, 
 their character or actions, the words "good" and 
 "bad" are applied loosely to denote the general 
 praiseworthiness of the intentions behind those 
 actions and not the acts themselves. E. g., we 
 call a woman good who, in trying to alleviate the 
 sufferings of dying cats, builds a cat-hospital and 
 prolongs their suffering for months, or we call 
 a workman "bad" who, by some striking exem- 
 plification of the unsatisfactoriness of the kind 
 of employe which he typifies, is the cause of his 
 employer's installing labor-saving machinery. It 
 would be more accurate to speak merely of "a 
 well-intentioned woman" or an "ill-intentioned 
 man." A safe hypothesis by which to guide one's 
 judgments is that "only that is good which is 
 good for something." 
 
 As to whether the existence of evil wouldn't be 
 justified if it were shown to be the only way 
 known to God for strengthening our characters? 
 We answer "No." Except there were such evils 
 to overcome by means of evil itself, what would 
 be the use or advantage of building up a strong 
 character? The aim of all things, towards which
 
 218 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 triumphs, or character, or any other achieve- 
 ments are but subsidiary means, we decided, was 
 Happiness. Then how is mankind better off be- 
 cause at the cost of much wickedness and crying, 
 the balance of smiling is to be of that particular 
 and especial variety that comes through a strong 
 character conquering temptations ? 
 
 Our essay thus far has shown man as a crea- 
 ture capable of the greatest variety of contradic- 
 tory motives, sometimes sensual or even whimsi- 
 cal, sometimes ambitious, anon idealistic, and in 
 rare instances even truly altruistic. It has fur- 
 ther shown that the happiest life pro tern is that 
 which expresses nothing higher (nor lower) that 
 our character as already formed, but that it may 
 pay to renounce some of this present luxury to 
 achieve higher character and its accompanying 
 greater fortitude and greater bliss. The way thus 
 prepared for us to tell you frankly both what you 
 may hope for yourself and what we ourselves 
 hope, to profit by these essays. We feel that in 
 general a man who writes a book or delivers a 
 lecture does well to commence by summing up for 
 his audience frankly, in a few words, what is 
 his own point of view. They can be on their guard 
 against him. The writer or lecturer if he's wise 
 will wish this, because a good knock-down fight 
 at the beginning is more satisfactory to either 
 party fhan a history of deceptions ending in dis- 
 illusionment and embitterment. So let us tell first 
 how it is we came to write these essays, and in
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 219 
 
 so doing, we'll see whether our mutual plan isn't 
 (as we believe) the thing to serve best your in- 
 terests too. 
 
 Frankly, then, we hit on the idea of these es- 
 says as a means of building up the nucleus of an 
 ideal society. It occurred to us that certain major 
 principles which must be the foundation of the 
 better social organization which is to succeed the 
 present one could be denned in terms that would 
 make them immediately workable by individuals 
 or groups ; and, further, that through a course on 
 personal problems we could appeal to our readers 
 on a basis largely of self interest to adopt these 
 principles and to join with groups of others in 
 practicing them. We're always glad to correspond 
 on such matters with readers of our books. 
 
 Within the shell, therefore, of the cruel and 
 wicked but visibly disintegrating social order in 
 which our lives have been cast, we want to plant. 
 like seeds, little groups organized upon the fol- 
 lowing lines: 
 
 1. Leaving to individual judgment the ques- 
 tion of the Ego's survival of death, we condemn 
 the intrusion into schools and public meetings of 
 exercises, etc., based on assumptions of superna- 
 tural powers, a teleological or moral universe, 
 etc., or otherwise designed to distract to the prob- 
 lems of an hypothetical other world the energies 
 that are so sorely needed for the problems of this 
 present world. Instead of the hereafter we em- 
 phasize the here.
 
 220 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 2. Their purpose shall be to promote the great- 
 est happiness of the greatest number of mem- 
 bers and of non-members, contributors and non- 
 contributors, alike. Hence the first law of their 
 nature shall be not self-preservation, not wealth 
 and respectability, but daily to dispel ignorance 
 and suffering. 
 
 3. Overpopulation of the world increases 
 the bitterness of the economic struggle. We en- 
 join upon our following Adoption and Education, 
 as being worthier than propagation, of children. 
 
 4. It should be a matter of conscience that 
 self-expression should not assume unwholesome 
 or vulgar or wasteful forms. Our members are 
 pledged to general abstemiousness, and to non-use 
 of tobacco and drugs. 
 
 5. We believe in continuous self-education. 
 
 6. Full freedom of expression through forms 
 intellectual and artistic, as vital to human sanity, 
 is one of the purposes of our organization. 
 
 7. We urge individuals to consider as para- 
 mount the rights of the group, in questions which 
 involve an irreconcilable conflict of liberties of 
 sensing or expressing, as for example where one 
 wishes to smoke or to swear in a loud unmusical 
 voice in a car in which are other persons whose 
 physical senses 35 are irritated thereby, or to dis- 
 figure a landscape, or to mingle in crowds if one's 
 body doesn't measure up to a certain standard of 
 
 36 The meaning- of the swear-words is no physical but a mental fact. 
 It would be impracticable to carry this rule into the ideational realm, 
 for the meanings which any presentation may, call up will depend 
 upon each perceiver's own associations, hence are unpredictable.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 221 
 
 healthiness. But we urge vigorous resistance to 
 every encroachment of the group upon each in- 
 dividual's right to do whatever isn't an aggres- 
 sive interference with the equal freedom of 
 others in sensation or expression. As for exam- 
 ple where the group insist on him taking part in 
 great emotional mass-movements with their like- 
 lihood of grand-scale violence, which last is al- 
 ways wrong. Every form of discrimination 
 against large groups of races or color of skin, 
 etc., is essentially contrary to our spirit. 
 
 8. Our members shall bring their disputes be- 
 fore our own tribunals for settlement, and it shall 
 be the rule that whoever exacts any penalty, even 
 from his child, shall in some degree humble him- 
 self or do a penance of like sort, before him, lest 
 arrogance grow among us. 
 
 9. Self -understanding is the most fundamental 
 knowledge. 
 
 10. As a rebuke to that commercial spirit 
 which has filled the world with materialistic dis- 
 content, our organization will not in its offcial 
 capacity own property. It will arrange camps 
 and other meetings which members are enjoined 
 occasionally to attend, at which they will take a 
 holiday from the greedy atmosphere of the pres- 
 ent-day world, share in common the labor of the 
 camp and divide among the needy all supplies 
 brought along. 
 
 11. Our organization-plan shall be such as be- 
 seems our aspiration to unify all enduringly wor-
 
 222 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 thy institutions. The membership shall be rep- 
 resented not geographically but according to their 
 industrial or other affiliations. Half as many rep- 
 resentatives as members elect to our supreme 
 council may be chosen by any persons outside the 
 membership, or who have been repressed by us, 
 or dishonored, this provision is for a check to 
 growth among us of snobbish tendencies. Half 
 as many representatives as these shall be chosen 
 by those children or others whom we have most 
 severely disciplined; 36 this as a check to tyran- 
 nous tendencies. 
 
 Upon the foregoing eleven principles we are 
 as said, founding an organization, which each of 
 our readers is invited to join. But in so inviting 
 them, we wish to appeal on grounds primarily of 
 their self-interest. Only if our organization truly 
 benefits its membership, will it measure up to its 
 first principle to serve mankind. So next let us 
 follow our exposition of the plans of development 
 of the association with an exposition of plans for 
 personal develpment of its individual adherents. 
 Later we think we can show that the two mutual- 
 ly support each other, principle by principle, and 
 step by step. In the course of the other essays 
 of this series, we shall try to show : 
 
 1. The pathological types will be happier 
 when they can become natural. 
 
 2. The merely animal type will find his pleas- 
 
 Terhaps in the beginnigr no severer cases will occur than of per- 
 sons who have been put ou.t of a rneetinpr for causing disturbance.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 223 
 
 ures actually heightened to the degree that an in- 
 fusion into him of the spirit of ambitious egoism 
 brings him to greater abstemiousness. 
 
 3. The egoist needs an infusion of less selfish 
 aspiration, to prevent him narrowing himself to 
 the point where life has become sterile. A warm 
 heart is as necessary to success as is a cool head. 
 
 4. This craving becomes satisfied only as he 
 continues his development toward an efficient al- 
 truism. 
 
 So much for the general conception. But how, 
 you'll ask, is it proposed that these changes should 
 be effected ? It's impossible to effect them in many 
 cases quickly. They must come as results of con- 
 scious growth, and lasting growth can be begun 
 only on the basis of reliable scientific knowledge. 
 So we propose to devote the various essays that 
 follow this one to considering in more and 
 more detail each specific impulse of the human 
 being, and to show how in each case the elemental 
 desire may be stepped up to a sublimated form of 
 expression. We already have discussed the pe- 
 culiar doubleness of human responses "condi- 
 tioned reflex," "bivalance," and "ambitendency." 
 Chapter 5 will consider how we best can confirm 
 faint tendencies, exposes the fallacies of make-be- 
 lieve sciences like phrenology, "memory-train- 
 ing," "wiH"-training, etc., 37 and gives the present 
 status of the doctrine of instincts. 
 
 wnjit a lot of philosophy dating back to Locke, and psychology an- 
 tedating James you'll find in most of the popular discussions of these 
 subjects! They're permeated by the dogma of "discipline" for our 
 "faculties," which any normal school graduate can tell you is dead.
 
 224 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 We've said that our aim in this book is partly 
 a social one. Upon the foundation of elemental 
 human nature colored with the idea of restraint 
 instead of that of development has been reared a 
 society little better than a brothel, where four 
 sinister columns, greed, superstition, terrorism 
 and vainglory become necessary to support its 
 corner institutions of Property, Church and chari- 
 ties, Penitentiary, and State. But upon the same 
 human nature can't you see reared some day in 
 place of this brothel a fair temple to Happiness, 
 whose corner institutions shall be Collectivism, 
 The Federation of Clubs of Service, Re-education 
 Homes, and athletic and Propaganda Leagues? 
 The Ethics we're interested in, isn't the Ethics 
 that bolsters the posts of the ancient and decaying 
 brothel why not let that rot and fall away? 
 but the Ethics necessary as foundation for the 
 columns of the new temple that will arise. 
 
 These essays are intended to solve for you the 
 greatest puzzle of life the puzzle of Conduct. 
 Each of us has a tendency toward being a social 
 animal, that desires to do what is felt to be right ; 
 but each of us at the same time has many individ- 
 ual tendencies, that make him wish to follow sel- 
 fish and even unwise and passionate impulses. 
 When we simply make a compromise between 
 these two natures as we ordinarily do in life, 
 
 methods of suggestion which are therapeutically questionable, and 
 terms like "subconscious" (for unconscious) and telepathy, for mut>cU>- 
 reading which indicate ways of thinking that have been superseded. 
 In our discussion of the "Will" we at least shall not fool you with 
 make-believe science.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 225 
 
 neither nature is quite satisfied, and we become 
 unhappy. 
 
 Analyses should be made in no cynical spirit, 
 and with the idea that "To understand all is to 
 forgive all." . 
 
 That which in our association goes by the name 
 of goodness is not to be thot of as in all respects 
 a different goodness from all which the old world 
 long has so regarded. All that men have till now 
 thot and felt is not to be thrown by the board. 
 But those virtues which we particularly stress, or 
 concerning which we differ from others, or on 
 which our teaching requires definition, we shall 
 gradually set forth in the ethical code below. To 
 practice this code in their lives rather than to 
 preach it by word of mouth is the form of propa- 
 ganda which we enjoin upon all of our members; 
 it will win far more converts to us than anything 
 else we could do. 
 
 Mr. Greenbie, the first teacher at our school in 
 California wrote up the following account of his 
 experiences on "affection at Boyland." 
 
 "When parents finally consent to give their 
 children into the care of strangers they should be 
 given some guarantee that they will receive the at- 
 tention children by right of being born of civilized 
 parents deserve. 
 
 "Of course, were we still living in a natural en- 
 vironment instead of the mind-born one, there 
 would be no question of education. Thrown out 
 upon our own resources with unperverted in-
 
 226 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 stincts as our guides, education would be neces- 
 sary. But civilization is at war with our in- 
 stincts and rave against it much as Nietsche will 
 it is as much an instinct with us to destroy our 
 instincts and substitute the minds' wishes as it is 
 to submit to 'stagnation.' 
 
 "Affection is a matter of education it is lead 
 out of us. So too is brutality. And naturally 
 the fond mother should inquire as to how much 
 affection her child will get if entrusted to the 
 master. And she might use this barometrically. 
 A child's education is proportionate to the amount 
 of affection it receives. 
 
 "One of the loveliest things at Boyland is the 
 general good will existing among the boys. This 
 is not saying that they have no quarrels, no bick- 
 erings a more lucid term, squabbles. They would 
 be boys without special characteristics were that 
 the case. 
 
 "But more often it isn't because of jealousy 
 but because one makes a nuisance of himself 
 that the trouble begins. 'It's so much quieter 
 
 without ' they will say. 'Everything goes 
 
 better when is away.' 
 
 "This, it must be seen, is in reality a desire to 
 eliminate those who make for quarrelsomeness. 
 
 "On the other hand, when grouped about listen- 
 ing to one of us telling them the lesson in history 
 (or other subject of the day) very often the oldest 
 would permit one of the younger to share the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 227 
 
 steamer-chair with him, putting his arm about 
 him in the spirit of brotherliness. 
 
 "The majority of mothers who alone have been 
 compelled to assume all the responsibility over 
 their children generally say that a father is need- 
 ed to supply the sterner training. And indeed 
 as far as rational discipline is concerned, the 
 boys at Boyland received a wholesome share of 
 it. But undue severity has been eliminated by 
 calm judgment. 
 
 "Where most parents make the mistake is in 
 making demands on their children the carrying 
 out of which they are themselves indifferent to. 
 But our motto has been first to be sure that that 
 which we have asked the boy to do is absolutely 
 necessary and then to see that it is accomplished, 
 or else not making the demand. This can be done 
 firmly and affectionately, and should be as easy 
 for the mother as for the father. 
 
 "On one occasion, little Self-Willed refused to 
 do what was asked of him. At the same time he 
 threatened to run home if I insisted. Calmly and 
 without unnecessary talking to, I picked him up 
 in my arms and made for the field of battle. In 
 the tussle he struck me in the face. I took even 
 this calmly. Upon reaching our destination, I 
 set him on the ground, gave him a shovel (the 
 others were doing the same) and told him to get 
 to it. He insisted he wouldn't dig, at the same 
 time tearing out shovel after shovel of dirt, ac- 
 cording to orders. Then I dismissed the others
 
 228 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 and kept him to the task, talking to him all the 
 while, gently, and pointing out the need of effort, 
 self-control, etc., etc. When I thot the lesson long 
 enough, I asked him if he didn't want to quit. And 
 hand in hand, we made for home, better friends 
 than ever. Up turned the little face to me and 
 the lips spoke out: 'You're my daddy now.' I 
 picked him up, he put his arms about me and so 
 we reached the cottage. 
 
 "Time and again that same refrain accompanied 
 by a kiss gladdened a darker moment. At other 
 times, when I entered the room to see that they 
 were well tucked in, the windows opened, two 
 eager little hands would draw me close to two 
 puckered lips which kissed me good night. We 
 were their guardians, their providers, their train- 
 ers and their playmates. 
 
 "One little youngster came to me in a hungry 
 moment. 'I wish I had someone to hug,' he said. 
 Did I deny that to him? Soon we were sitting on 
 one chair, talking reminiscently, as tho we had 
 been brothers in some other world. 
 
 "When coming up from dinner, one little fellow 
 said: 'Carry me up stairs, Prince.' The others 
 soon made the same request, piling pell mell upon 
 us, laughing and gurgling in glee. At another 
 time, they would put their arms around us, and 
 together we would come up the stairs from the 
 dining room. 
 
 "After having been naughty, one youngster 
 came up to me with a book to show me something.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 229 
 
 I took him in my arms and asked him to make an 
 effort to become a stronger boy and assured him 
 that we loved him and would do everything to 
 help him. 'I love you too,' he answered, evident- 
 ly much moved by my show of affection. 
 
 "Someone suggested that we go for a moonlight 
 ride, and immediately, it spread like wild-fire. 
 Nothing to do but go. Then I decided to remain to 
 do some work, but they wouldn't hear of it. Into 
 the Den they came, virtually dragging me out by 
 my coat tails. Then Prince, thinking it was a 
 partial show of affection for me, and having 
 enough to do to stay home, went in. When they 
 saw that they rushed in, clamoring that he too 
 come. Nothing would do but that we both come 
 along. And a jolly crew were we." 
 
 Kindness to other human beings is our first 
 duty, because in them it begets a like emotion, 
 that continues multiplying its effect. But the 
 truly chivalrous person is he whose love by no 
 means ceases at the boundaries of the human 
 species, but includes all who live. One should en- 
 deavor to be as all-compassionate as Gautama. 
 
 In what form this kindness toward animals 
 should find its expression is a matter for individ- 
 ual judgment. 
 
 Kindness doesn't consist in petting each pass- 
 ing dog. Doubtfully does it consist in feeding 
 the starving birds and squirrels thru the winter, 
 since this in the end means a multiplication of 
 the number of these creatures and so of the in-
 
 230 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 definite expansion of our problem. What is 
 needed is not sentimentalism. 
 
 As regards vivisection, our problem is compli- 
 cated by many factors. We must beware of 
 judging that all animals kept for experimental 
 purposes are made to suffer, because cases of 
 cruelty have been known, or because of reports 
 by all-informed and hysterical crusaders. Many 
 physiologists invariably take entirely adequate 
 precautions against the infliction of pain ; and in- 
 deed the conditions of the experiment themselves 
 as a rule absolutely require the administering of 
 an anaesthetic if any operation is to be performed, 
 as otherwise the struggles of the animal would 
 defeat the experimenter's aims. Nevertheless, 
 cruel and even sadistic men do occur in labora- 
 tories, from whom creatures should be protected 
 in some way. The Boston American suggests: 
 
 "The first step to be taken is to throw open to 
 the public these vivisection chambers." 
 
 This would of course need to be done in a way 
 that would not interfere with the physical free- 
 dom of the experimentors. Such measurements 
 at best undoubtedly would meet with great oppo- 
 sition from the hospitals, as many ill-balanced 
 persons would be at first stirred up to protests in 
 unwarranted measure. But in the end the pub- 
 lic would find its poise. 
 
 It is much easier to slir up the public to a cam- 
 paign against the real and supposed cruelties of 
 by which the vague thing called science benefits,
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 231 
 
 than against the cruelties by which they them- 
 selves profit to the extent of having savory viands 
 and luxurious skins. Almost everyone nowadays, 
 even quite outside the ranks of the vegetarians, 
 admits that we are positively harmed by the 
 amount of meat we consume. If you are in 
 real earnest about this business of being kind to 
 animals, begin right now and at home to amend 
 the suffering of live-stock under our abominable 
 slaughter house conditions, by denying yourself 
 eighty per cent of the animal products you now 
 use. 
 
 "Apropos is the following clipping from a leaf- 
 let circulated by the American Humane Educa- 
 tion Society, Boston, Mass.: 
 
 NOT SUDDEN DEATH ALONE. 
 
 Possibilities Liable to Occur in the Chase of 
 Any Wild Animal That Escapes Wounded. 
 
 "I got a long snap-shot on the stag and hit the 
 beast in the haunch. It was late in the day and 
 the wounded animal got away. Nine days later 
 I spied the big stag. * * * * 
 
 "Not once did he rise or attempt to feed, but 
 lay there restlessly, beating his head against the 
 ground. I knew well enough what that meant. 
 His plaint could not reach my ear, but it reached 
 my heart. I put up the 200-yard sight and killed 
 him. 
 
 "I will not attempt to describe the body in 
 detail. It would not be desirable. I will merely
 
 232 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 say that it was wasted away and almost fleshless 
 except for the wounded haunch, which was great- 
 ly swollen. This I had done for my pleasure! 
 
 "After that year I went no more to Scotland." 
 
 In this little sketch from "Tracks of a Rolling 
 Stone," by Hon. H. J. Coke, we have volumes of 
 the "sport of killing." 
 
 The above is quoted by the Vegetarian,* a little 
 paper edited by Mrs. J. R. Albert in the hope of 
 appealing to the human conscience not to destroy 
 animals for food. Our meat consumption should 
 be reduced to less than a quarter of what it now 
 is. That would benefit ourselves as well as re- 
 lieve the victims. But the human race is singu- 
 larly callous to any humanitarian appeal which 
 deprives it of an indulgence, except it be a call 
 to inflict vengeance. 
 
 The way to meet the outer world, which after 
 all is as weak and susceptible to suggestion as we, 
 is to meet it with the smile of friendship no mat- 
 ter how hard we may have to fight it. Thus we 
 shall win friends to ourselves, at least among 
 those whose friendship is worth having. 
 
 True happiness 
 
 Consists not in the multitude of friends, 
 But in the worth and choice. Nor would I have 
 Virtue a popular regard pursue: 
 Let them be good that love me, tho but few. 38 
 Even children followed with endearing wile, 
 
 *1649 Grand Ave., Chicago. 
 
 ""Johnson, Ben Cynthias Revels, Act 3, Scene 2.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 233 
 
 And plucked his gown, to share the good man's 
 smile. 39 
 
 Children always appreciate friendship, and few 
 adults will take the trouble to be their friends. 
 
 Befriend the frightened dog, whom cruel youths 
 have hounded, with tin cans to his tail, making 
 sport of its embarrassment. Follow not the priests 
 of Zoroaster, that otherwise great master, but 
 who taught his magic they should kill, as allies 
 of dark Ahriman, toads and snakes and all such 
 creatures whom unhappy fate endowed with 
 scales. Follow least of all the way of hunters 
 moved not by need of food but their pleasure in 
 the hunt; to professional butchers such things 
 are best left, and them even we ought not to 
 stimulate to more than necessary slaughter, but 
 reduce to minimum our demand for meat, for 
 man's own existence isn't near so joyous as jus- 
 tifies that brutes should greatly suffer for our 
 race's maintenance. Befriend, as Bludda did the 
 wounded swan struck by his cousin's arrow, and 
 all other helpless creatures. 
 
 Befriend afflicted persons. Visit them whom 
 sickness has laid low, in hospitals especially, the 
 time goes slowly, callers come not often forget 
 our selfish bashfulness, take a chance on being 
 more than welcome, for how few think to come! 
 Visit those worse than sick, the sick in soul, the 
 misanthrope, the grouch, the unpleasant and un- 
 grateful persons; of all that are sick on earth 
 
 ''Goldsmith The Deserted Village, L. 183.
 
 234 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 none are sorer afflicted, none more bereft of 
 friends than these. Befriend the unfit, who by 
 hereditary taint, improper education, vicious 
 habits, or the pride-sapping will weakening exper- 
 ience of a life of failure, know only demon dis- 
 couragement. Befriend the popular man ; he may 
 need a true friend. Above all go to the prisons, 
 seek out the wretched drags of our society ; treat 
 them as sages, perhaps emotionally unstable, but 
 schooled in all the bitterness of experience; take 
 your questions of state to those whom the weight 
 of society crushes, go sit at the feet of the 
 humble.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Sexuality, its aberrations, and its sublimations, 
 will occupy us now. Control, restriction, of the 
 birthrate may claim consideration as the third of 
 our ethical mandates. The sensualist with his 
 erotomania is on the lowest rung of the ladder ; we 
 recall one night in a New York elevated train a 
 drunkard who retorted to the jibes of the crowd, 
 "Tha's all right, but I've got eight children at 
 home, and that's more than any of you've got!" 
 The entirely normal person keeps his family with- 
 in smaller number largely because there are so 
 many other outlets for his energies to vie with 
 the purely sexual channel. The ambitious person 
 will prefer to launch a few well educated children 
 toward careers that may shed lustre upon him as 
 their parent, than to spawn his progeny whole- 
 sale. The altruist sees that to adopt and educate 
 some of the unfortunate children already begot- 
 ten into a world that doesn't want them is the 
 true virtue, whereas unlimited breeding by the 
 working class is to the advantage only of their 
 masters who want more strike-breakers and sol- 
 diers. 
 
 SECTION I 
 
 Of the two most fundamental problems of the 
 day, we may well be nearer the solution of the 
 other the economic than of this one. Indeed,
 
 236 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 the economic problem may well have to be set- 
 tled first. 
 
 The accompanying pictures show you how men 
 and women have to work in a country (India) 
 where birth-rate is practically unchecked. Even 
 the filth from street and stable is gathered into 
 cakes and dried against the walls of the houses, 
 to serve as fuel. 
 
 INDIAN WOMEN SPINNING 
 
 It is to the sexual question to which we must 
 go for an explanation of the creation and sup- 
 pression of complexes. 
 
 "Standing out prominently in the Freudian 
 System is that idea of a conflict between the 
 mental tendencies of the individuals and the tra- 
 ditional code of conduct prescribed by .... So- 
 ciety." This conflict particularly takes the form
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 237 
 
 of the sexual question, a few of the evidences of 
 which are as follows: 
 
 There is a close union between blood lust and 
 sex lust, and we need not point out the fearful 
 rage of combative passion which is sweeping over 
 the world today. This age is only parallelled in 
 that respect by those other ages in the world's 
 history when both sexual and military passion 
 swept over the world. For example, the period of 
 the Crusades. You will recall that these Cru- 
 sades, like our modern war, is excused by all the 
 parties to it on the ground of a high ideal to be 
 attained, tho it is significant that the immediate 
 precursor of the Crusades was the interference by 
 the Seljukian Turks with the profitable commerce 
 in oriental luxuries for the merchant princes of 
 the day. 
 
 Almost contemporaneously with the Crusades 
 was also a peculiar outburst of dancing mania ; for 
 example, in Spain was originated at that time 
 the famous Tarentella dance, supposed to be a 
 cure for the bite of the tarantula. Only a few 
 years ago we ourselves witnessed a great rage for 
 dancing of a more primitive type than has been 
 fashionable for centuries. The type of music 
 now so much in vogue is itself closely allied to 
 the primitive, particularly the "Jazz," makes a 
 strong appeal to the emotions. 
 
 Again, there is the tremendous increase in di- 
 vorce, itself, however, only a symptom of the fun- 
 damental discontent with the marriage institu-
 
 238 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tion and symptom of the resolution not to be 
 bound by it. Our novels and serious magazine 
 literature are constantly permeated by discussions 
 of the sex question in a way indicative of the 
 great interest taken in it by all persons of the 
 present time, and to these evidences may be ad- 
 ded that of the moving pictures. 
 
 DRYING CAKES OF OFFAL FOR FUEL 
 
 Just recently in the New York Times maga- 
 zine 1 we read of the meeting of the Women's Free- 
 dom Congress, in which the addresses of Fola 
 La Follette, Signe Toksvig, Anna Strunsky Wall- 
 ing, and others all showed the radical tendency of 
 the times. 
 
 Nor is it difficult to account upon many scores 
 for this wave of public tendency. In the first 
 
 J March 30, 1919.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 239 
 
 place, it is a natural thing in the human race 
 to surge from one extreme of a passionate feeling 
 to another, alternating between the pleasure mo- 
 tive and the ascetic ideal. The tendency of pres- 
 ent age, from this point of view, is really a flow- 
 ing back from the other extreme of puritanism. 
 
 Again, the amusements which are offered to us 
 are nearly all of a type to increase the already 
 great hyper-excitability of the race. People are 
 no longer content to remain quietly at home or 
 calling upon their friends, or sitting on their front 
 verandahs in the evening discussing serious or 
 frivolous questions, but instead someone imme- 
 diately suggests that the unoccupied moments 
 should be utilized for seeing, let us say, the new- 
 est comic opera. The comic opera, the typical 
 play of our times, has as its motive essentially 
 the play of sexuality, treated nearly always in 
 light and frivolous fashion. 
 
 The older morality of sex was determined by 
 the conception of property, woman being in the 
 old regime more or less of a chattel. The newer 
 conception is one which places both sexes on a 
 basis of equality and denies to neither of them 
 his or her individuality. And the institution of 
 marriage must, therefore, become based not upon 
 any forcible legal restraints as in the past, but 
 only upon the consideration of the well-being and 
 happiness of all its members. 
 
 "That a man or woman, the units of society, 
 should violate the divine in themselves for the
 
 240 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 sake of society is absurd. They are merely set- 
 ting an example to their children to do the same 
 thing, which means that society in that respect 
 will never get any better." 2 
 
 Certain philosophers whom we shall discuss in 
 Chapter 10, made of man essentially an animal 
 driven by the urge of the belly, "A pig philosophy" 
 it was called by Carlisle, with a petulance which 
 betrayed him as more sentimentalist than logi- 
 cian. These psychoanalysts whom we shall now 
 discuss with you a very modern school regard 
 man as essentially driven by the urge of sex. 
 
 Josef Breuer, a Vienna physician, in 1880 dis- 
 covered "that the symptoms of hysterical patients 
 depend upon impressive but forgotten scenes in 
 their lives (traumata). The thereapy founded 
 thereon was to cause the patients to recall and 
 reproduce these experiences under hypnosis (ca- 
 tharsis), and the fragmentary theory, deduced 
 from it was that these symptoms corresponded to 
 an abnormal use of undischarged sums of excite- 
 ment (conversion) Breuer al- 
 lowed the carthartic treatment to rest .... and 
 only resumed it after" (his pupil, Dr. Freud) 
 "caused him to do so, on (the latter's) return from 
 Charcot. 8 
 
 Breuer's famous case was that of a girl with 
 paralyzed arm. Under hypnosis she eventually 
 recalled a scene where she had fallen asleep with 
 her arm hanging over the foot of the bed of her 
 
 "Alison Pair in Winston Churchill's The Inside of the Cup.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 241 
 
 invalid father. At this time her attendance on 
 her father was shutting her off from the court- 
 ship of a beau. Awakening in excitement, with 
 dreams in which snakes were conspicuous, she 
 found the stopping of circulation in her arm had 
 "put it to sleep" and she thought it paralyzed. 
 The discovery of this origin of the symptom re- 
 sulted in its automatic disappearance. 
 
 "Breuer .... must have discovered the sexual 
 motivity so that here, as tho hit by 'an un- 
 toward event' he broke off the investigation."* 
 His unconscious rebelled at the evidences that the 
 "undischarged sums of excitement" were invari- 
 ably sexual. 
 
 Freud says, "one day I was accompanying 
 Breuer when a man came up urgently desir- 
 ing to speak when Breuer was free 
 
 he told me this was the husband of a patient. 
 He ended . . . 'those are always secrets of the 
 alcove' ('secrets of the conjugal bed') 
 
 "Later, .... Charcot was just relating 
 
 to Brouardel .... 'C'est toujours la chose genital 
 toujours toujours toujours.' 5 
 
 "Chrobak . . . asked me to take a patient . . . 
 she was suffering from senseless attacks of anx- 
 iety, which could only be alleviated by the most 
 exact information as to the whereabouts of her 
 physician at any time in the day. When Chrobak 
 appeared, he took me aside and disclosed the fact 
 
 4 Idem. p. 5. 
 5 Idem, p. 7.
 
 242 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 that the patient's anxiety was due to the fact 
 that tho she had been married eighteen years, 
 she was still a virgo. intacta . . . " 6 with a cynical 
 prescription as the only cure. 
 
 As Freud now developed his own conclusions, 
 "an acquisition of the psychoanalytic work, won 
 
 by legitimate means, as extract from very 
 
 numerous experiences .... is the theory of in- 
 fantile sexuality. 'The seeker often found more 
 than he bargained for.' He was tempted always 
 further back .... hoped to be permitted to tarry 
 . . ." (But) "the tracks led still further back into 
 childhood . . . And now the whole sexual life of 
 the child made its appearance 
 
 "Abraham . . . drew attention to the fact that 
 just the peculiar nature of the child's sexual con- 
 stitution enables it to provoke sexual experiences 
 of a peculiar kind, that is to say traumas. 7 
 
 In "1902 a number of young doctors crowded 
 around" Freud "to learn psychoanalysis, to prac- 
 tice it, and to spread it. 8 
 
 "Ellis . . . wrote, in 1911 ... 'Freud's psy- 
 choanalysis is now championed and carried out, 
 not only in Australia and in Switzerland, but in 
 the United States, in England, India, Canada.' 9 
 
 . . . "Even in prudish America one could, ... in 
 academic circles, . . . treat scientifically all those 
 things that are regarded as offensive." 10 
 
 6 Idem, pp. 8, 9. 
 'Idem, p. 11. 
 "Idem, p. 17. 
 "Idem, p. 22. 
 10 Idem, p. 23.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 243 
 
 Just as we have seen James, Thorndike, Mc- 
 Dougal and others postulating a multitude of in- 
 stincts of slightly ^related character, so Freud on 
 the other hand has his own hierachy of human 
 motives, but all of an essentially sexual nature. 
 Thus he has as his primal pair normal active and 
 passive (masculine and feminine) erotic desire; 
 next come sadism (pleasure in inflicting pain) es- 
 pecially upon the opposite sex and masochism 
 (pleasure in being subjected to pain, especially 
 by one of opposite sex) and thirdly we have ex- 
 hibitionism (love of displaying one's self) and 
 curiosity (originating in curiosity about sex). 
 From these six impulses Freud derives all others. 
 
 Some good illustration of "exhibitionism" and 
 its withdrawal we may get 11 
 
 "From an article in the Pedagogic Seminary, 
 by G. Stanley Hall and Theodate L. Smith. 
 
 "The following records of the conduct of chil- 
 dren showing off before strangers, and also the 
 cases of several older persons: 
 
 1, male, four years old. Being watched at his 
 play, would run as fast as he could, and fall down. 
 
 2, male, seven years old. When watched at 
 play, began to hammer the fence. "See! I am 
 moving this fence." 
 
 3, male, five years old. First pants. Walked 
 around; then began to kick, laugh, lie down, roll 
 over, etc. 
 
 4, female, five years old. New hat. Sits down. 
 
 "McKeever, Psychology and Higher Life.
 
 244 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Holds the head first on one side, then on the other ; 
 . . . will get a book, stand on a chair, "speak 
 pieces," etc. Soon as people leave, she acts nat- 
 ural. 
 
 5, female, seven years old. Likes to say things 
 to make people laugh. Says whatever she thinks 
 of first, whether good or bad. 
 
 6, female, fourteen years old. Voice unnatural 
 and her words do not sound like English when a 
 certain boy friend is near. Sometimes the affec- 
 tion continues after he is gone. 
 
 7, female, two years old. Turned somersaults 
 when calling. 
 
 8, female, seven years old. Thinking herself 
 watched tried to walk in a fine way. 
 
 9, two boys, aged eight and six years, playing 
 "dares." The older one dared the younger one to 
 put his foot on a chopping-block, which the latter 
 did, and had his foot cut off: at the ankle. 
 
 10, male, thirteen years old. Servant. Company 
 being present, let the pie slide off the plate on 
 some one's dress. 
 
 13, female, five years old. Very bashful before 
 strangers. Face grows red, and she says the op- 
 posite of what she means. 
 
 14, male, fourteen years old. Much trouble with 
 what was called "swallowers" if he sat in com- 
 pany. 
 
 15, female, sixteen years old. Face would flush 
 and heart palpitate if spoken to by a stranger. 
 
 16, male, seventeen years old. Good speaker.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 245 
 
 Feels flush and faint when he faces an audience. 
 Every nerve seems to twitch. 
 
 17, female, adult. Often addresses meetings, 
 and presides with great dignity. Says it is a great 
 trial. 
 
 18, male, nineteen years old. When talking to 
 a young lady, turns bright red, stammers, smiles, 
 . . . and finally bolts." 
 
 The Libido is used by Dr. Freud in its ancient 
 significance of an almost purely sexual aggre- 
 gate of energy. Carl Jung, however, modifies this 
 somewhat and means by the term simply the sum 
 of all our tendencies. In infancy the whole course 
 of the libido fixes itself upon the functions of the 
 body, not only the alimentive actions in them- 
 selves, but those closely allied to them, such as 
 sucking a finger, etc., and even the exeretory 
 functions become to the small child a source of 
 incredible pleasure. Indeed, in later life, many 
 tendencies, both neurotic and normal, are to be 
 traced back to their origin and development from 
 these earliest pleasures. As the child grows older, 
 he changes somewhat the nature of his cravings, 
 but still fixates for a long time upon himself, and 
 it is rather the continuation beyond its normal 
 period than anything else which is pathological 
 in for example, masturbation. The next stage af- 
 ter this, which we may call subjective, is the stage 
 known technically as narcistic. The name comes 
 from that of a Greek boy who was so engrossed 
 with the beauty of his own form that he could
 
 246 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 not fall in love with the beautiful nymph who 
 was pining away for him, and as a punishment 
 he was condemned to become the flower narcissus, 
 which grows beside of a pool and lives forever 
 upon its own beautiful reflection in the waters. 
 As this indicates, the narcisistic stage is that in 
 which the individual is all engrossed in admiring 
 and idealizing his own body, or perhaps we may 
 add thereto, his own superlative characteristics. 
 Finally we come to the objective stage of develop- 
 ment, in which the libido finally turns outward and 
 fixates upon some person in the outside world, 
 normally upon someone of the opposite sex. In 
 childhood, of course, the most available persons 
 are the child's own parents, and to a lesser ex- 
 tent, its brothers and sisters, and as the tendency 
 is still inclined to manifest itself most toward 
 the different sex, we have the boy in love with 
 his mother, and the girl with her father, a fav- 
 oritism which is generally reciprocated by the 
 parent him or herself. This situation gives rise, 
 of course, to the jealousy of the parent of like sex 
 to that of the child himself. The boy is jealous 
 of his father and the girl of her mother, because 
 the boy wishes to possess the mother all to him- 
 self, etc. 
 
 These desires often are expressed by the child 
 in naive frankness, as when the little girl asks 
 "Daddy, when mummie does, will you marry me ?" 
 But soon more complex motives come into play 
 and there ensues embarrassment and repression.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 247 
 
 But these childhood desires still live on in the un- 
 conscious, and later in life may force the adult 
 into actions which afford them a sort of symboli- 
 cal expression and satisfaction, tho the individual 
 himself is forced to invent other explanations of 
 his conduct. It is as when one is given an hypno- 
 tic sleep a command to be carried out after awak- 
 ening. Duly he executes the command ; but when 
 you ask him why? his mind ignoring the true 
 reason hurriedly furnishes a pretext which might 
 make such an action seem rational and normal. 
 
 Freud's hypothesis of incest phantasy is based 
 upon his conception of infantile sexuality, which 
 we have perhaps sufficiently referred to under the 
 last question, together with the changes in the 
 object of the libido. You will recall the illustra- 
 tions of incest phantasy in the myths of Oedipus 
 and Jocasta. You will also recall how perpetual 
 a theme in ancient mythology was the myth of the 
 betrayal by treachery and subsequent resurrec- 
 tion from death of a racial hero come to redeem 
 the world. This occurs in the myths of even the 
 most primitive people in the stories of the swal- 
 lowing of nightfall of the sun, his subsequent bat- 
 tle with and escape from the great dragon or fish 
 that swallows him, and his liberation and reap- 
 pearance in the morning as a glorious new ris- 
 ing sun. Among the Babylonians, it was the 
 fish-god Oanes who thus typified our wish to be 
 reabsorbed by the mother that is by death other- 
 wise symbolised by the ocean and to be reborn
 
 248 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 again to the paradise of infantile irresponsibility 
 and omnipotence. Among the Egyptians, it was 
 Osiris betrayed into the hands of his enemy Set 
 resurrected through the loving devotion and mag- 
 ic arts of his sister-wife Isis and re-born as the 
 rising sun Horus. Among the Hebrews the story 
 is found in the adventures of Jonah swallowed by 
 the whale, carried under the sea, and spewed forth 
 to carry on his missionary task among the wicked 
 cities of Asia Minor. Of course the theme is 
 most familiar of all to us in the story of Jesus 
 betrayed by the kiss of Judas, and risen to immor- 
 tal life from the tomb. Our rite of baptism again 
 symbolizes drowning and, re-birth to the \new 
 life. 
 
 The most typical thing in all Freud's philoso- 
 phy, is the importance which he places on the 
 incest phantasy. We speak first of the role which 
 the father plays. As this role seems to be a 
 more important one as far as neurosis is con- 
 cerned than the mother. The two roles are to be 
 distinguished in this fashion taking typical cases 
 of course, that the father as a rule governs thru 
 fear and the mother thru sympathy. The off- 
 spring become attached to one or the other of 
 the parents in the majority of cases according to 
 their own sex the daughter being generally fond- 
 est of the father, the son of the mother, etc., and 
 there prevails on the contrary an antagonism be- 
 tween the son and father, daughter and mother. 
 However, Freud uses the term sexuality in a very
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 249 
 
 broad sense and recognizes in each individual a 
 large homeosexual component; so, as we mention 
 in the beginning of this paper he bases friendship 
 between members of the same sex upon the at- 
 traction of the homosexual element in the one 
 individual for the corresponding component in the 
 other. 
 
 It will be pertinent to this Chapter if we here 
 continue with Jung (pp. 321-327), giving as an 
 illustration of unconscious processes his case of 
 a servant who suddenly began to deck herself 
 out in bizarre fashion, had her teeth extracted, 
 and then accused herself of an heinous sin in hav- 
 ing done these things. On analysis it appeared 
 that a love-affair just grown serious had revived 
 in her the memories of a previous affair of like 
 kind but which had terminated disastrously, leav- 
 ing her with a child. To be sure of her present 
 lover's affection before she should tell him the 
 secret, she decked herself out in a fashion which 
 she thot attractive. Nor was she the first per- 
 son to have her teeth extracted out of pure 
 vanity. 
 
 The nervous reaction after such an operation 
 makes everything more difficult to bear, there- 
 fore then came the first anxiety attack. Still 
 the patient sought to guard her secret and so 
 "shifted the fear in her guilty conscience on to the 
 extraction of the teeth," a common method, "for 
 when we dare not acknowledge some great sin,
 
 250 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 we deplore some small sin with the greater em- 
 phasis." 
 
 "The problem seemed insoluble to the weak and 
 sensitive mind of the patient, hence the effect be- 
 came insurmountably great; this is the mental 
 desire as presented from the psychological side. 
 The series of apparently meaningless events," and 
 the delusions, have now a meaning. The patient 
 is a "person like ourselves, beset by universal 
 human problems." Thus we see in mental dis- 
 ease "an unusual reaction to emotional problems 
 which are in no wise foreign to ourselves," and 
 that "the delusion discloses the psychological sys- 
 tem on which it is based." 
 
 This conception is so enormously significant be- 
 cause it "forces us into the innermost depths of 
 the most common and least understood of mental 
 disorders," the extreme of madness. 
 
 A more complicated case was that of a man 
 between thirty and forty years of age, a foreign 
 archaeologist, "a precocious boy of rare gifts. 
 Physically he was small, always weakly, and a 
 stammerer. He ... studied ... at B ... He be- 
 come absorbed in his archaeological study so that 
 soon he ... led the life of a hermit devoted en- 
 tirely to science. A few years later, on a holiday 
 
 tour, he revisited B ... He walked a good 
 
 deal in the environs of the town. His few acquain- 
 tances now found him somewhat strange, taci- 
 turn, and nervous. ... He then remarked that he 
 must get himself hypnotised, he felt his nerves
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 251 
 
 unsteady." After an illness inflammation of the 
 lungs, a state of excitement set in, which led to 
 suicidal ideas. For weeks he was in the asylum 
 in an extremely excited state. Completely de- 
 ranged, not knowing where he was, he uttered 
 broken sentences no one could understand. Often 
 it took several attendants to hold him when he 
 became aggressive. Gradually he became quieter, 
 at length "came to himself, as if waking out of 
 a long confused dream." His health regained, he 
 was discharged as completely cured. He returned 
 home, took up his work, published several re- 
 markable books, and living a hermit-like exis- 
 tence, gradually became lost to all meaning of 
 the beauty of life. After a few years a brief 
 
 holiday again brought him to B , and he soon 
 
 resumed his solitary walks in the environs. "One 
 day he was suddenly overcome by a faint feeling, 
 and lay down in the street. Carried to a neigh- 
 boring house, "he immediately became extremely 
 excited. He began to perform gymnastics, 
 jumped over the rails of the bed, turned somer- 
 saults, in the room, began to declaim in a loud 
 voice, sang his own improvisations, etc." Again 
 at the asylum, the excitement continued. "He ex- 
 tolled his wonderful muscles, his beautiful figure, 
 his enormous strength.' He thot himself a great 
 singer, a marvelous reciter, an inspired poet and 
 composer. 
 
 The contrast of his ideas with reality was strik- 
 ing. "He is a small, weakly man of unimposing
 
 252 PHILOSOPHY OP HELPFULNESS 
 
 build, with poorly developed muscles betraying at 
 a first glance the atrophying effect of his studious 
 life." Unmusical, with a weak voice, he sings 
 out of tune, and is a bad speaker because of his 
 stammer. "For weeks he occupied himself in the 
 asylum with peculiar jumping, and contortions of 
 the body which he called gymnastics," then be- 
 came more quiet and dreamy, now and then sing- 
 ing a love song, and gradually becoming accessible 
 for lengthy conversations. 
 
 To sum up: 
 
 ... A typical case of dementia preacox, of the 
 katatonic variety, specially characterized by pe- 
 culiar movements and actions." Present views 
 in psychiatry would regard this as "localised cel- 
 lular disease in some part of the cortex, exhibit- 
 ing confusional states, delusions of grandeur, pe- 
 culiar contortions of the muscles, or twilight- 
 states, which taken all together have as little psy- 
 chological meaning as the bizarre shapes of a 
 drop of lead thrown into water." 
 
 The above is not Jung's view. "It was certainly 
 no accidental freak of brain-cells that created the 
 dramatic contrasts shown in the second illness." 
 heels from the ceiling were awakening in hun- 
 These contrasts "were very subtly determined by 
 the deficiencies in the patient's personality," de- 
 ficiencies we would all regard seriously in our- 
 selves. The latent desire to find compensation for 
 the austerities of his studious life in the joys of 
 poetry and music and love, the ambition of the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 253 
 
 stammerer who would emulate Demosthenes, 
 were not these the sources of the patient's delu- 
 sions ? The naturalness of the explanation is sig- 
 nificant. 
 
 "When our patient was a student he learned 
 to know and love a girl-student. Together they 
 made many excursions in the environs of the 
 town." His timidity and bashfulness, charac- 
 teristic of a stammerer, and his poverty never 
 permitted him to declare his love. They both 
 went away at the termination of their studies, 
 and he never saw her again. Not long afterwards 
 he heard she was married. 
 
 He buried himself in his studies, "not to forget, 
 but to work for her in his thoughts," keeping his 
 love quite secret, and never letting her or any 
 one else know of it. Once he traveled through the 
 town where she lived, and from the train "saw 
 standing in the distance a young woman with a 
 little child, and thought it was she. ... He does 
 not think he felt any peculiar feeling at that 
 moment; anyway . . . the unconscious wanted to 
 be left in peace with its illusion. Shortly after- 
 wards he came again to B . What was going 
 on in him?" 
 
 The patient's answer is that, upon falling ill, 
 he "lost the well-regulated world and found him- 
 self in the chaos of an overmastering dream, a 
 sea of blood and fire. . . . Everywhere conflagra- 
 tion, volcanic outbreaks, earthquakes, mountains 
 fell in, followed by enormous battles where the
 
 254 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 peoples fell upon one another. . . . He was right in 
 the midst of those fighting, wrestling, defending 
 himself, enduring unutterable misery and pain ; 
 gradually he was exalted and strengthened by a 
 strange calming feeling that some one was watch- 
 ing his struggles, that his loved one saw all from 
 afar. That was the time when he showed real 
 violence to the attendants. ... He saw himself at 
 the head of great armies which he would lead to 
 victory. . . . He would try to get his loved one as 
 prize of victory. As he drew near her the ill- 
 ness ceased, and he woke from a long dream." 
 
 "His daily life again began to follow the regular 
 routine. ... A few years later he was again at 
 B . . . . Again he followed the old trail and again 
 was overcome by memories. But this time he was 
 not immersed in the depths of confusion. He re- 
 mained orientated and en rapport with his sur- 
 roundings. The struggle was considerably milder, 
 but he did gymnastics, practiced the arts, and 
 made good his deficiences ; then followed the dream 
 stage with the love-scenes, corresponding to the 
 period of victory in the first psychosis. In this 
 state, according to his own words, he had a dream- 
 like feeling as if he stood upon the borders of two 
 worlds and knew not whether truth stood on the 
 right or on the left. He told Jung, 'It is said she 
 is married, but I believe she is not, but is still 
 waiting for me. ... It is ever to me as if she 
 were not married.' ' 
 
 "Our patient here portrayed but a pale copy
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 255 
 
 of the scene in the first attack of psychosis, when 
 he, the victor, stood before his mistress." In a 
 few weeks his scientific interests again began to 
 dominate, he repressed his intimate life more and 
 more, and "finally turned from it as if it did not 
 belong to himself. . . . There remained nothing 
 but a certain tense expression, and a look which, 
 though fixed on the outer world, was turned in- 
 wards at the same time; and this alone hinted at 
 the silent activity of the unconscious, preparing 
 new solutions for his insoluble problem. This is 
 the so-called cure in dementia preacox." 
 
 Following our custom, we shall now discuss a 
 type of utilization of the motive which altho it is 
 a sublimation of crude passion, yet doesn't appeal 
 to us to be the desirable kind of sublimation. In 
 chapter 10 we give what might well occupy this 
 section, namely a discussion of how sex is stimu- 
 lated into abnormal lust by present-day civiliza- 
 tion. As that theme is, however, trite we confine 
 ourselves here to a few words on sexuality in 
 religion. 
 
 It was in the town of Colombo, Ceylon, that 
 the writer first (Dec. 19, 1915), came across a 
 Hindu temple, which he inspected and found in- 
 teresting. It was unimportant. Within were a 
 few of the gods of the Hindu pantheon, chief be- 
 ing he of the elephant head (ganesh). The tem- 
 ple was set in a small grove of cocoanut trees, 
 and a heap of the nuts stood by. The next day 
 our train enroute for Kandy passed a number of
 
 256 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 such, ensconced in the jungle. In these temples 
 one finds pictured biographies of the gods, large- 
 ly turning upon erotic themes. 
 
 We crossed to India proper by what's known 
 as "Adam's Bridge." One day the gods had a 
 
 TEMPLE IN A GROVE IN CEYLON 
 
 big fight down in Ceylon, and when the defeated 
 parties ran away, they dropped into the water 
 niany large stones which they carried for missiles. 
 These form a chain of small islands from Ceylon 
 to the mainland, so close that the railroad is only 
 broken at one point. This fight was the one in 
 which the monkey-god Hanuman came to the as- 
 sistance of Rama, a story whereby the Hindus
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 257 
 
 explain the totemism that allows monkeys to in- 
 fest even their temple unharmed. 
 
 We arrived in Madura Dec. 15, 1915, and went 
 to see the most wonderful pagan temple in the 
 world. Its dark galleries and open courts covered 
 twenty-five acres of ground. From the moment 
 we entered, we were stunned by the sheer awe- 
 fulness of it. It was as tho we had been plunged 
 back twenty-five centuries into the days of Nine- 
 vah and Babylon, and the sight of us white per- 
 sons seemed as strange to those half -clad leering 
 throngs of human beings that encircled us as it 
 would have been to the ghosts of those ancient 
 races. Altho we entered the temple at 5 p. m. 
 (early in this climate), its endless corridors were 
 often quite dark, and the bats that hung by their 
 dreds, and filling the echoing chambers with a 
 weird whimpering and squeaking. The roof was 
 supported by grotesquely sculptured monolithic 
 columns, each representing some legend of a god. 
 Many of the shrines we weren't allowed to enter ; 
 but other times we came upon monstrous idols, 
 odorously greasy from the melted butter sacrificed 
 to them. 
 
 One gets some idea of the size of this temple 
 by looking out over the city from any high emin- 
 ence, when seemingly from the most separated 
 quarters of Tanjore arise those great towers 
 which mark the temple-gates. 
 
 These towers are typical element of Hindu 
 temple-architecture. Imagine an Egyptian obel-
 
 258 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 isk like "Cleopatra's Needle" to enlarge its girth, 
 or imagine Washington monument to lose the 
 greater part of its height. See it also bowing its 
 straight lines into curves, and then fancy every 
 surface becoming overwrought with fulsome 
 sculptures of gods and goddesses. Still you have 
 to picture these deep reliefs themselves as en- 
 crusted with smaller figures over and between 
 the arms and legs of the larger ones, and filling 
 in every interstice of background, like bees when 
 they are preparing to swarm from the hive. The 
 figures are always fulsome, with exaggeration of 
 sexual characteristics. 
 
 Our party usually included a stalwart Moham- 
 medan travelling-boy, Amir Bux, as well as two 
 ladies and me; but when we came to any shrine 
 of idolatry, Amir, as a follower of the Prophet, 
 remained stolidly outside, and left such adventur- 
 ings to us dogs of unbelievers. 
 
 Equally amazing as the gate-way towers were 
 some objects near them. We mean not the in- 
 numerable beggars no, poor creatures! they 
 raise their hideous deformities everywhere. 
 Only one particular beggar at this gate do we at 
 all remember, a young girl who clawed her way 
 thru the dust to show with pride the stumps where 
 her legs had never grown. No, it's not of the beg- 
 gars we're thinking, but of the far-famed car of 
 the jaggernath! 
 
 Just within the gate stood three of these im- 
 mense vehicles. We gazed on them with awe,
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 259 
 
 wondering whether their wheels had crushed out 
 'the lives of babes thrown under them by fanatic 
 parents, as missionaries love to report. Each 
 wagon formed a movable throne which with the 
 figure of the god seated on it was wheeled about, 
 whenever, as divined by the priests, the deity 
 wished to make a state visit to the shrine of one 
 of his heavenly relatives. The throne and entire 
 car were of wood carved with the same bewilder- 
 ing Hindu ornateness as the towers. 
 
 These jaggernath cars were the only interest- 
 ing things of a town within a town where we 
 found ourselves now standing namely of the 
 city of the Brahmans, or priestly caste. This city 
 was situated within the temple walls. The ven- 
 eration in which the Brahman aristocracy of In- 
 dian society is held by the commonalty probably 
 is known to you it is a reverence shared only by 
 that sacred animal, the cow, which roams unmol- 
 ested thru streets and houses and churches of this 
 people. To arouse Hindu fury against an enemy, 
 you say not "they are mutilating women and chil- 
 dren" but "they are killing cows and brahmans !" 
 However this may be, we found the brahman city 
 to be essentially no different from the dwelling- 
 places of the lower caste. Here was scarcely less 
 poverty and certainly no less filth. The place was 
 the residence of a hoard of priestly guides who 
 urged their services upon us. Tanjore is less fre- 
 quented of foreigners than it deserves to be, and 
 we were probably the only non-natives visiting
 
 260 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 JAGGERNATH CARS, MADURA
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 261 
 
 it at this time, consequently there arose a keen 
 rivalry for our attention ; but we finally elected to 
 be our guide the most intelligent, slyest young 
 priest of the crowd. At once he brushed aside the 
 others, and conducted us from the Brahman city 
 into the temple proper. 
 
 We must pause for a word of tribute to this 
 priest. His mind was as supple as his graceful 
 body. Of him the saying was literally true, that 
 "butter would not melt in his mouth." All lying 
 and all selfishness and all hypocrisy were in him 
 brot to such a perfection as made these vices seem 
 to be most pleasing acquisitions. With what con- 
 temptuous delight he interpreted to us from pic- 
 tures on the walls the sundry erotic adventures 
 of the gods whose priest he was ; "I do not believe 
 such things," he confided, "for me there is only 
 one God!" How he smiled at the poor flocks of 
 worshippers who prostrated themselves in awe be- 
 fore the shrine; "I am working for my belly!" 
 laughed he, their shepherd. Finally, when the 
 inevitable time came for parting, how suavely he 
 cozened us ourselves out of many times the usual 
 fee, and sent us away feeling we had bought 
 cheaply acquaintanceship with such a personality ! 
 
 O, he was the essence of all priestcraft. And in 
 the superstitious subjection of the people about 
 him could be seen the fell fruit of the undemo- 
 cratic doctrine that the masses have too little self- 
 control to live by dry truth, as we of the elite are
 
 262 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 able to. "The masses must rather be given half 
 truth, allegories and symbols." 
 
 "Why is it," C. H. Cooley asks, "that the sym- 
 bol encroaches and persists beyond its function? 
 Evidently just because it is external, capable of 
 imitation and repetition without fresh thought 
 and life, so that all that is inert and mechanical 
 clings to it. All dull and sensual persons, all dull 
 and sensual moods in any person, see the form and 
 not the substance. The spirit, the idea, the sen- 
 timent, is plainly enough the reality when one is 
 awake to see it, but how easily we lose our hold 
 upon it and come to think that the real is the 
 tangible. The symbol is always at command; we 
 can always attend church, go to mass, recite pray- 
 ers, contribute money, and the like ; but kindness, 
 hope, reverence, humility, courage, have no string 
 attached to them ; they come and go as the spirit 
 moves; there is no insurance on them. Just as 
 in the schools we teach facts and formulas rather 
 than meanings, because the former can be re- 
 ceived by all and readily tested, so religion be- 
 comes external in seeking to become universal." 
 
 Meantime we walked thru long dark galleries 
 of immense length, and out again into open courts 
 where the sunlight blazed. We examined gro- 
 tesque representations of the various gods and 
 goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, and marvelled 
 at strange types of architecture. Then we explored 
 gloomy shrines where hideous granite figures glis- 
 tened black with the grease of butter-fat burned
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 263 
 
 in ovation before them. We followed long cor- 
 ridors where hundreds of bats flew away, squeak- 
 ing shrilly at our approach. We entered cham- 
 bers where the only light came from constellations 
 of tiny butter-lamps fastened, with their ornate 
 brackets, like stars over the face of great doors. 
 
 Thus that morning passed. To our joy we 
 learned that in the afternoon there was to be a 
 procession thru the temple in honor of Parvati. 
 Easily our priest-guide prevailed on us to return 
 to see it. 
 
 We lunched at our hotel, took the siesta which 
 is a necessity in the Indian climate, and went for 
 a roundabout drive to see the town before return- 
 ing to the temple. On the way we halted by the 
 roadside to watch a bridal procession. The brass 
 band that preceded it broke ranks and ran to- 
 ward us helter skelter for alms. Next the groom 
 left his bride in the carriage to see what he could 
 get. We were too disgusted to give anything. 
 But alas! these miserably poor people! Their 
 birth-rate is so high that millions starve, and 
 to cure the evils of their country they are given 
 not knowledge of how to help themselves, but 
 missionaries and imported administrators! 
 
 Our priest-guide of the morning was awaiting 
 us anxiously when we returned to the temple, 
 with the news that the procession in honor of 
 Parvati was assembled and about to set forth. 
 Accordingly we again hurried down one of the 
 most lugubrious galleries in the heart of the great
 
 264 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 building, and took our stand in a corner which 
 commanded several vistas. We have purposely re- 
 frained from saying we commanded a, view down 
 these vistas, for all about us it was now almost 
 as black as pitch. Here and there a flicker from 
 the brass lamps around his shrine indicated the 
 recess in which some grotesque idol sat, but these 
 roomy galleries were nearly empty of worship- 
 pers. The uncouth square stone pillars, upon 
 which the slab roof pressed heavily, were so coat- 
 ed with smoke and grease that we took care not 
 to lean against them. In the air was a rancid 
 odor from the melted butter being offered on 
 many altars. Our hearing was the only sense as 
 yet undisturbed by some strange presentation. An 
 expectant quiet brooded everywhere. 
 
 But suddenly a barbaric blare of conch-shell 
 trumpets echoed thru the vast walls, and a flock 
 of frightened bats passed unpleasantly close to us. 
 Our guide had hardly more time than need, to an- 
 nounce "the procession is coming" than a flare of 
 flambeaux chased away the shadows, and around 
 a corner of the stony chambers swung a crowd of 
 bronze-breasted musicians blowing wierd instru- 
 ments, and seeming larger than life as the 
 torches threw their shadows against the roof 
 huge slow-striding elephants! 
 
 The progress of the procession was marked by 
 a psychological effect upon the few bystanders. 
 As it successively passed them, we would see sud- 
 den awe strike like a panic into the faces of the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 265 
 
 more religious. Flat on the ground they would 
 hurl themselves, as tho grovelling before the pres- 
 ence of immediate death. Despite all the reassur- 
 ances of our guide, the two ladies who were with 
 us shrank back in some terror on seeing this 
 fanaticism seize those around us; and whatever 
 was lacking to complete their emotion was added 
 by the clamor of drums and wild shrieking of 
 conch-shells. We'd give anything for the abil- 
 ity to reproduce that scene in its full dramatic 
 and operatic power over all the primaeval in- 
 stincts ! 
 
 When the elephants and musicians had paced 
 past us, we saw the central object of all super- 
 stitious regard, Parvati. Her image was a sort 
 of little rag-doll, maybe a foot high, very dirty, 
 but decked out in a wealth of ornaments, and 
 carried high on a litter of which the poles were 
 borne by some dozen half -naked Brahmins. 
 
 But now was to come the anti-climax, illus- 
 trating typically the Oriental's lack of all sense 
 of the fitting and congruous. Imagine the thing 
 happening to the Host in a Roman Catholic, or in 
 a Russian orthodox, procession ! When the bear- 
 ers of the goddess caught sight of us Europeans, 
 thier dignity vanished in smoke, and they behaved 
 like the wedding celebrants we had seen that 
 afternoon. They left their precious burden un- 
 ceremoniously and ran clamoring to us for alms ! 
 Yes, the poor little rag-doll goddess in her glori- 
 ous trinkets and tinsel was dropped on the ground,
 
 266 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 whilst her worshippers begged a few annas ! When 
 they received none, they raised her upon their 
 shoulders again, the worshippers mended their 
 broken ranks, the elephants and torch-bearers 
 wheeled back into line, the acclamations of the 
 crowd were resumed, and the rattle of drums and 
 
 STONE BULL IN TANJORE TEMPLE. 
 
 blare of trumpets and the wierd lights and shad- 
 ows from the flambeaux disappeared around some 
 corner of the gloomy galleries. A few bats winged 
 back to the haunts from which they had been dis- 
 turbed. The smell of the rancid butter and the 
 twinkling of distant lamps again became our only 
 sensations. We remained for a while amazed and 
 stunned.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 267 
 
 After that we left the temple. We requested 
 our priest to purchase for us one of the conch- 
 shell trumpets. After seeing the irreverent con- 
 duct as any European would call it of the pole- 
 bearers, we anticipated no trouble in buying any 
 religious or other appurtenance which we cared 
 to pay for. But the next day at train-time our 
 guide appeared at the station, most apologetic, 
 to say that no money would induce one of the men 
 to part with his horn. 
 
 COURT OF TEMPLE AT TANJORE. 
 
 Our next stay was at Trichinopoly, where is 
 the most beautiful (and one of the largest) Hindu 
 temples in the world. During our visit they'd a 
 religious celebration, sort of like a circus. Most 
 of the temple was given over to linga (the em- 
 blems of phallic worship) . They consist of stone 
 cylinders, two or three feet high, set in the center 
 of circular disks ; these represent the male organ 
 piercing the female. In this temple the linga 
 stand in the arcade which can be seen in the ex- 
 treme rear of the picture. The women sit upon 
 the lingam as a cure for sterility. 
 
 On the way out (Jan. 19, 1916), we stopped to
 
 268 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 see a Vishnu temple where Vishnu left a foot- 
 print as big as the top of a small table, in the 
 rock. 
 
 In Benares, quite early one December morning, 
 Mrs. S and the writer took a boat in which we 
 were rowed down and up the Ganges. We saw the 
 extraordinary temples which line the waterfront 
 and of which some are sliding into the river. The 
 most striking sight was a "holy man" in brilliant 
 yellow robe and painted face, who, all the time 
 we were floating by, balanced himself immove- 
 ably upon one foot and held one hand pointing 
 dramatically to heaven. We didn't see dead 
 bodies being cremated on the burning-ghats, so 
 made the trip again in the evening and this time 
 did see them. In the afternoon we drove out to 
 the ruins at Sarnath, where Buddha's five dis- 
 ciples had deserted him before his enlightenment, 
 and where he preached his first sermon there- 
 after. 
 
 We surely should have "acquired merit" in vis- 
 iting all these "holy places." 
 
 Benares itself was disappointing to our party, 
 tho interesting despite all its dirt. In the cut 
 herewith shown of its temples along the Ganges, 
 the phallic architecture is seen. 
 
 The same slyness that we noted in our priest 
 guide of the Madura Temple is typical of all 
 the eastern religious men whom we've met. Only 
 a few evenings ago we were perusing the gospel
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 269 
 
 of Ramakrishna, 1 - that is, of the Bhagavan whom 
 thousands worship as the most recent incarnation 
 of the diety he was preached in this country by 
 his pupil and disciple Swaani Vivekananda. There 
 among much that is beautiful, occurs the fol- 
 
 BENARES FROM THE GANGES 
 
 lowing jarring passage. Narendra (Vivekanan- 
 da) asks "what attitude should we hold when 
 wicked people come to disturb our peace or do 
 actually offend us?" To which the Bhagavan 
 answers: "A person living in society should have 
 a little Tamas (the spirit of resisting evil) for 
 purposes of self-protection. But that is neces- 
 
 " p. 40.
 
 270 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 sary only for outward show, its object being to 
 prevent the wicked doing harm to you. At the 
 same time you should not do actual injury to 
 another on the ground that he has done injury 
 to you." 
 
 In short here's a Savior who preaches that we 
 may enjoy the merit of living non-resistantly, 
 by bluffing our enemies into thinking we are go- 
 ing to use force ! Indeed Ramakrishna goes on to 
 illustrate his point with a story of a snake who 
 was persuaded by a holy man not to bite anyone, 
 but "in a few days all the neighborhood conclud- 
 ed that the snake had lost his venom .... so 
 everyone began to tease him. They pelted him 
 with stones or dragged him mercilessly by the 
 tail, and there was no end to his troubles. For- 
 tunately the sage again passed that way .... 
 and seeing the condition of the snake .... said 
 'my friend, I simply advised you not to bite any- 
 one, but I did not tell you not to frighten others. 
 Altho you should not bite any living creature, 
 still you should keep people at a distance by hiss- 
 ing at them.' And Sri Samakrishna added : There 
 is no harm in 'hissing' at wicked men and at your 
 enemies, showing that you can protect yourself 
 and know how to resist evil. Only . . . resist 
 not evil by causing evil in return." 
 
 Surely a strange doctrine ! How should we con- 
 vert others to believe in a doctrine which we thus 
 outwardly appeared to deny and how thus propa- 
 gate the truth? Or how long would it take the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 271 
 
 world to discover our bluff and take it at its 
 true value? 
 
 While in Calcutta in 1916 we became for a time 
 a pupil of the noted Sri Sri Narayananda Saras- 
 watty, of Lodipur, of whom we had read in a Cal- 
 cutta paper that "He is an Advaita Vadi or a be- 
 liever in non-dulism and is said to be the follower 
 of Shankaracharya, the great religious reformer 
 
 HINDU HOLY MAN. 
 
 who appeared when Buddhism was the State re- 
 ligion in India. He is an advocate of the Upan- 
 ishads and is called the 'Raj-Yogi' or King of 
 Yogis. He is reputed to be 125 years of age and 
 although married is a Bramhachari. 'His Holi- 
 ness/ for such is he called by his followers, is said 
 to have practised 'Yog' for three years in the 
 forests of Gujerath and those near Lucknow. He 
 is reported to be able to bring the dead to life
 
 272 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 and generally is looked upon by hundreds as a 
 man of miracles and one who is second to none 
 in India. . . . Hundreds of men, women and chil- 
 dren visit him everyday to embrace his feet and 
 receive his blessing and his presence in the local- 
 ity has caused and is causing a great deal of sen- 
 sation. . . . About a score of his disciples who 
 were present vouched for the fact, that His Holi- 
 ness appears to be one day over a hundred years 
 and the next a lad of 20 or sometimes a baby of 
 one year. 
 
 "The following specific instances were given of 
 his reported miracles. Bissessur Nath Khetery, 
 Government Pensioner and one of His Holiness 
 disciples, said that about a year ago he was suf- 
 fering from heart disease and died from its ef- 
 fects but was brought to life again through the 
 blessing of His Holiness. Again he was later at- 
 tacked with plague and was restored in the same 
 way. The son of Thakur Prasad, Inspector of 
 Sanskrit Schools, Allahabad, is said to have been 
 rid of a malignant disease, which was pronounced 
 to be incurable by eminent medical men, through 
 the same instrumentality; and a man who had 
 died of plague at his "asram" was brought to 
 life. Among the followers of His Holiness are 
 said to be European gentlemen of position, also 
 Indian Judges, Government officials and vakils, 
 etc., who look upon him as their guru." More- 
 over he was one of few men of his type we've 
 met who refused to take money but insisted en
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 273 
 
 giving us Yoga instructions without pay. Once 
 we said to him "when we return home, many 
 persons will wish to know whether we with our 
 own eyes have seen you perform miracles. And 
 unless we can answer 'we ourselves have seen him 
 perform them' they won't believe that you have 
 supernatural powers. We wish we might be able 
 to reply 'we have seen'." But Sri Sri Saraswatty 
 mildly expressed his disappointment in us for 
 desiring so vulgar a demonstration, and assured 
 us that no true yogi will display his powers to 
 the curious or the unconvinced. 
 
 It's possible that the reputed miracles of these 
 holy men and of saints and saviors generally are 
 delusious effected thru hypnotic power which 
 as Freud and Jung and others have shown, is in 
 nature sexual moreover the initiators of these 
 movements like leaders in other fields, are largely 
 epileptics and hysterics. It was true of the 
 greatest military leaders like Caesar, Hannibal, or 
 Napoleon; it was true of Mahomet and of 
 various characters described in that interesting 
 little booklet "Modern Messiahs," and any psych- 
 istrist would aver it was true of Buddha or Ra- 
 makrishna, from reading their biographies. 
 Binet and Sangle have written two heavy 
 volumes on "La 'Folie de Jesus." A very inter- 
 esting account of the role of sexuality in religion 
 is given by Josiah Royce in his "Pathological As- 
 pects," which we urge every interested student 
 to procure. Fortunately there remain other
 
 274 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ways of sublimating the yearnings of our soul, 
 besides these pathological or superstitious chan- 
 nels. Of such ways the most promising is to di- 
 rect our love toward humanity as a whole, and 
 to develop in ourselves the character most con- 
 sonent with social welfare. How to accomplish 
 this we shall in due course discuss adequately. 
 It is our program first to review in a general way 
 the historical development of religions. 
 
 SECTION 2 
 
 Here we may enquire what is the derivation of 
 the erotic instinct itself, out of which we find to 
 be evolved the most marvelous facts of life? 
 
 We devoted much space to the guesses that 
 primitive man made at the nature of self, of 
 "will" and of the hereafter. Turn we now to 
 certain scientific theories of today. 
 
 As Max Verworn indicates, all muscular work 
 of the organisms is based finally upon chemical 
 energy, tho much of their energy may come in a 
 roundabout way. E.g., in plants chemical energy 
 passes over into potential, mechanical energy 
 is stored up as tension, and becomes kinetic 
 e.g., where fruit bursts open and scatters its seeds 
 with great force. 
 
 In the cell, energy is transformed into mechan- 
 ical energy and into heat. Chemical energy 
 becomes potential in making biogens, and the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 275 
 
 intra-molecular heat becomes very great; strong 
 affinities are thus united. (A dissemilation pro- 
 cess). The excreta contain almost no chemical 
 potential; while those substances retained in the 
 cell serve to help to unite proteids, etc., and oxy- 
 gen again, i. e., to loosen the biogen molecule. 
 As regards the vital chemical chain, "continual 
 storing up of potential chemical energy and a 
 transfer of it into other forms, the source of it 
 is in the food and oxygen ; the original capital of 
 it is in the chemical energy that every droplet 
 of living substance has carried over from its an- 
 cestors; and the result is expressed in the work 
 accomplished by the living substance. 
 
 Oil droplets in alkalies form pseadopodia. The 
 surface tension between the two discs in striated 
 muscular fibres changes, and thus contraction oc- 
 curs. Chemical and mechanical energy alone 
 accomplishes muscular contraction, without the 
 aid of heat or electricity. 
 
 Reduction of conduct to comparatively small 
 number of primary motives is the aim of Loeb, 
 with his galvano, helio-, geo-, rheo-, anemo-, 
 stereo-, chemo- and thermo-tropisms. The follow- 
 ing extensive quotations summarize his book, 
 "Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Con- 
 duct." 
 
 "The term forced movements (in) physiology, 
 designates the fact that certain animals are no 
 longer able to move in a straight line when cer-
 
 276 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tain parts of the brain are injured, but are com- 
 pelled to deviate constantly toward one side. 13 
 
 "Normally the processes inducing locomotion 
 are equal in both halves of the central nervous 
 system, and the tension of the symmetrical mus- 
 cles being equal, the animal moves in as straight 
 a line as the imperfections of its locomotor ap- 
 paratus permit. If, however, the velocity of 
 chemical reactions in one side of the body, e. g., 
 in one eye of an insect, is increased, the physio- 
 logical symmetry of both sides of the brain and 
 as a consequence the equality of tension of the 
 symmetrical muscles no longer exist. The mus- 
 cles connected with the more strongly illuminated 
 eye are thrown into a stronger tension, and if 
 now impulses for locomotion originate in the cen- 
 tral nervous system, they will no longer produce 
 an equal response in the symmetrical muscles, but 
 a stronger one in the muscles turning the head 
 and body of the animal to the source of light. 
 The animal will thus be compelled to change 
 the direction of its motion and to turn to 
 the source of light. As soon as the plane of 
 symmetry goes thru the source of light, both eyes 
 receive again equal illumination, the tension (or 
 tonus) of symmetrical muscles becomes equal 
 again, and the impulses for locomotion will now 
 produce equal activity in the symmetrical mus- 
 cles. As a consequence, the animal will move in 
 a straight line to the source of light until some 
 
 13 Pp. 14-15.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HLEPFULNESS 277 
 
 other asymmetrical disturbance once more 
 changes the direction of motion. 
 
 "What has been stated for light holds true also 
 if light is replaced by any other form of energy. 
 Motions caused by light or other agencies appear 
 to the layman as expressions of will and purpose 
 on the part of the animal, whereas in reality the 
 animal is forced to go where carried by its legs. 
 For the conduct of animals consists of forced 
 movements. 14 
 
 "If pleasure and pain or curiosity play a role 
 in human conduct, why should it be otherwise in 
 animal conduct? The answer to this objection is 
 that typical forced movements when produced in 
 human beings, as, e. g., in Meniere's disease or 
 when a galvanic current goes thru the brain, are 
 not accompanied by sensations of pleasure or 
 pain, and there is no reason to attribute the circus 
 movements of an animal, after lesion of the brain, 
 or when one eye is blackened, to curiosity or thrills 
 of delight. An equally forcible answer lies in the 
 fact that plants show the same tropisms as ani- 
 mals, and it seems somewhat arbitrary to assume 
 that the bending of a plant to the window or the 
 motion of swarmspores of algae to the window 
 side of a vessel are accompanied or determined 
 by curiosity or by sensations of joy or satisfac- 
 tion. And finally, since we know nothing of the 
 sentiments and sensations of lower animals, and 
 
 "Pp. 13-14.
 
 278 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 are still less able to measure them, there is at 
 present no place for them in science. 
 
 "The second difficulty was created by the fact 
 that the Aristotelian viewpoint still prevails to 
 some extent in biology, namely, that an animal 
 moves only for a purpose, either to seek food or 
 to seek its mate or to undertake something else 
 connected with the preservation of the individual 
 or the race. The Aristotelians had explained the 
 processes in the inanimate world in the same 
 teleological way. Science began when Galileo 
 overthrew this Aristotelian mode of thot and in- 
 troduced the method of quantitative experiments 
 which leads to mathematical laws free from the 
 metaphysical conception of purpose. 15 
 
 "We have thus far considered only the relations 
 between right and left. Aside from the symmetry 
 relation we have polarity relations, between apex 
 or head and base or tail end. Just as we found 
 that the morphological plane of symmetry is also 
 a dynamical plane of symmetry, we find that with 
 the morphological polarity head-tail is connected 
 a dynamic polarity of motion, namely, forward 
 and backward. This will become clear in the next 
 chapter on forced movements. 16 
 
 "Physiologists have long been in the habit of 
 studying not the reactions of the whole organism, 
 but the reactions of isolated segments (the so- 
 called reflexes). . . . 
 
 l5 Pp. 17-18. 
 18 P. 21.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 279 
 
 "When we put a Palaemonetes in a trough thru 
 which a current goes and if we put the animal 
 with its head toward the anode the tail is stretched 
 out (Fig. 2). This means that the tension of the 
 
 Fio. 2. Forced position of thnmp (Palamontlet) when galvanic current get* from 
 ? e * * UlJ - . Tension of extensor miucles of tail fin prevails over that of flexors 
 Animal can iwim forward (to anode), but not backward. (After Loeb and Maxwell ) 
 
 Flo. 3. Forced position of shrimp when positive current goes from tail to head. 
 Tension of flexon of tail fin prevails over that of extensors. Animal can swim backward 
 (to anode), but not forward. (After Loeb and Maxwell.) 
 
 FROM LOEB. 
 
 extensor muscles prevails over that of the flexors 
 and since the forward swimming is due to the 
 stroke of the extensors, and since it is antagonized 
 by the tension of the flexors, the animal can swim 
 forward but not backward, or only with diffi- 
 culty ; if we put the animal with its head toward
 
 280 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 the cathode the tail is bent ventrally (Fig. 3), 
 which means that the tension of the flexors is 
 stronger than that of the extensors. As a conse- 
 quence the animal can swim backward, but not 
 forward. 17 
 
 IN HELIOTROPISM. 
 
 "In the case of unequal illumination of the two 
 eyes the tension of the symmetrical muscles in 
 an animal becomes unequal. In this condition 
 the equal impulses of locomotion will result in 
 an unequal contraction of the muscles on both 
 sides of the animal. As a consequence the animal 
 will turn automatically until its plane of sym- 
 metry is in the direction of the rays of light. As 
 soon as this happens the illumination of both eyes 
 and the tension of symmetrical muscles become 
 equal again and the animal will now move in a 
 straight line either to or from the source of 
 light. 18 
 
 "That these animals do not go to the light be- 
 cause they prefer light to darkness but because 
 the light orients them is proved by the fact that 
 they will go from light into the shade if by so do- 
 ing they remain oriented with their heads toward 
 the source of light. 19 
 
 "As Bonn pointed out, the definite path in which 
 a positively heliotropic animal moves when under 
 the influence of two lights, shows that the an- 
 
 17 Pp. 34-35. 
 "Pp. 47-48.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 281 
 
 thropomorphic interpretation is as erroneous in 
 this as in any other case. A human being would 
 go to one of two illuminated houses and not to- 
 ward a point between them, determined by the 
 relative intensity of the two lights. 20 
 
 "The law of Bunsen and Roscoe says that with- 
 in certain limits the chemical effect produced by 
 light increases in proportion with the product of 
 intensity into the duration of illumination, e. g., 
 Effect equals Kit, where i is intensity, t duration 
 of illumination, and K a constant. 21 
 
 GEOTROPISM. 
 
 "When the stem of certain plants is placed in a 
 horizontal position, the apex grows vertically up- 
 ward and the root downward. The downward 
 growth of the root is called positive, the upward 
 growth of the apex negative geotropism. 
 
 "This can be demonstrated if we mark the 
 cortex in definite intervals with india ink at the 
 beginning of the experiment When we com- 
 pare the rate of geotropic bending of horizontal 
 stems without leaves and with one or two leaves 
 at the apex, we find that the bending in the latter 
 is much more rapid, owing to the greater mass 
 of material supplied for the growth of the cortex. 
 
 "In vertebrates the reactions leading to the 
 maintenance of equilibrium are apparently pro- 
 
 1!> P. 50 or so. 
 'P. 82. 
 21 P. 83.
 
 282 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 duced in the ear, since they disappear if the 
 acoustic nerves are cut. 
 
 "It seems that some change in the pressure 
 upon the endings of the auditory nerve is respon- 
 sible for the effects. There are fine grains of 
 CaC0 3 the otoliths in the ear of many species 
 pressing on the underlying nerve endings. 22 
 
 "A crustacean, Palaemen, loses its otoliths in 
 the process of moulting and the animal curiously 
 enough replaces them by picking up small grains 
 of sand and putting them into its ears. Kreidl 
 kept such crustaceans in jars free from sand but 
 containing fine particles of iron which the crus- 
 taceans after moulting put into their ears 
 
 When, e.g., he brought a magnet from above and 
 the right near the animal the latter turned to the 
 left and downward. The animal, therefore, be- 
 haved as if changes of pressure of the otolith 
 upon the nerve endings determined its geotropic 
 orientation. 23 
 
 Lyon has shown that the phenomena which 
 were formerly described as rheotropism in fish 
 are due to the orienting effect of moving retina 
 images. The reader is familiar with the fact 
 that many fish when in a lively current have a 
 tendency to swim against the current. This 
 phenomenon was believed to be due to the fric- 
 tion of the water. Lyon showed that fish orient 
 themselves just as well when they are put into 
 
 "P. 123. 
 P. 124.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 283 
 
 a closed glass bottle, which is dragged through 
 the water. 
 
 "When driven backward by the current or when 
 dragged backward in a bottle through the water, 
 the objects on the bank of the river seem to move 
 in the opposite direction. The animal being com- 
 pelled to keep the same object fixed, an apparent 
 forward motion of the fixed object changes the 
 muscles of the fins in such a sense as to cause 
 the animal to follow the fixed object auto- 
 matically. 
 
 "When such rheotropic fishes were, kept in an 
 aquarium and a white sheet of paper with black 
 stripes was moved constantly in front of the 
 aquarium the fish oriented themselves against the 
 direction in which the paper and its stripes 
 moved. The phenomenon was more marked hi 
 young than in older specimens. 
 
 "All the phenomena of rheotropism ceased in 
 the dark or when the fish were blind. 
 
 "A very pretty demonstration was discovered 
 by Carrey in sticklebacks. 176 When a swarm of 
 such fish was kept in an aquarium it was noticed 
 that all the fish were oriented with the long axes 
 parallel and that the whole school swam in a 
 course parallel, but in a direction opposite, to that 
 of the moving observer. If the observer re- 
 mains stationary opposite the aquarium and 
 moves an object, preferably white, which is held 
 in the hand, the little fish at once respond by 
 moving slowly and oppositely to that of the mov-
 
 284 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ing object. They can be thus made to move up 
 or down or to the right or left. 24 
 
 "STEREOTROPISM ... is determined by ... 
 pressure on certain nerve endings in the skin . . . 
 
 "The role of tactile influences on the orienta- 
 tion of animals is most clearly demonstrable in 
 starfish, flatworms, and many other animals, 
 when put on their backs. The animals 'right' 
 themselves, i. e., they turn around until the ven- 
 tral surfaces or their feet are pressed against 
 solid objects again. As the writer pointed out 
 long ago, 2 ^ 3 gravitation has nothing to do with 
 the phenomenon, since starfish will stick to solid 
 surfaces with their tube feet even if by so doing 
 their backs are permanently turned to the center 
 of the earth. Unless the nerve endings on the 
 sole of their tube feet are pressed against a solid 
 surface the animals are restless -and the arms 
 move about until the feet are again in contact 
 with solid bodies. 25 
 
 "In female ants at the time of sexual maturity. 
 When such animals are put into a box containing 
 folded pieces of paper or of cloth, after some time 
 every individual is found inside the folds. This 
 happens also when the boxes are kept in the 
 dark. 287 
 
 The same form of stereotropism is found in 
 many species of worms. When earthworms are 
 kept in jars with vertical walls they are found 
 creeping in the corners where their body is as 
 
 "Pp. 131-133. 
 "P. 134.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 285 
 
 much as possible in contact with solid bodies. It 
 is this tropism which compels the animals to bur- 
 row into the ground. 26 
 
 "MaxwelP 49 kept Nereis, a form of marine 
 worms, which burrows in sand, in a porcelain dish 
 free from sand. Into the dish glass tubes were 
 put, whose diameter was of the order of that of 
 the worms. After 24 hours every tube was in- 
 habited by a worm who made it its permanent 
 abode. They even remained in the tube when ex- 
 posed to sunlight which rapidly killed them. 27 
 
 "There are indications that the way contact 
 with a solid influences the behavior of living mat- 
 ter is also through the influence on the rate of 
 certain chemical reactions. The writer observed 
 that the stolons of a hydroid, Aglaophenia, have 
 a tendency to adhere to solid surfaces and not to 
 leave them any more if they once reach them, 
 and that as soon as such a stolon reaches a solid 
 surface, e. g., a piece of a glass slide, its growth 
 is accelerated considerably. It was very astonish- 
 ing to notice how much more rapid the growth 
 of roots of Aglaophenia was when they were 
 in contact with a solid body than when they grew 
 in sea water. The rate of growth is the function 
 of a chemical mass action. 28 
 
 CHEMOTROPISM is for Loeb the explanation 
 of many physiologic progresses, e. g., breathing is 
 quickened by the increased acidity of th^ blood. 
 
 -"P. 135. 
 - 7 Pp. 135-136. 
 W P. 138.
 
 286 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 "Pfeffer and his pupils found that the sperma- 
 toza of ferns go in large numbers into a capil- 
 lary tube containing sodium malate in a concen- 
 tration of 0.01 per cent, (a solution ten times as 
 diluted is still slightly active) .... Pfeffer found 
 that Bacterium termo and Spirillum undula are 
 positively chemotropic to a liquid containing 
 0.001 per cent of peptone or of meat extract. It 
 is stated that cholera bacilli are strongly attract- 
 ed by potato sap. Pfeffer found also that the 
 spermatoza of certain masses are positively 
 chemotropic to cane sugar solution in dilutions 
 of 0.1 per cent. 29 
 
 "Shibata made extensive experiments on the 
 chemotropism of the spermatozoa of Isoetes 
 which he found positively chemotropic for the 
 malate anion, and also for the succinate, tartrate, 
 and fumarate anion, when offered in the form of 
 their neutral salts. . . . 
 
 "Shibata studied especially the mode by which 
 the spermatozoa are oriented chemotropically by 
 malates and found that the reaction consists 
 always in a turning of the axis of the body of the 
 spermatozoa toward the capillary tube contain- 
 ing malates or succinates, as the tropism theory 
 demands. 
 
 "They will not go into the tube unless the con- 
 centration in the tube is a definite multiple of 
 the concentration of the outside solution. Thus 
 Pfeffer found that the concentration of sodium 
 
 "Pp. 140-141.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 287 
 
 malate in the capillary must be at least thirty 
 times as great as in the outside solution to induce 
 the spermatozoa of fern to move into it, and in 
 the case of Bacterium termo the solution of meat 
 extract in the tube had to be at least four times 
 as great as the outside solution. In the case of 
 Isoetes spermatozoa Shibata found the ratio is 
 about 400 to 1. This constancy of the ratio is 
 known as Weber's law, which therefore holds for 
 chemotropic phenomena. 
 
 "Lidforss 281 found with the aid of Pfeffer's 
 method that the spermatozoa of Marchantia are 
 positively chemotropic to certain proteins, espe- 
 cially egg albumin, vitellin from the egg yolk, 
 hemoglobin, and mucin of the sub-maxillary 
 gland; blood albumin, casein, and legumin were 
 less effective. The lowest concentration for he- 
 moglobin solutions and for egg albumin was 
 0.001 per cent. ! 30 
 
 "Barrows has devised an apparatus which al- 
 lowed him to test quantitatively the chemotropic 
 reactions of Drosophila .... Two glass bot- 
 tles were inserted with their openings oppo- 
 site each other, one of which contained the 
 substance to be tested for chemotropic efficiency, 
 while the other served as a control. The num- 
 ber of flies which on their path were deviated by 
 the bottle containing the substance to be tested 
 were counted and their number compared with 
 that going into the control bottle. In this way 
 
 ""Pp. 141-142.
 
 288 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 it was possible to ascertain that the flies are posi- 
 tively chemotropic to ethyl and amyl alcohol, 
 acetic and lactic acid, and to ether. The chemo- 
 tropic effect of alcohol was increased thru the 
 admixture of traces of an ester, e. g., methyl ace- 
 tate. 
 
 "When an animal is struck on one side only by 
 . . . a chemically active substance emanating 
 from a center of diffusion, the mass of this sub- 
 stance or of the photochemical reaction product 
 increases on this side. These substances react 
 with some substance of the nerve endings and as 
 soon as the mass of the reaction product reaches 
 a certain quantity the automatic turning, the trop- 
 istic reaction occurs." 31 
 
 "THERMOTROPISM is the name under which 
 M. Mendelssohn has described the observation 
 that Paramaecia gather at a definite end of a 
 trough when these ends have . . . different 
 temperature. 22 " 
 
 The position of Loeb is paralleled by tliat of 
 Max Verworn, with his photo-, thermo-, galvano-, 
 chemo-, baro-, rheo-, and geo-, taxis. 
 
 The following is a summary by Dr. Givler of 
 Verworn's General Physiology, Chapter V, on 
 Stimuli and their actions. 
 
 A Stimulus is "every change of the external 
 agencies that act upon an organism. The stimu- 
 lus plus irritability is stimulation. We shall be- 
 
 1l Pp. 153-154. 
 "P. 155.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 289 
 
 gin by Verworn's remarks on (A) the Relation 
 of Stimuli to Vital Conditions. (1) The varieties 
 of the stimulus are (a) chemical, e. g., food, water, 
 oxygen, also chemical processes in the nervous 
 system influencing the various tissue cells. 
 Nerves are not copper wires but chemical (liquid) 
 masses, (b) Mechanical, push, shake, press, 
 etc., e. g., sound (c) thermal, (d) photic (e) elec- 
 trical not (f) magnetic. (2) The intensity of 
 the Stimulus may be thus shown. 
 Vital Conditions 
 
 Minimum Optimum Maximum 
 Death Life Death 
 Stim (Adaption) Stim 
 Conditions of 
 Stimulation 
 
 Maximum Zero Point Maximum 
 
 Death Life Death 
 
 (3) Trophic Stimuli are those concerned with 
 nutrition and without which nutrition would not 
 take place, e. g., sight of food, makes the organ- 
 ism move to get it. B is the Irritability of Living 
 Substance. (1) Conception of Irritability and 
 the Nature of Reactions. "Irritability of Living 
 Substance is its capacity of reacting to changes 
 in its environment by changes in the equilibrium 
 of its matter and its energy." It is not the capac- 
 ity of evolving a great amount of energy upon 
 slight stimulus. Such are only special cases, e. g., 
 springs, elastic, often stimuli causes decreases in 
 production of energy. The general action of all
 
 290 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 stimuli upon living substance consists in a change 
 of spontaneous vital phenomena. There are two 
 kinds of changes; quantitative and qualitative, 
 e. g., qualitative where cell forms a substance 
 wholly foreign substances to its normal life. 
 
 To sum up: (1) Every change in the exter- 
 nal vital conditions of an organism constitutes a 
 stimulus. (2) Every augmentation of a vital 
 phenomenon, either of one or of all, constitutes 
 excitation. (3) Every diminution of a vital phe- 
 nomenon, either of one or all, constitutes depres- 
 sion. (4) The action of stimuli can consist of 
 excitation or depression. 
 
 Let us now consider beginning with the Actions 
 of the Various Stimuli. The Actions of Chemical 
 Stimuli include (a) the phenomena of excitation. 
 In general, the more food ingested, the more is 
 metabolism hastened. 118 grams proteid needed 
 to maintain nitrogenous equilibrium in man; 
 more than this increases both assimilation and 
 dissimilation phases of metabolism. Increase of 
 food brings also increase of form, fattening. In- 
 crease of transformation of energy activity, es- 
 pecially contractions. Some organisms produce 
 more light, (b) the Phenomena of Depression 
 are notable as regards narcotics and anaesthetics, 
 especially. They depress metabolism, form 
 changes, e. g., all division, and transformations 
 of energy, and turquescence, also contraction 
 movements, in both smooth and cross striated 
 muscles.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 291 
 
 Next consider the Actions of Mechanical Stimu- 
 li, i. e., of changes in pressure relations, (a) 
 The Phenomena of Excitation. The mechanical 
 stimuli act on the metabolic process to produce 
 substance, secretion, e. g., foreign body in mouth, 
 produces saliva. No such effort was known in 
 form changes, growth and cell division. There 
 are positive effects upon transformation of en- 
 ergy, e. g., sensitive plant. There are also pseu- 
 dopods with and "granulate" upon slight to 
 greater touch. Mechanical stimulation increases 
 flagellate motion. Increases muscular motion. In- 
 creases production of light. (Perhaps this because 
 the C. N. S. maintains a general temperature, 
 which temperature controls metabolism; when, 
 there in winter the temperature has to be in- 
 creased in the body, the metabolism also in- 
 creases.) The form changes. Reproduction 
 (Positive Results). Protoplasmic movements in- 
 crease with warmth. Ciliary motions also. Mus- 
 cles contract with rising temperature. Rising 
 temperatures augment vital processes, (b) The 
 phenomena of Depression include falling tempera- 
 tures which decrease vital phenomena. Cold rigor 
 the last stage of safety in temperature (cold). 
 Heat rigor the last stage of safety in temperature 
 (warm). 
 
 Now consider the Actions of Photic Stimuli. 
 Photic meaning the chemical, not the thermal 
 effect. In higher creatures only the eye or eye- 
 spots are at all sensitive to these Photic effects.
 
 292 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 But a "destructively luminous" light will kill cells 
 all over the body. ( From Absolute Darkness 
 (zero stimulation) up.) 
 
 (a) As regards the Phenomena of Excitation, 
 it may be safd that the whole organic world ulti- 
 mately depends upon the metabolic action of light. 
 Red rays of light the most helpful to assimila- 
 tion. No effects upon form changes known. 
 Positive effects upon changes of Energy. Blue 
 and violet rays especially noted for photic efforts. 
 Latent period here also noted 1-2 seconds. 
 
 (b) The Phenomena of Depression include 
 very few depressing effects of light. 
 
 (5) When we come to consider the actions of 
 electrical stimuli, we note there is no special or- 
 gan for electric stimulation, and yet this force 
 stimulates all tissue; the ease of grading the 
 stimulation makes its use very valuable. 
 
 (a) The Phenomena of Excitation; no real 
 "adaptation to electric stimulus, all degrees of 
 stimulation really affect in some way, other than 
 by muscular contraction. Electrotomus (p. 414) . 
 No general law of polar excitation can be formed ; 
 in some organisms the contraction is effected by 
 making at the anode in others by breaking at the 
 anode and similarly with making and breaking 
 at the cathode. Summation effects: i. e., dis- 
 continuous tetanic contraction, turquescence as 
 well as movements effected by electricity. Mus- 
 cle excited to activity by every known stimulus 
 consumes more oxygen than resting muscles, it
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 293 
 
 consumes more glycogen stored in it, and pro- 
 duces more carbonic acid. 
 
 (b) As regards the phenomena, Depression, 
 Electric stimulation, produced long and intensely 
 produces depression. Galvanic Rigor. 
 
 So much for Verworn on Relation of Stimuli to 
 Vital Condition. Now comes B. The Directive 
 effects of Unilateral Stimulation, i. e., attraction 
 and repulsion effects (like magnetism). Only un- 
 symmetrical stimulation can control the direction 
 of motion. 
 
 Under this head we have (1) Chemotaxis, posi- 
 tive and negative. Bacteria excrete toxins ; these 
 attract the leucocytes. Pus filled tube and rab- 
 bits body (leucocytes). Spermatozoon seeks the 
 ovum chemotactically. Chemotactic effects of 
 Paramacium. We act similarly toward our food. 
 (Odor, taste, etc.) and our air supply. 
 
 2. Under Barotaxis we shall consider Pressure 
 Relations, positive and negative. Thigmotaxis, 
 the more or less strong contact of living substance 
 with more solid bodies, i. e., a feeble contact may 
 call out positive stigmo taxis, or strong contact 
 and negative. Thigmotaxis in creeping plants 
 and climbers. Also in crods of paramaecia and 
 leucocytes if organisms crowded together produce, 
 say carbonic acid, and chemotaxis may result. 
 (2) Rheotaxis to currents, say of water. Cases 
 of this are fishes going upstream to spawn, or 
 spermatozoa entering uterus meet a current of 
 mucous liquid flowing toward them. The cilia
 
 294 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 lining the uterus have a direction of stroke toward 
 the mouth, and hence produce a current toward 
 the outside. 
 
 (3) In Geotaxis, the adjustment is to gravity, 
 to the center of the earth. The growth of roots 
 of plants are an example. Positive and negative. 
 Roots and stems also transverse geotaxis in lat- 
 eral branches. The organisms, however, come to 
 rest at top of a long tube of liquid because the 
 pressure (hydrostatic) at the bottom is too great, 
 i. e., they show negative geotaxis because of nega- 
 tive rheotaxis. Geotaxis is a special case of baro- 
 taxis. 
 
 (3) In Phototaxis all bars of light diminish in 
 intensity the farther we get from this source, 
 ideal conditions for unilateral stimulation are pro- 
 vided. Sunflowers, potato tubers. May flies are 
 all cases in point, seeking a "Place in the Sun." 
 Blue and Violet rays are better than Red for caus- 
 ing phototaxis. The direction of the rays is im- 
 portant. 
 
 (4) Thermotaxis is illustrated in Amoeba. 
 Amoeba aren't phototactic, but thermotactic. 
 Other cases are turtles and millionaires at Palm 
 Beach, we and our houses, etc. 
 
 (5) Galvanotaxis looks exactly like magnet- 
 ism. Paranoecia collect at Kathode. Some or- 
 ganisms anodically, others kathodically, galvano- 
 tactic, others still turn their axes in right angle 
 to direction of current, and remain there nicely
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 295 
 
 spaced but twitching, i. e., transversely Galvano- 
 tactic. 
 
 Lastly we may discuss C. The Phenomena of 
 Exhaustion, considering first the (1) Fatigue and 
 Exhaustion. 
 
 Changes in muscle and nerve cells occur. 
 "Gymnasts" fewer is to be noted. Positive (ac- 
 cumulation of poisons) and negative (disintegra- 
 tion of muscle substance) effects of fatigue are 
 to be distinguished. 
 
 (2) Excitation and depression both may fol- 
 low upon continued increase of stimulation. But 
 diminishing vital conditions depress without first 
 exciting. 
 
 (3) Death by over Stimulation may occur. 
 Verworn considers that life is a series of specific 
 
 natural changes. 
 
 On the sex instinct, Loeb says: 
 
 "Mating in certain fish, like Fundulus, consist 
 in the male pressing that part of its body which 
 contains the opening of the sperm duct against 
 the corresponding part of the female body. The 
 latter responds by pressing back, and the pres- 
 sure of the body is maintained by both sexes 
 thru motions of the tail. During this mutual 
 pressure or friction both sexes shed their sexual 
 cells, sperm and eggs, into the water, and since 
 the openings of the cloaca of the male and female, 
 through which the sex cells are shed, are brought 
 almost in contact with each other, sperm and eggs 
 mix at the moment they are shed. This act of
 
 296 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 mating is due to a stereotropism which exists 
 only during the spawning season and which is 
 supposedly due to certain hormones existing at 
 this time in the animal. The existence of such 
 hormones is also indicated by certain colorations 
 which develop and exist in the male during this 
 period. The stereotropism is to some extent spe- 
 cific since it is exhibited by the contact between 
 the two sexes. The specificity of this stereo- 
 tropism is of importance and needs further ex- 
 perimental analysis, but that it is in reality a type 
 of common stereotropism is evidenced by the fact 
 that if during the spawning season we keep 
 females isolated from males in an aquarium the 
 females will go thru the motions of mating 
 and shed the eggs every time they come in con- 
 tact with the glass walls of the aquarium. 
 
 "Professor Whitman told the writer that male 
 pigeons when kept in isolation will try to go 
 thru the motions of mating with any solid object 
 in their field of vision, e.g., glass bottles, and 
 even with objects which give only the optical im- 
 pression of being solid, namely, their own sha- 
 dow on the ground. . . . 
 
 "V. L. Kellogg has made observations which 
 show, that the nuptial flight in bees is also due 
 to an outburst of positive heliotropism as in the 
 ant. . . . ss 
 
 Also, 
 
 "Whitman took the eggs or young of wild 
 
 32 Loeb Tropisms pp. 157-158.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 297 
 
 species, giving them to the domestic ring-dove 
 to foster, with the result, that the young 
 reared by the ring-doves ever after associated 
 with ring-doves and tried to mate with them. 
 Passenger pigeons when reared by ring-doves re- 
 fuse to mate with their own species but mate 
 with the species of the foster parents. 539 This 
 shows incidentally that racial antagonism is not 
 inherited but acquired. 
 
 "We have mentioned the fact that the mating 
 instinct is determined by tropisms aroused by 
 specific internal secretions, and that in isolated 
 male pigeons any solid body can arouse the mat- 
 ing reaction. Craig"' 40 raised male pigeons in 
 isolation so that they never came in contact with 
 other pigeons until they were adult. One pigeon 
 was hatched in July and isolated in August. 
 
 " 'Throughout the autumn and early winter 
 this bird cooed very little. But about the first of 
 February there began a remarkable development 
 of voice and social behavior. The dove was kept 
 in a room where several men were at work, and 
 he directed his display behavior toward these 
 men just as if they belonged to his own species. 
 Each time I put food in his cage he became great- 
 ly excited, charging up and down the cage, 
 bowing-and-cooing to me, and pecking my hand 
 whenever it came within his cage. From that 
 day until the day of his death, Jack continued to 
 react in this social manner to human beings. He 
 would bow-and-coo to me at a distance, or to my
 
 298 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 face when near the cage; but he paid greatest 
 attention to the hand naturally so, because it 
 was the only part with which he daily came into 
 direct contact. He treated the hand much as if 
 it were a living bird. Not only were his own ac- 
 tivities directed toward the hand as if it were a 
 bird, but he received treatment by the hand in 
 the same spirit. The hand could stroke him, 
 preen his neck, even pull the feathers sharply, 
 Jack had absolutely no fear, but ran to the hand 
 to be stroked or teased, showing the joy that all 
 doves show in the attentions of their compan- 
 ions. 34 .... 
 
 "When this pigeon was almost a year old it 
 was put into a cage with a female pigeon, but 
 although the female aroused the sexual instinct 
 of the formerly isolated male the latter did not 
 mate with her, but mated with the hand of his 
 attendant when the hand was put into the cage, 
 and this continued throughout the season. Thus 
 the memory images acquired by the bird at an 
 impressionable age and period perverted its sexual 
 tropisms. 35 
 
 "The biologic utility of sex is, of course, in the 
 propagation of the race. From a cell one quarter 
 inch in diameter develops the human being who is 
 to inherit, according to strict biological laws, 
 the fundamental traits bequeathed by his par- 
 ents. Galton's book on Ancestral Heredity, in 
 
 "Idem, p. 168. 
 ""Idem, p. 169.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 299 
 
 1889, expressed the proportion of traits derived 
 from the two parents as one-half, from the four 
 grand-parents as one-fourth, etc. This has how- 
 ever, been tested (by Castle especially) and found 
 to be too rough an approximation to be useful. 
 
 Mendel formulated a law in 1886 which in 1900 
 was rediscovered by De Vries, Com, and Sher- 
 mont. His concept was of unit characters e. g., 
 in peas, tallness and shortness. Also the con- 
 cept of Dominant and Recessive Characteristics. 
 
 But we should beware of too ready reference 
 to "heredity" as an "explanation" of everything. 
 Like "the unconscious" it is too easy a way out 
 of difficulties. 
 
 It used to be thought that even traits which 
 a person acquired after his birth could be trans- 
 mitted to offspring. Now, thanks to De Vries 
 and others, this idea, like "prenatal influence" 
 has been relegated to the limbo of abandoned 
 theories. 
 
 Castle 36 tells how a female albino guinea pig 
 just at sexual maturity was by an operation de- 
 prived of its ovaries. There were introduced into 
 her body the ovaries of a young black female 
 guinea pig not yet sexually mature, aged three 
 weeks. The grafted animal now mated with a 
 male albino and produced three litters of young, 
 of which six individuals were all black, etc. This 
 certainly is strong evidence that it is not the ani- 
 
 '"Castle Genetics & Eugenics, p. 24.
 
 300 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 mal as a whole, but essentially the germ cells 
 which determine inheritance. 
 
 A little booklet on the Birth Control Movement" 7 
 says, "In our modern city life, with its extremes 
 of poverty and riches, large families are frequent- 
 ly a menace, not only to their members, but to the 
 community at large. Statistics collected by physi- 
 cians and social investigators show that the in- 
 fant mortality in large families is enormously 
 greater in proportion than in small. Dr. Alice 
 Hamilton, in the Bulletin of the American Acad- 
 emy of Medicine for May, 1910, reports an in- 
 vestigation of the families of 1,600 wage earners. 
 Deaths per thousand births, in families of 
 4 children and less, averaged 118 
 
 6 children 267 
 
 7 children 280 
 
 8 children 291 
 
 9 children and more 303 
 
 "In other words, the death rate in families of 
 
 eight and more is two and one-half times that of 
 families of four children and under. 
 
 "An examination of statistics shows the injuri- 
 ous effect not only on the mother, but on the chil- 
 dren, when a woman bears her babies in too rapid 
 succession. Motherhood is not a universal ex- 
 perience. That half of the human race which 
 can never be called upon to experience the pains 
 of child-birth has come to accept them very com- 
 placently, like the growing pains of childhood. 
 
 * 7 P. 121. Published by committee of one hundred, 1917.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 301 
 
 It gives us a start to come upon the figures re- 
 cently collected by Dr. Grace L. Meigs, of the 
 Government Children's Bureau in Washington, 
 D. C. She finds that, by official reports, more 
 than 15,000 mothers die each year in this country 
 from conditions related to child-birth. During 
 the year 1913 more women between the ages of 
 15 and 44 years died in child-birth than from any 
 other cause except tuberculosis, and the mortal- 
 ity was three times that of typhoid fever. It 
 would be interesting to know in how many cases 
 the physical condition of these women was such 
 that they should never have been allowed to be- 
 come pregnant, and how many of them had lost 
 their vitality and power or resistance thru too 
 frequent child-bearing. 
 
 "As for the effects on children born in such 
 rapid succession, R. J. Ewart, an English econ- 
 omist, reports on his study of an English manu- 
 facturing town, that children born at intervals 
 of less than two years after the birth of the 
 previous child, remain notably defective, even at 
 the age of six, both as regards intelligence and 
 physical development. When compared with 
 children born at a longer interval, and with first- 
 born children, they are, on the average, three 
 inches shorter and three pounds lighter. F. Boas, 
 in a government report for 1911 on 'Changes in 
 Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants', 
 sums up : 'The physical development of children,
 
 302 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 as measured by stature, is the better, the smaller 
 the family.' 
 
 "These statistics show only the obvious physical 
 results of too frequent child-bearing. But mother- 
 hood has come to mean a good deal more than 
 mere physical bearing of infants. It may include 
 the stimulus and inspiration of companionship 
 with a woman of broad interests and normally 
 rounded life. We all know exceptional cases of 
 large families, where the mother exercised a 
 powerful influence over all her flock. But such 
 cases require extraordinary physical vitality on 
 the part of the mother, and usually ample means 
 to supply a staff of nurses. In the average case, 
 a baby a year means that the older ones must be 
 neglected, turned out on the streets to play, and 
 deprived of all the love and influence which the 
 mother yearns to give if she only had the time. 
 
 "Many men and women who practice birth 
 control themselves have an idea that 'the masses 
 of the people' do not want this information, and 
 would not take the trouble to use it if they had 
 it. They might be startled to see the flood of let- 
 ters which pours in upon nearly every woman 
 connected with the birth control movement. As 
 soon as the name and address of a woman inter- 
 ested in birth control is given in the newspapers, 
 she begins to receive these letters. They come 
 from every state in the Union and from both 
 fathers and mothers. Some bear the earmarks of 
 education and culture. Many are misspelled, and
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 303 
 
 laboriously scrawled. Thru them all runs a pa- 
 thetic eagerness for help out of the baffling diffi- 
 culties against which these men and women are 
 struggling." 
 
 Connecticut. 
 "Dear Madam: 
 
 "My daughter-in-law is a very frail little wo- 
 man. She has brought eleven children into the 
 world. The last four were still-born. The doctor 
 says she has not vitality enough ever to bring 
 another living child into the world. If you will 
 kindly give information that will prevent any 
 more conception, you will save her life, so that 
 she may rear those who are still living." 
 
 Montana. 
 "Dear Madam: 
 
 "I am taking the liberty of asking if you would 
 not be so kind as to give me information on birth 
 control. My husband is making $16 per week, 
 and we have had four children in as many years. 
 Two are living, another is expected soon. Now 
 before the birth of each child I have to take to 
 my bed for about six weeks, on account of kidney 
 trouble, and of course this makes it very ex- 
 pensive, as well as dangerous. It just keeps us 
 in debt all the time, and this is so discouraging. 
 We are both young and hard working; I have 
 even taken washing to help out. I don't mind 
 having children, if there is plenty to provide with. 
 But on account of the high cost of living, and also 
 the danger on account of my kidneys, I would
 
 304 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 like to stop for a while, until we get on our feet, 
 anyway." 
 
 "It is difficult and humiliating, in the face of 
 such appeals, to have to write back with cold 
 propriety, that it is against the law to give such 
 information, and that (although we practice it 
 ourselves) we may not share it, but can only work 
 for the repeal of such laws. 
 
 "The discussion of large families brings us to 
 the subject of race suicide. This is a bugaboo 
 with which a certain school of alarmists try to 
 terrorize us. While birth-control information 
 does result in lowering the birth rate, it also, and 
 simultaneously so, lowers the infant mortality, 
 that the result is frequently a net increase of 
 population. 
 
 "In 1881, when birth-control clinics were 
 started in Holland, its three principal cities 
 showed a birth rate of 33.7 per thousand. In 1912 
 the birth rate had dropped to 25.3. The general 
 death rate, however, had dropped in the same 
 period from 24.2 to 11.1 per thousand, so that the 
 net change was an increase in population. (These 
 figures are quoted from an article by Dr. 
 Adolphus Knopf, the tuberculosis expert, endors- 
 ing birth control in The Survey for November 18, 
 1916.) 
 
 "It is difficult to take this talk of race suicide 
 seriously when one remembers the deep, strong 
 passions with which women and men long for 
 Children. Physicians constantly meet in their
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 305 
 
 practice women who have deliberately faced Cae- 
 sarian sections, four and five times, for the sake 
 of having a family. The fact that they were 
 physically unable to bear a child normally did not 
 daunt them for an instant. Love of children, and 
 especially love of one's very own, the strong, 
 fierce power of maternal and paternal instinct, is 
 too deep-seated for it to be possible that the race 
 will die out because of the spread of this informa- 
 tion. 
 
 Another objection to birth control is based on 
 its supposedly injurious effects. No doubt harm- 
 ful methods have been used, but there is no rea- 
 son why they should be, as absolutely harmless 
 methods are known. Numerous medical authori- 
 ties testify to this fact, that with the proper use 
 of preventive measures, there is no possible in- 
 jury. Dr. J. Rutger of The Hague, in his book 
 on "Race Improvement," writes: 
 
 "There is but one method of saving women 
 from the risk of gynaecological diseases depend- 
 ing on infection, and that is cleanliness. Now 
 cleanliness is the most essential feature in the ap- 
 lication of preventive means. Preventing infec- 
 tion and preventing fecundation are in principle 
 parallel problems. And Dr. William J. Robinson, 
 in 'Practical Eugenics/ writes: 
 
 "Another argument is that the use of the 
 means of prevention renders a woman sterile, so 
 that when she afterwards wants to have children 
 she cannot do so. This is absolutely and unquali-
 
 306 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 fiedly untrue. Here is again confusion between 
 prevention and abortion. It is true that repeat- 
 edly performed abortions may render a woman 
 sterile on account of the inflammations and in- 
 fections that abortions often set up. But properly 
 used means of contraception have no such effect. 
 Thousands and thousands of women use these 
 means as long as they do not want to have any 
 children; when they want a child, they discon- 
 tinue their use and very soon afterward become 
 impregnated." 
 
 "Statistics are sometimes quoted to show an in- 
 crease of cancer and sterility, attributed to birth- 
 control methods. But many doctors class abor- 
 tions and the prevention of conception together. 
 In giving statistics for the evils resulting from 
 one, they include the other. No one argues that 
 abortions are not injurious. They are. The de- 
 sire to prevent the present widespread practice 
 of abortions with their injurious after-effects is 
 one of the important arguments for birth con- 
 trol. It is, therefore, scarcely fair to use as an 
 argument against birth control the injurious ef- 
 fects of abortions. It is like grouping together 
 the mortality rate for pneumonia and sprained 
 ankles, and arguing that sprained ankles are a 
 fatal disease. 
 
 "Havelock Ellis, in his 'Essays in War Times,' 
 meets this objection. Granting, for the sake of 
 argument, that there are injurious effects, he 
 points out that many of the changes which the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 307 
 
 process of evolution has brought about have had 
 harmful as well as beneficial results. Raising 
 mankind from all fours to walk about on two feet 
 has produced many disorders. Most of the back- 
 aches and internal ailments from which women 
 suffer are due to the disarrangement of their or- 
 gans caused by standing up. Yet no doctor 
 makes this an argument for returning to all 
 fours. Clothes are another example. All the ani- 
 mals are born with whatever covering they need 
 fur, feathers and hairy hides. Man alone has 
 devised an artificial covering for himself. In its 
 train have come many diseases. Tuberculosis, 
 pneumonia, grippe and colds are chiefly due to our 
 susceptibility to draughts and cold, brought on 
 by wearing clothes. Yet far from attempting to 
 return to the status quo ante, we have even made 
 it illegal for a man to try to go without clothes." 
 
 From here on the discussion becomes distinctly 
 social in its significance. Personally, we incline 
 to go much farther than most of the advocates 
 of birth control, and to believe, with the neomal- 
 thusians, that an actual diminution of population 
 is desirable. Herbert Quick in his On Board the 
 Good Ship Earth, Shows the danger from what 
 he calls "the Hindu Peril." 
 
 "India contains 40 1,766,000 square miles, while 
 the United States has more than three millions. 
 But while we have less than a hundred millions 
 
 "Herbert Quick, On Board the Good Ship Earth, pp. 179-182.
 
 308 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 of people, British India has 300,000,000, (244,- 
 361,056 in 1901). 
 
 "These 300,000,000 fellow passengers of ours 
 are very poor, and very ignorant and unenlight- 
 ened. Therefore they multiply rapidly. Wher- 
 ever there is found on the good ship Earth a peo- 
 ple which has a very high birthrate, the masses 
 will be found living on a low intellectual plane, 
 on a low plane of prosperity, or both. The Hin- 
 dus meaning all the Indian peoples are as far 
 as the masses are concerned, not only poor beyond 
 the conception of an American, but they are 
 plunged into an intellectual slavery that is appall- 
 ing. Therefore they multiply very rapidly. 
 
 "In the absence of the accepted checks on popu- 
 lation war, pestilence and famine and in the 
 absence of the check which must come in to pre- 
 vent those by checking multiplication the ex- 
 piration of poverty and the attainment of high 
 intellectual life the people of India will at the 
 rate with which their population has grown since 
 first it was computed, amount in 1950 to 450,000,- 
 000 ; in A. D. 2000 it will be 675,000,000 ; in A. D. 
 2050 it will be 1,012,500,000; and in A. D. 2100 
 it will be 1,518,750,000. 
 
 There is, of course, no room in their present 
 habitat for such swarms. There are many unused 
 natural opportunities in their country. There are 
 coal, iron, water-power and irrigable lands; but 
 even at the present rate of increase all these op- 
 portunities will be overtaxed in a hundred years.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 309 
 
 The Hindus are robbed by taxation, and exploited 
 by landlordism and monopoly, but with a perfect 
 system of distribution of wealth, if such were to 
 be hoped for, multiplying as they are doing, pov- 
 erty would overtake them thru sheer swarming 
 in the absence of the enlightenment which dimin- 
 ishes progeny. 
 
 "For their increase does not show their birth- 
 rate. War has been forbidden them by the Roman 
 peace of the British rule. But still their ignor- 
 ance and squalor, their neglect of sanitation and 
 supineness under disease keeps down the multi- 
 plying hordes. And famine descends upon them 
 whenever rain fails to come with the southwest 
 wind which is called a monsoon the rain-bringer 
 for the Hindus. The government puts aside some 
 millions of rupees every year as a famine-insur- 
 ance fund to keep the people from starving in 
 years of drought ; but this can do no good. More 
 people will live over this famine and therefore 
 there will be more mouths to feed when the next 
 famine comes. The cause of famines in India is 
 not drought, but too many people and bad distri- 
 bution of wealth. And if the distribution be rem- 
 edied the people will at once multiply to take up 
 the slack liberated by better institutions. The 
 situation is perfectly hopeless in the absence of 
 enlightenment and the adoption of sane beliefs. 
 For population depends more on beliefs than on 
 food.
 
 310 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 However, we resume our quotations from the 
 pamphlet on Birth Control 41 
 
 "Perhaps the most important and generally 
 quoted argument against birth control is the fear 
 expressed that it would lead to an increase of im- 
 morality among young women. This presupposes 
 a low standard of morality among young girls. 
 Most of us believe that a positive idealism, rather 
 than a negative fear of consequences, is the re- 
 straining influence on most of our young women. 
 We are rapidly growing away from a civilization 
 which undertakes to preserve the chastity of 
 young women by actual physical compulsion. In 
 Spanish and South American countries, young 
 girls are forcibly kept in their rooms by close 
 surveillance and iron bars in their windows. In 
 respectable society, no young woman is allowed 
 to be alone with a man for an instant; even in 
 her own home, and tho he may be marrying her 
 the next day. 
 
 "Gradually society is developing a different atti- 
 tude toward women. We have come to realize 
 that a passive virtue, enforced by lack of oppor- 
 tunity to do otherwise, is not as valuable to so- 
 ciety, nor to the individual, as the building up 
 of character, which, having the choice between 
 good and evil, chooses wisely. In the last century, 
 the convention requiring a chaperon for an un- 
 married girl at all times has been tremendously 
 relaxed. Sending girls away to college, and into 
 
 "Birth Control, pp. 30-36.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 311 
 
 the big cities to work, has released them from all 
 actual physical restraints. Yet we do not feel 
 that our womanhood is suffering from the change. 
 Rather it is more wholesome and self-respecting 
 than ever before. Similarly, we believe that the 
 more general knowledge of birth-control informa- 
 tion will by no means result in a general lowering 
 of moral standards. 
 
 "The probability that it will work harm in in- 
 dividual cases is scarcely an argument against 
 making the information legitimately available. 
 
 "Railways, street cars, automobiles, many of 
 the most important elements of modern life take 
 an enormous number of lives every year. From 
 the point of view of the woman whose husband 
 has been run over and killed by a speeding auto- 
 mobile, it might seem desirable to legislate the 
 motor car out of existence. But society never has 
 and never can be governed by the consideration of 
 individual cases. 
 
 "Balanced against the harm of knowledge of 
 contraceptive measures may do to the individual 
 girl are the hundred thousands of married men 
 and women all over this country whose married 
 life is marred and haunted by lack of this knowl- 
 edge. Women in delicate health, women with dis- 
 eases which make pregnancy almost fatal, wives 
 of small-salaried men whose incomes are insuffi- 
 cient to care for their present families to all 
 these women and their husbands, fear of preg- 
 nancy is an ever-menacing, everhaunting night-
 
 312 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 mare. Officials of the various courts of domestic 
 relations say that lack of response and accord in 
 the marital relation is responsible for a tremen- 
 dous number of divorces and unhappy marriages. 
 Remove this fear of an unwelcome child from 
 the woman's heart, and it seems reasonable to 
 believe that it would go far toward adjusting 
 many of these tangled and unhappy relationships. 
 
 "The suggestion that self-control would meet 
 the difficulty does not seem a practical solution. 
 To many men and women the marital relation is 
 beautiful and sacred, and by no means to be apolo- 
 gized for. They feel that it would be unnatural 
 and wrong to attempt to eliminate its inspiring 
 and uplifting influence from married life, except 
 for the rare occasions when procreation is de- 
 sired. Recent studies made by Freud, Jung, and 
 other great specialists in nervous troubles have 
 called attention to the pathological conditions 
 frequently induced by maladjustments in the 
 sexual relationship. Celibacy is generally recog- 
 nized as an abnormal and incomplete mode of life. 
 It is the more anomalous when demanded of a 
 man and woman loving each other, and living 
 together in the affectionate intimacy of married 
 life. 
 
 "Turning to the arguments for birth control 
 in addition to those already implied, the underly- 
 ing principles involve several fundamental issues. 
 
 "One of the most convincing arguments for 
 family limitation is its beneficial results in the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 313 
 
 countries where it has been tried. Government 
 statistics from these countries record a tendency 
 to earlier marriages. These are made possible 
 because the young couples feel free to marry at 
 once, instead of having to wait until the man can 
 earn enough to support an unlimited succession 
 of babies. Early marriages are the most effective 
 possible means of reducing prostitution and 
 venereal disease, as well as illegitimacy and abor- 
 tion. 
 
 "On the positive side, the good effects of family 
 limitation are seen in the improvement of the 
 individual and of the social life of the community. 
 In Holland the records show that, with the adop- 
 tion of birth control, the stature of the men ap- 
 plying at the recruiting office has been notably 
 improved. The number of men over 5 feet 7 
 inches has increased from 24 to 47 per cent. The 
 number of men under 5 feet, 2'/i inches has de- 
 creased from 25 to 8 per cent. The diminution 
 of pauperism is also noticeable. In England the 
 number of persons whom it was necessary to re- 
 lieve annually, per thousand of the population, 
 has fallen from 23.5 in 1875 (when the birth rate 
 began to decline) to 26.4 in 1910 a drop of 23.5 
 per cent. 
 
 "Most of the extreme cases of destitution in 
 our big cities involve the suffering and often the 
 wreckage of many little children. A striking ex- 
 ample of this fact is furnished by the list of 
 'New York's One Hundred Neediest Cases,' pub-
 
 314 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 lished by the New York Times just before Christ- 
 mas each winter. This list is compiled by the 
 Association for Improving the Condition of the 
 Poor. Insane parents, fathers with broken spines, 
 mothers incapacitated by constant child-bearing 
 or sickness, and large families of pitiful little 
 children, dependent on a sixteen-year-old brother 
 or sister, or perhaps eight little children under 
 ten years of age so the stories run. They make 
 heart-rending reading. And they point an unes- 
 capable moral: Much of the misery of New 
 York's neediest cases could have been avoided by 
 the intelligent use of birth control. 
 
 "One of the important arguments for family 
 limitation seems incredible in the criminal stu- 
 pidity it involves. Physicians testify that it is 
 fatal for women with certain classes of diseases 
 to attempt to bear children. Such cases include 
 pelvic deformities and certain types of kidney 
 and heart disease and tubercular conditions. 
 With insanity, tuberculosis, and certain con- 
 tagious diseases, the danger is multiplied by the 
 probability of its being handed on to the child 
 to handicap him through life. 
 
 "Among the very poor where expert medical 
 care is not possible, men and women unfit for par- 
 entage, because of heriditary taints which they 
 may pass on, continue year after year to produce 
 unfit and sickly children. Reliable statistics show 
 that it is these children who, in after years, come 
 to form a majority of the inmates of the re-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 315 
 
 formatories, prisons, houses of prostitution and 
 insane asylums. In addition to the hideous total 
 of suffering and agony which goes into the child- 
 hood and maturity of such lives, it is the State, 
 and each one of us, who must pay the ultimate 
 bill for restraining and caring for them. 
 
 This brings us to the kindred subject of Eu- 
 genics. The negative phase of this subject 
 the segregation or even sterilization by vasec- 
 tomy of feeble-minded is belatedly receiving some 
 of the attention it deserves. In its positive as- 
 pects however, it still hardly has progressed. Yet 
 "to add one man of the ability, say of Simon New- 
 comb, William James, E. B. Wilson or Jacques 
 Loeb, to the American stock is of greater advan- 
 tage than to prevent the birth of a thousand 
 feeble-minded or insane." 42 
 
 If the native intellectual endowments of the 
 Aryan race (which is usually ranked highest in 
 the scale) be compared with those of, say the 
 Hottentots (who are among the lowest) a differ- 
 ence of level undoubtedly will be found between 
 their averages, in favor of the Aryans. But this 
 difference isn't so great as generally supposed, 
 for many Aryans are as stupid as the stupidest 
 Hottentot, while many individual Hottentots lack 
 only an enducation to rival the brilliance of high 
 class Aryans. What is many, many times greater 
 than the difference between the averages of these 
 
 4 -J. McK. Cattell. "American Men of Science." Second Edition, 1910. 
 p. 563.
 
 316 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 races is the difference between the individual 
 genius of the Aryan race and the idiots of the 
 same race, or between the brightest men and stup- 
 idest men of the Hottentot race. Someone has ad- 
 vanced a theory to account for the difference in 
 civilization between two races, that the higher 
 race is that one which produces the greatest varia- 
 tions away from its average (has most idiots to 
 take care of, but has likewise most geniuses to urge 
 it forward). That there is a greater aberrancy 
 from type among advanced, as compared with 
 primitive groups, of people seems to be borne out 
 by the statistics we have on the subject. 
 
 It's a tribute to the instincts of mankind that, 
 upon the whole, they're affected much less power- 
 fully by low types than by high, and that in leader- 
 ship as in most other things in the long run "real 
 merit wins." Witness, for example, the instances 
 given in Terman's Study of Leadership, as : 
 
 "Girl of 11 ruled the boys and girls alike. 
 'One of the wealthiest girls in the village was her 
 slave. She could make us do as she wished be- 
 fore we knew what was up. She was good-look- 
 ing, daring skillful in holding her own, and older 
 than the rest.' " 
 
 Our program to be scientifically social must in- 
 clude eugenic measures. There is also the eugenic 
 question to be considered in relation to the "high 
 birth rate among the least desirable classes of 
 the community. The indigent, the unemploy- 
 able, the reckless, the drunken and the mentally
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 317 
 
 deficient. . . . Is it wonderful, then, that we 
 have overcrowded districts a physical and mental 
 depreciation? The combined wisdom of the age 
 can find no remedy from this dilemma, unlimited 
 reproduction and brutality, or humanitarianism 
 with restrictions. 
 
 "The recent Mental Deficiency Bill is a first 
 recognition of the latter principle. But why deal 
 only with the extreme cases of mental deficiency? 
 There are millions of poor physically and mental- 
 ly unfit creatures who, if voluntary restriction 
 were known to them, or they were not told it was 
 unhealthy or immoral, would only be too glad to 
 escape burdening themselves and the community 
 with a numerous and weakly progeny. What is 
 the use of deploring the increase of the unfit when 
 the poor mothers among the working classes are 
 only too anxious to avoid the misery of bearing 
 child upon child in wretched surroundings, on 
 miserably insufficient wages, and of seeing half 
 of their children perish from semi-starvation be- 
 fore their eyes? 
 
 "What is the use, too, of simply segrating the 
 mentally deficient when we have a huge factory 
 of mental deficiency in our midst in the terrible 
 amount of venereal disease caused by prostitu- 
 tion? If all young people were able to marry at 
 a suitable age, instead of waiting to provide for 
 a family, this great source of defect would be 
 stopped, and it would do far more to check mental 
 defect than any other measure which could be
 
 318 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 devised. In fact, we should probably never have 
 needed the recent Mental Deficiency measure if 
 our educated classes had done their duty in ex- 
 tending the knowledge of hygienic means of fam- 
 ily limitation to the poor when they adopted them 
 themselves." 
 
 The public reticence to discuss these vital ques- 
 tions reaches a point of tragic absurdity which 
 yet recalls a newspaper item that appeared in a 
 Boston paper on March 12, 1919 : 
 
 BOARD FENCE IN COURTROOM TO HIDE 
 WOMAN'S ANKLES. 
 
 "New York, March 12. Because Mrs. Betty 
 Inch was too generous in the display of her ankles 
 to jurymen who failed a month ago to agree on 
 a verdict in her trial on a charge of extortion, she 
 found the witness stand surrounded by a four- 
 foot board fence when she appeared today in the 
 supreme court for the second hearing of her case. 
 
 " 'What is it, a spite fence?' the comely Mrs. 
 Inch inquired when she entered. The partition 
 concealed all but her head and shoulders when 
 she took the stand." 
 
 In the little booklet, "Yes, but" 43 a last objec- 
 tion of the conservatives is thus stated and 
 answered : 
 (Quote p. 23 to end p. 24.) 
 
 "Yes, but somehow the whole idea is distasteful. 
 
 "Issued by the Voluntary Parenthood League, 206 Broadway, New 
 York City, p. 28.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 319 
 
 I believe in it, but really I don't think I care to 
 be associated with an organized effort in regard 
 to it. It is such an unpleasant subject. 
 
 "Granted, your aversion, and you are by no 
 means alone in having it, but are you going to 
 let that hold you back, when you realize how day 
 by day the needless tragedies go on, and that just 
 in proportion as you and all the others who have 
 like feelings, shrink from responsibility, that suf- 
 fering will be prolonged? Do you realize that 
 there are thousands of women like poor young 
 
 Mrs. S , twenty-six years old, married five 
 
 years, and with four living children, who said to 
 the hospital nurse when offered a few weeks' rest 
 in the country: 'I don't want the country. I 
 want rest from having babies. I can't stand it 
 much longer. I shall go mad! Think of four 
 children, four, three, one and a half, and the 
 new baby! If you know anything that can help 
 me and other women like me, why don't you teach 
 us?' 
 
 "Doesn't one's personal aversion to the subject 
 sink into nothingness in the face of desperate 
 need like this? Doesn't it make squeamishness 
 seem rather like self-indulgence? 
 
 "Especially, if you yourself, have all the in- 
 formation necessary for safeguarding yourself 
 and your own children, can you bear it not to in- 
 sist that all the others who need it, shall have it, 
 too? Noblesse oblige!"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 This chapter will deal with the great funda- 
 mental urge, hunger. 
 
 SECTION I 
 
 Down from the dim past of all peoples come 
 echoes of hymns composed in honor of some in- 
 toxicant. Whether we listen to the vedic chants 
 in honor of some, the fermented juice of a plant 
 raised to the dignity of godhood, or to the din of 
 Grecian bacchanals, we are surprised with this 
 association between wine or drugs and worship. 
 A relic of it persists even today in the Christian 
 Eucharist. Says Brinton: 
 
 "In every savage tribe we find a knowledge of 
 narcotic plants which were employed to induce, 
 strange and vivid hallucinations of dreams .... 
 The negroes of the Niger had their 'fetish water,' 
 the Creek Indians of Florida their 'black drink' 
 for this purpose. In many parts of the United 
 States the natives smoked stramonium, the ?'Iexi- 
 can tribes swallowed the eyotl and the snake- 
 plant, the tribes of California and the Samoyedes 
 of Siberia had found a poisonous toadstool; all 
 to bring about communication with the Divine 
 and to induce extatic visions." 1 The Indians of 
 New Mexico who are "unacquainted with intoxi- 
 cating liquors .... find drunkenness, in the fumes
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 321 
 
 of a certain herb smoked through a stone tube 
 and used chiefly during their religious festivals." 
 Among the old Mexicans, a seed called Oliluhgue 
 entered into a vision-producing "divine medi- 
 cine" which could be obtained only from the 
 priests. 2 
 
 "In the Indie and Iranian cult there was," we 
 are told, "a direct worship of deified liquor ana- 
 logous to Dionysiac rites." It has even been 
 maintained that the whole Rig Veda is but a col- 
 lection of hymns for soma worship. The drink- 
 ing ceremony was accompanied by magical incan- 
 tations and by religious invocations. During the 
 frequent libations that marked the sacrifice of 
 soma, the officiating priest asked repeatedly for 
 inspiration. He offered the liquor with these 
 words: "0, Indra, accept our offering .... drink 
 of the soma, thou the friend of prayer and of the 
 liquor; well disposed God, drink in order to in- 
 toxicate thyself." "I pour it out into the double 
 cavity of thy belly ; may it spread thru thy mem- 
 bers; may it be sweet to thy taste; may it 
 steal upon thee, deliverer, veiled as women 
 seeking a rendez-vous. Hero with the strong 
 neck, full bellied, strong of arms, Indra, praised 
 by many, accept the pressed out soma, father of 
 divine energy." 
 
 Leuba, 1 who quotes the above passage, con- 
 tinues : "Modern India has not renounced the use 
 
 'David Brtnton, The Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 7. 
 
 -H. H. Cancroft, Native Races, vol. 1, pp. 566-567. 
 
 'Extatic Intoxication in Religion, James H. Leuba. pp. 578-579.
 
 322 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 of drugs in religious ceremonies. The India 
 Hemp Commission appointed by the English Gov- 
 ernment to investigate the use of hemp drugs in 
 its Hindoo possessions, reported that several 
 hemp preparations are "extensively used in the 
 exercise of religious practices.'' They found evi- 
 dence of the "almost universal use of hemp drugs 
 by fakirs, jogis, sanyasis, and ascetics of all 
 classes, and more particularly by those devoted 
 to the worship of Siva." The hemp plant is be- 
 lieved by priests and oeople to be a special at- 
 tribute of that god. 
 
 In this early identification of intoxication with 
 religion and its subsequent divorce, we have a 
 fact curiously resembling the early confusion 
 with religion and subsequent divorce from it t)f 
 various sciences and arts. In this case the mean- 
 ing probably is to be found in the confusion of ex- 
 tatic states physically produced (and in them- 
 selves affording a relief to excitation) with the 
 trance-like condition so generally regarded as 
 favorable to communication with another world. 
 
 A colored sentinel challenged another colored 
 soldier who seemed to be carrying something in- 
 side the lines. 
 
 "Whot goes there?" he asked. 
 
 "Lieutenant with a jug o' gin," was the an- 
 swer. 
 
 "Pass, Lieutenant! Halt, gin!" commanded the 
 sentry. 
 
 That the use of narcotics no longer can be held
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 323 
 
 as the peculiar reproach of oriental peoples is 
 evident from statistics of conditions in our own 
 country in 1919. Before us is a clipping from 
 a Boston paper that reads: 
 
 "Albany, N. Y., Feb. 25. One man in every 
 twenty in New York State is addicted to the use 
 of narcotic drugs a dope fiend. And nine out of 
 ten of these morphine slaves are being swindled 
 daily by proprietors of fake drug 'cures' or by ig- 
 norant administering of so-called narcotic drug 
 remedies by reputable physicians. 
 
 "This appalling condition of affairs was re- 
 vealed in a report by Ex-Senator George H. Whit- 
 ney, pioneer in narcotic legislation, made public 
 today. 
 
 "Ex-Senator Whitney, as chairman of a special 
 legislative investigating committee, heads the op- 
 position to the proposed abolition of the State 
 bureau for narcotic drug control. Instead of 
 abolishing the bureau Mr. Whitney and his co- 
 workers in the fight against the use of drugs will 
 urge the Legislature to combat the drug evil by 
 seeking scientific cures to be administered by the 
 State." 
 
 The ultimate cure for drug using, however, can- 
 not come from less than a grand-scale turning of 
 the people away from the pursuit of luxury to the 
 Simple Life. We must cease to believe that drugs 
 or anything short of abstemious living, moderate 
 exercise and plenty of repose can give respite 
 from ill-being. That it sets itself squarely against
 
 324 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 these ideals is a terrible indictment of modern 
 "civilization." 
 
 The inference probably is that drug-using, as 
 well as drinking, isn't merely a habit in the sense 
 that riding a bicycle may become a habit. These 
 things obtain their grip chiefly upon persons 
 whom the strain of "civilization" has rendered 
 neurotic. 
 
 That gambling also must be put in this class 
 is the contenting of a Dr. Corning. A newspaper 
 clipping 2 says: 
 
 "On gambling in its moral and economic aspects 
 there has been endless writing and talking, all 
 condemnatory, of course. And gambling goes on, 
 in one form or another, probably as much as ever, 
 though a good deal of it is now done under other 
 names and much that used to be public is now 
 more or less secretly conducted. Of scientific at- 
 tempts to describe and explain the psychology of 
 gambling there have been few, and still fewer 
 have been those to cure, instead of to denounce, 
 the gambler's psychosis. The first task is un- 
 dertaken by Dr. J. Leonard Corning in an article 
 contributed by him to The Medical Record, and 
 both his observations and his conclusions have 
 the interest of novelty. 
 
 "Gambling makes its wide, almost universal, 
 appeal, Dr. Corning thinks, not to mere greed or 
 avarice the desire to get something for nothing 
 but because in playing games of chance for 
 
 2 The date is about 1914. We have lost record of the paper..
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 325 
 
 valuable stakes there is a constant alternation of 
 emotion that is in itself pleasurable, and there 
 comes into action the same element of suspense 
 that forms at least a large part of the attraction 
 in many legitimate amusements and occupations. 
 It is this suspense the ignorance of what is go- 
 ing to happen and the joy which comes from 
 seeing or learning what does happen that for 
 most people makes novels and plays enjoyable 
 and holds attention to one or several climaxes and 
 the succeeding denouements. The man engaged 
 in scientific research also alternates between con- 
 fident hope and the disappointments of defeat, 
 but enjoys his work, even though it does not 
 prove materially profitable. 
 
 "In games of hazard the suspense is brought 
 about in an arbitrary manner, while its alterna- 
 tions are injuriously frequent and there is noth- 
 ing logical about the conclusion. Gambling is 
 merely a misuse of that capacity and inclination 
 to take chances upon which enterprise and prog- 
 ress of every kind largely depend. Its votaries 
 often show, and all of them can be suspected of, 
 a neurasthenic taint. This, in Dr. Coming's 
 opinion, makes the gambling habit in its more 
 exaggerated forms an affair of psychopathology 
 rather than of morals, and he thinks that dis- 
 semination of knowledge of the habit's essen- 
 tially morbid nature, coupled with a dispassionate 
 and explicit account of its inroads on mental ef- 
 ficiency, should help to a rational prophylaxis."
 
 326 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 As we shall see in a later chapter, the knack of 
 exploring the unconscious can in some degree be 
 acquired, and the student will only then be in a 
 position to quite understand himself, and to re- 
 place his present too crude objectives by the sub- 
 stitution of objectives satisfying a wider range 
 of his desires. 
 
 SECTION 2 
 
 So much for the dangers inherent in even that 
 instinct which is fundamental to our preservation. 
 The wonder is that it's able to guide us at all in 
 this unnatural, complex, and changing environ- 
 ment which we've created. 
 
 The fact is that the evolution of the human race 
 has gradually weeded out those individuals who 
 have not had an unconscious predilection for the 
 wholesome things in their environment. If we 
 today are unable to select that which is whole- 
 some, it is because (a) our environment is not 
 that which it has been thru the centuries of mil- 
 lenniums of evolution of the race, and (b) because 
 we are in such a state today and so far removed 
 from the natural, that we do not let the uncon- 
 scious, instinctive nature speak to us. 
 
 Hunger reduces itself to a chemotropism. Loeb 
 describes how minute organisms, swimming in a 
 tank of water, are stimulated to turning- 
 movements in a purely mechanical way when cer- 
 tain chemical infusions are introduced into the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 327 
 
 fluid from a particular quarter. Similarly he 
 shows how young caterpillars are at first violently 
 heliotropic until when for that reason they have 
 climbed up the twig to the tender shoots, these 
 latter chemotropically excite their mandibles. It 
 seems likely that in the young infant the first 
 sucking is essentially a chemotropic reaction, and 
 that this reflex is thereafter conditioned by vari- 
 ous associations until its various manifestations 
 constitute a so-called instinct. 
 
 "Professor Preyer divides the movements of in- 
 fants into impulsive, reflex, and instinctive. By 
 impulsive movements he means random move- 
 ments of limb, body and voice, with no aim, be- 
 fore perception is aroused. Among the first re- 
 flex movements are crying on contact with air, 
 sneezing, snuffling, snoring, coughing, sighing, 
 sobbing, gagging, vomiting, hiccoughing, start- 
 ing, moving the limbs when tickled, touched, or 
 blown upon, etc. 
 
 "Of the movements called instinctive in the 
 child, Professor Preyer gives a full account. Herr 
 Schneider does the same. I will base my own 
 very brief statements upon theirs. 
 
 " 'Sucking.' 
 
 " 'Biting an object placed in the mouth, licking 
 sugar, making characteristic grimaces over bitter 
 and sweet tastes ; spitting out.' 
 
 " 'Clasping an object which touches the fingers 
 or toes. Later, attempts to grasp at an object
 
 328 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 seen at a distance. Pointing at such objects, and 
 making a peculiar sound expressive of desire.' 
 
 " 'Carrying to the mouth of the object when 
 grasped. This instinct leads to a set of habits 
 which constitute his function of alimentation, the 
 first expression of instinctive life." 3 
 
 It is a delightful instinct, is alimentiveness, 
 prompter of midnight pantry raids and source of 
 all gustatory joy, but source also for humanity, 
 of as much woe as joy. 
 
 "They are sick that surfeit with too much, as 
 they that starve with nothing." 4 
 
 The amount of pleasure derivable from our 
 instincts is limited. We shall be broaching no very 
 new idea, when we say it seems as tho our animal 
 economy produces regularly an amount of vital 
 energy ultimately dependent upon our state of 
 health, much as a river bed produces an amount 
 of water dependent upon the conditions of the 
 soil. Applause, balls, cocktails, the drama, eat- 
 ing, fine feathers, etc., can wash pleasure in upon 
 us momentarily at a greater rate than the normal, 
 but can't do so for more than a limited time ; and 
 so soon as the stimuli are removed, the flood of 
 energy slackens, until there shall have been time 
 for the normal flow of the stream to have built 
 itself up again. 
 
 3 Wm. James' Principles of Psychology ; volume 2, pp. 403-404. 
 Merchant of Venice. Act 1. Scene 2, L. 5.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 329 
 
 "Drunk last night; drunk the night before; 
 
 Going to get drunk tonight, if we never get drunk any 
 
 more! 
 
 When I am drunk I'm as happy as can be; 
 For I am a member of the Souse familee! 
 Glorious! Glorious! 
 One keg of beer among the four of us! 
 Glory be to God there are no more of us; 
 For any one of us could drink it all alone!" 
 
 This does well enough for a rollicking song 
 the evening before, among companions "born but 
 to banquet and drain the bowl," 5 but on the morn- 
 ing after it has a hollow sound. Mr. Gourmand 
 has a bad taste in his mouth he eventually be- 
 comes cross and loses his keen enjoyment of deli- 
 cate flavors and is lucky if he stops short of de- 
 lirium tremens or dyspesia (which has been de- 
 fined as "a square meal in a round stomach"). 
 Mr. Puffer isn't long without his accustomed ci- 
 gar, before he commences to crave it. Dicky, the 
 dime novel fiend, finds too little excitement in his 
 humdrum duties as office boy. Nancy Nicklodeon 
 endures an evening at home only as the greatest 
 torture. Then why do we send missions to rescue 
 the cocaine-fiend or the hashish-eating dervish; 
 isn't all folly a matter of degree? In ancient 
 Rome, noblemen oftentimes became gladiators, to 
 win applause ; their vanity was in no respect dif- 
 ferent from that of your present-day aspirant for 
 social leadership, the dweller in a too fine man- 
 
 'Homer's Odyssey, Book 10, L. 622, Pope's Translation. 
 "Dress does make a difference, David. (Bod Acres, in Sheridan, 
 The Rivals, 3, 4.)
 
 330 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 sion, the wearer of jewels, or of him or her who 
 takes pride in being more gaudily dressed "than 
 business interests demand." Roman gourmand- 
 ism disgusts us, but our own dietetic house of 
 glass is as frail as theirs ; we moderns take more 
 frequent meals and probably surfeit ourselves 
 more, and with worse mixtures than those in- 
 dulged in by the poor old wealthy Romans. 
 
 SECTION 3 
 
 In this section we wish to show that the typical 
 pleasure-seeker is like a man who tries to make a 
 brook flow faster by sweeping the water down 
 with a broom. He creates a momentary flood; 
 then there comes a scarcity. Just so the pleasure 
 we get from luxuries or entertainments of what- 
 ever kind is followed by comparative ennui. The 
 valley behind the brook can supply water only at 
 the usual rate, and he who accept this as so is 
 spared much pains. The foresighted person, who 
 wastes none of his energies thru unwholesome liv- 
 ing, is like the man who so well utilizes the water 
 of the brook that it more than supplies his needs. 
 The altruist who foregoes tobacco and other habits 
 because they are repugnant and interferences 
 with other people's rights is sure to benefit there- 
 by, as is the man who dams up the brook to make 
 a drinking place for the chance passer-by, and 
 incidentally finds that the reserve thus created 
 tides him over a period of drought.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 331 
 
 There also is to be considered (by most people) 
 in this connection the economic disadvantage of 
 luxurious tastes. A case in point is that of a lit- 
 tle boy who was asked by a humanitarian "Do 
 you know what poor animal had to suffer in order 
 that your mother might wear those furs?" 
 
 "Yes," came, the reply, "my papa." 
 
 Aunt Mary Wells is one of the few "befo' de 
 wan" darkies left in a little Kentucky town. Re- 
 cently she was discussing with her employer the 
 merry-go-round that was running up on the cor- 
 ner. 
 
 "Nawsuh, Mr. Malcolm," she said, "naw-suh, 
 I don' ride on none o' dem things. Why, Mr. 
 Malcolm, I've seen some o' these here fool niggers 
 git on that thing and ride as much as a dollar's 
 worth, and git off at the very same place they 
 gits on at; an' I sez to 'em, 'Now you spent yo' 
 money, nigger, whah yo' been ? ' 
 
 "Considering the matter from a purely per- 
 sonal and selfish viewpoint, I genuinely fail to 
 see what material gift beyond that of a sound 
 body can afford a man much happiness. Of 
 money, only a small amount is needed to sustain 
 a person in that simplicity in which he thrives 
 best. More than that is only display, which em- 
 bitters one against the shop-keepers who begin to 
 make him a target for imposition and dishon- 
 esty: Or it's for social recognition, envied by the 
 brainless; this means you must hold yourself 
 aloof from the herd, and so do violence to some of
 
 332 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 the finer feelings. Or it's for entertaining so 
 numerous a company of friends, that those among 
 them whose attachment is upon the solid rock 
 of inherent affinity, those whom you would 
 "grapple to thy soul with hoops of steel" (as 
 Shakespeare puts it) , are lost sight of in the herd 
 who come only to feed at your table, with the re- 
 sult that you become irritable, cynical and inci- 
 dentally less able to attract real friends. Or it's 
 to give to the needy, and so aid in maintaining 
 the race of the unfit and parasitic at your door 
 day and night, besieging you through the keyhole 
 and every mail. Or to spend it, your life's energy, 
 'drowning' trouble in dissipation, ruining that 
 one undoubted asset, your physique, and worry- 
 ing over blackmail and scandal. Heigh-ho! 
 
 But if we accept an hypothesis, we must be pre- 
 pared to accept it in all its applications. The 
 pleasure of pictures, the pride in porcelain, the 
 perusual of world news and the enjoyment of 
 grand opera, all these, unless in that minute de- 
 gree in which they may increase our general ef- 
 ficiency, are mere vanities. They are dissipa- 
 tions. To those who enjoy them they are as far 
 from bringing a permanent accretion of happi- 
 ness as are horseracing, cock-fighting, card play- 
 ing and comic opera. 7 
 
 So much being arrived at, it may be argued, 
 
 7 "The Theatre, in proper hands, might certainly be made ths 
 school of morality : but now, I am sorry to say it, people seem to 
 go there principally for their entertainment." Sheridan, The Critic, 
 Act. 1, 1.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 333 
 
 'If Desire is a source of misery, we ought to en- 
 courage no appetities, but simply to let Desire 
 die of inanition, tho we ourselves die, too.' 
 
 The fundamental mistake here is in supposing 
 that all desires are unpleasant. Desire denied 
 satisfaction is what's unpleasant. When you 
 know that a good dinner is on the table, is it a 
 misfortune to be hungry ? Do you say, "Alas, 
 would that I could lose my appetite." 
 
 As our old Professor, John Dewey 8 has pointed 
 out, desire, in itself, is merely an urge in a certain 
 direction, pleasurable or painful, according to 
 whether or not it's combined with the expectancy 
 of being satisfied. This, of course, always pre- 
 supposes a healthy general condition of the body, 
 but if we pretend a listless apathy which we don't 
 truly feel, by denying ourselves the actual re- 
 quirements of health we only deal our welfare 
 a more severe blow than we were trying to avoid, 
 by turning off the spigot whence all happiness 
 must commence its flow. 
 
 "But," quotha, "At first, the writer was for 
 ridding us of needless desires, while now he con- 
 tradicts himself, by saying desires may bring 
 happiness. If they may bring happiness, why 
 discourage them? Why not welcome them, and 
 the more the merrier. E.g., why shouldn't Paul, 
 the rich pork packer's son cultivate his taste for 
 flashy neckties, or even for an occasional gal- 
 lery seat at the grand opera, so long as he can 
 
 8 Dewey and Tufts. Ethics.
 
 334 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 confidentially anticipate that these desires always 
 may receive due satisfaction? Why not 0, 
 pshaw! The fellow has given his case dead 
 away !' ' 
 
 Be patient! thou excitable one, whilst we ex- 
 plain that no one would sell Paul Porkpacker his 
 pink tie, or welcome him to his roost at "Aida" 
 more gladly than we ; did we not see that the very 
 pleasures which a desire in being fulfilled affords, 
 leads to expansion of that desire and birth of new 
 desires. 
 
 There's much truth in that nursery tale of the 
 fisherman who was kind to a fairy crawfish. The 
 fairy, of course, offered him any reward he'd 
 ask. The fisherman first spoke for a small cot- 
 tage. With this, he was for a time content, till, 
 egged on by his more ambitious -wife, he returned 
 to request a lordly castle and estate. Becoming 
 at last king, and being more greedy with each 
 new gift, he at last demanded to become God him- 
 self ; at which impudence the crawfish took back 
 everything it had given. We're sure, therefore, 
 that Paul Porkpacker no sooner bought his pink 
 tie than he immediately became aware that the 
 reddish brown suit which he wore was "impos- 
 sible" with this. 
 
 "He can afford a new suit," say you. 
 
 Having a new suit, it occurs to him to be "the 
 neatest dresser" in his college class. 
 
 "No harm in that," say you. 
 
 Which gives him a certain standing with the
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 335 
 
 fair sex, so that the next time he goes to the 
 opera, he'll take a pretty companion along who 
 may prefer "The Follies" to "Aida," and isn't 
 agreeable to sitting in the gallery 
 
 "So long as she's a nice girl . . . .," say you. 
 
 Though very nice she may be dull company, 
 so that Paul happens round at the stage entrance 
 the next time the company's in town, to see 
 whether Totty Twotoes wouldn't be a livelier girl 
 to have out to supper. 
 
 "We're young but once," say you. 
 
 Totty prefers the young men who're not too 
 stingy with their money. 
 
 "So do I," say you. 
 
 But Paul learns that a good many women in 
 smart society are much the same way, and feels 
 he's now a irfan of the world. 
 
 "Would you have him remain always a child?" 
 you ask. 
 
 In fact, some of his scrapes have cost "Old 
 Man" Porkpacker a tidy little sum in blackmail. 
 
 "Good joke on Dad," say you. 
 
 And after the upset of a certain memorable 
 Joy-ride, Paul persuades his father that a yacht 
 is safer than an automobile, and, moreover, would 
 be profitable in enabling him to become chummy 
 with wealthy members of the New York Yacht 
 Club. "The right acquaintances might be very 
 helpful to him in a business way," say you. 
 
 But Paul is hardly one of this crowd of high 
 financiers, ere from them he learns the joys of
 
 336 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 laying out a beautiful country estate, or equip- 
 ping a boys' school. 
 
 "I'm getting sleepy," say you. 
 
 In sum, dear reader, the point is, that the body 
 of our desires, which may be a source of unalloyed 
 pleasure to us if we keep them starved down close 
 to the ground of their physiological functions, 
 strain always to shoot forth sturdy branches in 
 the place of their former delicate twigs; which 
 branches require far more effort to hold back, or 
 even they may tear our house all to pieces. If we 
 live, the time eventually comes when our increas- 
 ing desires must go partly unsatisfied. My con- 
 tention is that we should make the best of an in- 
 evitable dilemma, take a healthy enjoyment out 
 of satisfying a minimum of desires, but constant- 
 ly check all desires with an early enough denial so 
 that they may "know their proper places." De- 
 sires are turbulent egoists; indulge one of them 
 with some slight authority over his fellow-desires, 
 and he straightway becomes an oppressive tyrant. 
 "Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty." Not 
 by vindictive bruising the tops of the largest 
 weeds, nor by punishing gophers with whips, does 
 one's garden grow into ideal beauty, but rather 
 thru the instant death of these undesirable germ- 
 inations. Neither does a club or association of 
 persons recruit its membership promiscuously 
 and then expect to bulldoze the new members into 
 conformity with the original purpose for which 
 the club was formed, but rather it builds itself
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 337 
 
 up from the start, out of only those materials 
 which will be wholly congenial to its purpose. So 
 also, a personality, to be in any sense successful, 
 must upbuild itself exclusively from mental states 
 that are appropriate. Contentment is possible 
 only thru realization that all material prizes, with 
 the one exception of bodily health, are vanity and 
 illusion "maya." 
 
 It's not merely that indulgences bring no sur- 
 plus of satisfaction; they work counter to the 
 nobler interests of life. 
 
 " 'Live like yourself,' was soon my lady's word, 
 And lo, two puddings smoked upon the board."' 
 
 "Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits 
 Make rich the ribs, but banquet quite the wits." 10 
 
 Not only do gourmandizing, beer-swilling, etc., 
 stupify one, but they lead to the use of stronger 
 stimulants and narcotics which complete the ruin 
 of man. The melancholy raven in Poe's famous 
 poem symbolizes that author's own morbid habits, 
 while "Lenore" was his own lost manhood. 
 
 The "self-sacrificing" person is indirectly but 
 another product of these same passions, since he's 
 the frightened or disgusted man who has fled 
 from the follies of excess to an opposite extreme 
 almost equally illogical. Fright and disgust both 
 are irrational, because Temperance must be 
 temperate. 
 
 But how to tell how much of anything is a 
 
 Love's Labour Lost Act 1, Scene 1, L. 26. 
 10 Pope's Moral Essays, Ep. Ill, L. 461.
 
 338 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 happy mean, and how much, absurd extreme? 
 The only method is, to feel one's way by degrees. 
 Suppose that in a moment of exaltation and con- 
 viction X concludes that he ought to live in the 
 desert as a hermit. We say that instead of sneak- 
 ing away that very evening, leaving a bereaved 
 family and a neglected business to condole with 
 each other it would be better to proceed more de- 
 liberately lest the next month, or even the next 
 day, he should come running back to say he'd 
 changed his mind. During the first few nights he 
 should "sleep on" the proposition. In the mean- 
 while he might introduce a few modifications in 
 regard to his diet dropping out the cocktails to- 
 day, the lobster a la Newburg tomorrow, replac- 
 ing each omission with an increased percentage 
 of the traditional parched peas and water. The 
 following Sunday morning, in place of his usual 
 eighteen holes at the club, he could commence to 
 spade out a cozy little cave in his own backyard, 
 acclimatizing himself to the life of a desert- 
 dweller by retiring into his shelter nightly; in 
 the meantime he could terminate his family re- 
 lations amicably, and settle up his business prop- 
 erly. If he were successful in these preliminary 
 motions, assuredly he'd attract an enthusiastic 
 apostle for the new architecture in the person of 
 every unspoilt small boy of the neighborhood. 
 In due course of time our hermit may rent a gen- 
 uine cave in some suburban location, not too in- 
 accessible to be reached by occasional reporters,
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 339 
 
 and sight-seeing tourists, and here he'll write his 
 book on "The Modern Recluse," or "A Holy Her- 
 mit and His Hermitage, by Himself," which is to 
 perpetuate and popularize his ideals, and insure 
 himself sufficient notoriety and misunderstand- 
 ing on which to really begin his business of her- 
 miting in earnest. These preliminaries over, our 
 cautious fellow, if his resolution still holds, is 
 welcome to the desert places of the earth. 
 
 Upon the whole, however, you'll find that the 
 best opinion of today doesn't favor the kind of 
 holiness which helps no one but the holy man's 
 self. Parched peas may sustain the fire of life 
 when fanned by the hot breath of enthusiasm; 
 communities of ardent devotees doubtless awaken 
 each other's latent warmth, when in a colder at- 
 mosphere much richer fuel couldn't withstand the 
 chill. Yet 
 
 We may justly question whether those particu- 
 lars of a man's life which are most evident to 
 outsiders, or even toward which he himself cher- 
 ishes the greatest attachment, are in many cases 
 worthy of being esteemed so highly. 
 
 There is one thing, indeed, upon which too much 
 valor cannot be placed a modicum of Health is so 
 essential to any credit balance on the happiness 
 side of life, that whoever is without it, or without 
 at least a fair expectation of being compara- 
 tively exempt from actual suffering in the body, 
 will do well to shuffle off this mortal coil as quick- 
 ly as possible. Actual suffering, of course, must
 
 340 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 be distinguished from mere potential pain. An 
 incurable bed-ridden invalid may be altogether 
 comfortable so long as he simply keeps quite still ; 
 and if such a man will cultivate a patient, cheer- 
 ful disposition, he may pass the years happily, 
 more happily, perhaps, than if his infirmity hadn't 
 shielded him from certain aspects of more active 
 life. 
 
 Truly one may say that the gift of a sound body 
 is a piece of a great fortune, besides which all 
 other possessions pale into insignificance. I 
 question whether anything more, at all, on the 
 material side, is necessary to man's selfish happi- 
 ness than the conditions of physical and mental 
 health. These conditions are two-fold; (1) 
 hygienic comfort and (2) appropriate material 
 for the exercising of the faculties, e.g., space 
 in which to move about naturally, a moderate 
 variation of stimuli, and occasional friends with 
 whom to converse. All else depends upon one's 
 standards and imagination, hence is subject to 
 one's will. For all luxuries only seem to add joy 
 to our lives, since every pleasure in which we in- 
 dulge inevitably makes such pleasures in the fu- 
 ture less of a delight and more a matter of 
 course, which we miss when they're not present. 
 
 In parts of China, India, Egypt and other coun- 
 tries, we've seen the masses of the people so des- 
 perately poor that thru the nights they lay by 
 the roadside wrapped in only a cotton rag 
 or two, quite numb with cold ; it was inconceivable
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 341 
 
 how they lived at all, yet many were far happier 
 than middle-class people in this country, because 
 they took their penury as a matter of course, and 
 looked upon any occasional nearly satisfying 
 meal, or almost-vermin-free bed, or what-not, as 
 a delightful surprise. We dare say that everything 
 to which these poor creatures look forward as to 
 pleasures, we could endure only as extreme 
 hardships. Their beds would infest and bruise 
 us; their foods irritate our palates; their cheap 
 confectionery and "soft" drinks (served in dirty 
 cups) we'd be afraid of; their vile liquors would 
 strangle us; their religious rites, by which they 
 obtain ecstasy would give us the cramps; their 
 sweet," to do honor to the house guest, by smear- 
 ing it with cow-dung, would be distasteful to us. 
 we advise no one to live the life of an Oriental 
 way of rendering the house floor "clean and 
 coolie; it is inconsistent with the maintenance of 
 vital efficiency. 
 
 Yet, the coolie can teach what utterly relative 
 terms "luxury" and "privation" are. Privation 
 means having less than you have habitually, 
 therefore he who is accustomed to abundance 
 finds in but few things any luxury, while in many 
 little matters he suffers privation. Whereas he 
 who is used to asceticism, enjoys all simple com- 
 monplaces as though they were luxuries; more- 
 over, he doesn't fear, and hardly ever feels priva- 
 tion. This is the result of an unconscious form 
 of auto-suggestion. There's no one but requires
 
 342 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 to administer some form of auto-suggestion to 
 himself regularly, else he degenerates into one of 
 the many species of savages. 
 
 One of the benefits which enthusiasts gain 
 from a cult so seemingly far removed from psy- 
 cology as the cult of Physical Development, is 
 the psychological effect of religiously performing 
 a few stunts every morning, let us say, with 
 heavy weights; some exercise which begins the 
 day with a strong outflow of energy that more 
 than compensates for the inevitable fatigue of 
 the exercise. The daily cold plunge has perhaps 
 its chief value in this direction, tho for those 
 to whom cold water is distasteful, the burden of 
 the thot that "There's that unpleasant thing to 
 be gone thru with again today, tomorrow, the next 
 day, and every day until I die" would be a rem- 
 edy worse than the disease. In the same way the 
 no-breakfast habit has a similar value, by giv- 
 ing a certain heroic beginning to the day. Yet, 
 far from being the advocate of an absolute denial 
 of the pleasures of the body we would go on record 
 as believing that the body is in the last analysis 
 the source of all pleasures whatsoever, and that 
 the object of the highest idealism must be the 
 securing to some creature, some time, bodily ex- 
 hilaration. But as highly flavored viands eventu- 
 ally pall upon the palate, and the beauty of in- 
 tense coloring ceases to be an astonishment to the 
 eye, so, also, the hearing of voluptuous music 
 charms into an ecstasy whose price is some less
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 343 
 
 exalted mood later on, and the stirring romantic 
 novel leaves us with little relish for the dun 
 brown of everyday life. 
 
 The color scheme to which we may believe that 
 the animal nervous system is adapted, is varia- 
 tion of blues and browns combined with almost 
 omnipresent greens ; this is an induction from ob- 
 servation of the undesecrated spots of Earth, 
 and is substantiated by experiments performed 
 in testing the effects upon animals of colored 
 light (the violet end of the spectrum being 
 depressant, the red, irritant) . There run through 
 the forest no gray streets crowded with crea- 
 tures sooty-coated, there grow no startling sign 
 boards flaunting their colors in massed flamboy- 
 ance. The flavors of fruit food are cooling. 
 Senses repose ; no dust fills the nostrils, but sooth- 
 ing aromas are everywhere around; the restful- 
 ness of green, the infinite variation of the crooked 
 architecture of the trees, and sounds softer than 
 silence. If flowers here and there gleam boldly, 
 their brilliance is no useless- show, but a flag to 
 insects, nectar-seeking and pollen-laden. If male 
 creatures strut in their plumage, or warble sweet 
 songs to their mates, their colors are no assump- 
 tion or conceit, but a means of alluring the modest 
 and bashful ones hidden among the foliage. All 
 color, all excitement, all taste is utilitarian in 
 nature in perpetuating life. The Japanese, alone 
 of the human races recognize this fact. 12 
 
 1= We refer to the purpose of their gardens as places of rest.
 
 344 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Natural selections or maybe eugenics in the 
 course of a millennium may remake mankind into 
 a race harmonious with all the changed conditions 
 of civilized existence but the part of wisdom is to 
 recognize that our present physiology is that of 
 the wild people who dwelt in the woods, where 
 they seldom had excitements or luxuries to un- 
 nerve them. Our aim should be to keep our lives 
 as hygienic as theirs, tho making use of what- 
 soever is truly good in this complex age. Our 
 tastes must remain simple. Horace Fletcher has 
 shown that the man who'll practice daintiness in 
 eating, gradually sloughs off habits like those of 
 tobacco and liquor. He proves indeed that "it 
 takes a good judge of whisky to let it alone." 
 
 The pampered man becomes the moral coward, 
 while his more abstemious neighbor develops a 
 quality of courage and endurance. Like all vir- 
 tures, as well as vices, the courage that is needed 
 in crises is built up slowly and laboriously. 
 
 "So you are going to let your cook go?" 
 
 "Yes. Can't afford to keep her. I don't mind 
 the salary, but her tastes in food are out of my 
 reach." 
 
 SECTION 4 
 
 Health is the basis of moral and intellectual, 
 as it is of physical, life. Thus, for example, all of 
 us have noticed that at times of a depression due 
 to fatigue, we are not capable of making moral
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 345 
 
 decisions that we would make when fresh from 
 a good night's rest, or when we are run down by 
 sickness, equally we have not our normal moral 
 energy. This being so it is suitable that we 
 should commence these lectures with a discussion 
 of those ethical points which bear most directly 
 upon the maintenance of individual health. The 
 habits which contribute to health, or its opposite, 
 
 We might conveniently subdivide as those con- 
 cerned with intake of food, etc., and those con- 
 cerned with out-going or expenditure of energy. 
 
 We shall find that naturalness and simplicity 
 in all things is much the whole secret of health. 
 Hence no virtue can be more important than that 
 of Simplicity of Tastes. 
 
 " The trouble with nine out of ten habitual 
 drinkers/ says W. T. Hadley, Supt. of the Hadley 
 Memorial Home, at a recent celebration of the 
 third anniversary of that institution, 'is that 
 they have bad teeth. If your friend is a drinking 
 man have him visit a dentist.' ' 
 
 Now that nation-wide prohibition is sure to be 
 enacted, is the time to agitate compulsory dental 
 examination. Prohibition can only be a success 
 when statutes against liquor are backed by the 
 force of a public opinion, so if, in the course of 
 human events, a dentally imperfect people de- 
 mands its bottle, mere prohibitory statutes will 
 avail nothing. What the liquor interests have to 
 contend with isn't legislation, but the universal 
 passion to reform things and the knowledge of the
 
 346 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 cold indisputable facts which modern research, 
 has established of the unredeemed harmfulness 
 of alcohol. The legislation itself is an unfortu- 
 nate feature ; interferes with the inalienable right 
 of suicide. It would have been better to have 
 gone to the other extreme and have established 
 free public booze fountains in some remote spot 
 where the weak and the oppressed together might 
 end their sorrows. That, however, isn't the only 
 remedy. The vice of drink, the infantile instinct 
 carried to excess in the years of maturity, like 
 most other vices thrives because it has been com- 
 mercialized. The property of a concern whose 
 business all men know to be an organized threat 
 to their physical welfare can be protected only by 
 force, the force of law, from being sacked and 
 wrecked. Why bother, then, to force temperance 
 upon people. Why not simply cease to employ 
 (police) force and legislation in protecting perni- 
 cious business interests. Outlaw all property used 
 for specified baleful purposes; here's a solution 
 and a suggestion for the long-wished-for "practi- 
 cal program of constructive anarchism." At the 
 end of two years (not to work too great a hard- 
 ship nor cause surfeit of rioting) the sphere of 
 government might shrink so as to not include 
 police protection of distilleries and saloons, of 
 patent medicine factories, or of any person oper- 
 ating them. At the end of four years, a still 
 further shrinkage, so not to include protection of 
 tobacco plants, cigar stores, and breweries. At
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 347 
 
 the end of six years of this no-law method, pro- 
 tection could be withdrawn from spices, Spanish 
 cooked foods, cosmetics, hair-dye and jewelry. 
 The end of eight years would usher in relief from 
 ill-tempered cook-ladies, night-singing cats, book- 
 agents, tax collectors, and middle of the road 
 hogs. If the movement survived its decennial, it 
 would show itself hardy enough to deny protection 
 to munition factory interests. 
 
 The largest stars and planets grow larger by 
 eating up the little meteorites which come tumb- 
 ling down from the sky, just as the big fishes 
 in the ocean live upon the smaller ones, and they, 
 upon those smaller still. 11 Max Nordau, the fa- 
 mous apostle to the degenerate, in his book, "The 
 Interpretation of History," shows how the great 
 migrations of mankind, their wars, slavery, and 
 other baleful institutions, have been due to the 
 urge of hunger. These institutions have resulted 
 from the need of food and the unwillingness to 
 work unnecessarily hard for it, and since, in prim- 
 itive society, success in life was measured by the 
 possession of a superfluity of food and skins, of 
 slaves enough so that one need do no menial 
 work, but hunt and fight, therefore to this day a 
 social prestige attaches to the waster and the 
 idler, and to cruel, or at least combative sports. 
 
 Veblen has shown how "conspicuous waste" be- 
 came the ostentation of ruling castes, who in this 
 
 "It's the obverse of the tragedy: "The big fleas have little fleas 
 upon their backs to bite 'em; the little fleas have littler fleas, and BO 
 on ad infinitum."
 
 348 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 way emphasized the difference between them- 
 selves and the common herd of those who had to 
 consider the expense of whatever they did. For- 
 tunately the more obvious forms, at least of dis- 
 play are now more apparent to a sophisticated 
 world as being but a low form of self-advertise- 
 ment exhibitionism on a par with that of the 
 small child who cries "watch me" as he performs, 
 or who prances naked into a room full of com- 
 pany. 
 
 But whereas the vanity of the child injures 
 no one, the extravagance of the man destroys 
 useful goods and forces others to work at un- 
 necessary tasks. 
 
 Let no one be deceived by the sophistry that to 
 consume needless luxuries makes work for un- 
 employed persons and hence is good. Had the 
 money which went to buy luxuries remained in 
 the bank, the bank would have had more money 
 to loan to persons who wish to build homes and 
 factories, etc., and hence to employ workmen. 
 And the money you spend in the first case ceases 
 to employ anyone once the luxury is made and 
 by you consumed. Whereas on the other hand 
 the money the bank lends to build a factory con- 
 tinues to create more wealth, and that to create 
 still more, employing workers in increasing num- 
 bers. 
 
 To praise mere consumption because it "gives 
 employment to people" is like praising someone 
 who should hire a laborer to build walls in the day 
 time and knock them down every night.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Habits of close attention, thinking heads, 
 Become more rare as dissipation spreads, 
 Till authors hear at length one general cry 
 Tickle and entertain us, or we die! 1 
 
 This chapter will be given over to a discussion 
 of Habit. 
 
 If the book were written in less haste, here 
 we could clearly show how, by self-training, each 
 person can step himself up from phase to phase 
 of character growth, and this to his own advan- 
 tage. As it is, we shall endeavor to demonstrate 
 this as best we can. As an illustration of how 
 the principle would apply to reading, let's start 
 with a person who reads simply at random what 
 catches his eye newspaper head lines, adver- 
 tisements or whatever. At the next higher stage 
 of development (the second) he'll be persuing that 
 which pleased by its capacity of affording genuine 
 satisfaction rather than that which fascinated 
 simply because it was, say, the novel of the day 
 which everyone else was reading. The third 
 stage is that of serious study undertaken delib- 
 erately to advance us toward a goal; and when 
 we have developed the capacity to enjoy this kind 
 of reading, each successive book has all the inter- 
 est of a new chapter in a "continued" serial story. 
 The interest, even so, can be immensely enhanced 
 
 'Comper.
 
 350 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 (fourth stage) if the purpose of the reading is 
 increased efficiency toward our private ambitions 
 not only, but in the service of others and of a 
 cause greater than ourselves. 
 
 SETION I 
 
 "Books which are no books."-' 
 
 "How various his employments whom the world calls 
 idle, and who justly in return esteems that busy world 
 an idler too." 3 
 
 It's easy to crack jokes at the expense of others 
 whose slowness tantalizes us. We say "waiter, 
 while you're out, send us a postcard occasionally," 
 and laugh, tho we may be no quicker, ourselves. 
 
 In the first section we propose, after a few 
 words upon the vice of sloth, to discuss certain 
 false assumptions that have been made by per- 
 sons pretending to psychological knowledge. We 
 shall thereby be able to detect what is false in 
 certain vain theories of self-improvement. 
 
 An excellent article by Purington, in the "In- 
 dependent" contained advice of the head of a 
 huge manufacturing concern outside whose doors 
 hundreds of men were waiting for employment. 
 He remarked: 
 
 " 'We shall engage perhaps twenty per cent 
 of the men outside. The other eighty per cent 
 we cannot use. Of the twenty per cent engaged, 
 probably half will leave or be discharged under 
 six months. That is, only ten per cent of the 
 
 =Lamb, Charles. Last Essay of Elia. Detached Thoughts on Books. 
 'Cooper.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 351 
 
 men who apply for a job are able to get and 
 keep it. 
 
 " 'What is wrong with the ninety per cent? I 
 will tell you. They don't know literally hundreds 
 of things that good workmen ought to know, but 
 that most men will not take the time and pains 
 to learn. 
 
 " 'They don't know how to work ; we have to 
 teach them. They don't know how to think; we 
 try to teach them, but as yet have no reason to 
 be proud of our success. They don't know what 
 they can do best; we may have to transfer a 
 man a half dozen times before he happens on a 
 line of work that really interests him. They don't 
 know what or when or how to eat; I figure that 
 the average employee's working capacity is low- 
 ered twenty per cent by foolish meal habits. 
 They don't know how to live in their homes, and 
 keep well for their work. This company loses 
 $40,000 a year from preventable illness of em- 
 ployes, and the employes themselves lose more 
 than that. They don't know where to look for 
 technical knowledge and the solution of their 
 trade problems; our educational department has 
 to answer for them hundreds of questions they 
 ought to answer for themselves, or find answered 
 in a book or magazine they should have on file. 
 They don't know how to plan their future in this 
 company or elsewhere; I judge that perhaps one 
 man in fifty has clearly in mind a purpose, plan, 
 picture, of his own life work the other forty-
 
 352 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 nine men are drifting, empty-eyed, empty-hearted. 
 They don't know why they are living at all, these 
 men who come here for a job; and looking for 
 work without feeling the joy of work is like pick- 
 ing roses in the dark you get more thorns than 
 flowers.' ' 
 
 So much for the evil of a want of good habits, 
 only less an evil than the possession of bad 
 habits. A form of the latter not sufficiently dis- 
 cussed in the Sunday School texts, is the carrying 
 on of the outworn customs of our forefathers. 
 It is in China that this has become the greatest 
 curse. In Canton one day we visited the "City 
 of the Dead." Here were mortuaries where new- 
 ly-deceased persons who could afford to do so 
 might rest in pomp until an auspicious spot 
 were discovered for their burial. Coffins are 
 beautifully lacquered with successive coats until 
 their originally rough surface becomes perfect. 
 From the side walls of the mortuary chamber de- 
 pended long streamers of condolence, presented 
 by friends. Most interesting of all were the 
 paper effigies of servants, of food, and of "moun- 
 tains of gold and silver" (tinsel) to be burnt at the 
 final funeral service, in order that the spirit of 
 the departed might want nothing. 
 
 An interesting feature of the Chinese temples 
 is their very general character as resorts for the 
 care of diseases. "Nothing under the sun is 
 new"; listen to how the best medical practice of 
 today was fore-run by the ancient Chinese, whose
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 353 
 
 ways their modern descendants still imitate. 
 
 A wealthy Chinese woman, attended by her 
 maid, enters the temple. 3 After buying various 
 kinds of josh-sticks, they plant these before the 
 altar and light them. A well-dressed young Chi- 
 nese in the employ of the temple, who has been 
 "sizing her up" steps forward to ask her name 
 and importune her for a donation; she offers one 
 dollar (Mexican) and after holding out for five, 
 he finally is contented with the one. 
 
 She now takes in her hand and shakes patiently 
 a piece of hollow bamboo that contains scores of 
 little sticks with inscriptions upon them. She 
 holds this slantingly, so that as she shakes it, 
 some of the sticks work themselves up and out. 
 These sticks designate which medicines she shall 
 purchase from a near-by booth for the cure of 
 her malady: 
 
 A young Chinese statesman who was travelling 
 on the same boat with the present writer a few 
 years ago, was interested in the extirpation of 
 religions from his country, especially Confucian- 
 ism and Buddhism, because of their effect in 
 perpetuating outworn customs. Let us quote 
 here some pages 5 from Sinclair's "Profits of Re- 
 ligion" on the retarding effects of Christianity: 
 
 "Consider their prestige with the press and 
 in politics, their hold upon literature and the arts, 
 their control of education and the minds of chil- 
 
 "This note is dated Dec. 2, 1915. 
 
 'Sinclair, Upton The Profits of Religion. Pp. 55-60.
 
 354 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 dren, of charity and the lives of the poor ; consider 
 all this, and then say what it means to society 
 that such a power must be, in every new issue 
 that arises, on the side of reaction and falsehood." 
 'So it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
 shall be,' runs the church's formula. 
 
 "Here is the Reverend Edward Massey, preach- 
 ing in 1772 on 'The Dangerous and Sinful Prac- 
 tic of Inoculation' ; declaring that Job's distemper 
 was probably confluent small-pox; that he had 
 been inoculated doubtless by the devil; that dis- 
 eases are sent by Providence for the punishment 
 of sin ; and that the proposed attempt to prevent 
 them is a diabolical operation. Here are the 
 Scotch clergy of the middle of the nineteenth 
 century denouncing the use of choloroform in 
 obstetrics! because it is seeking 'to avoid one part 
 of the primeval curse on woman.' Here is Bishop 
 Wilberforce of Oxford anathematizing Darwin: 
 'The principle of natural selection is absolutely 
 incompatible with the word of God,' And the 
 Bishop settled the matter by asking Huxley 
 whether he was descended from an ape thru his 
 grandmother or grandfather. 
 
 "And you think that conditions are changed 
 today? But consider syphillis and gonorrhea, 
 about which we know so much, and can do almost 
 nothing; consider birth-control, which we are 
 sent to jail for so much as mentioning! Consider 
 the divorce reforms for which the world is crying 
 and for which it must wait because of St. Paul !
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 355 
 
 Realize that up to date it has proven impossible 
 to persuade the English Church to permit a man 
 to marry his deceased wife's sister! That when 
 the war broke upon England the whole nation was 
 occupied with a squabble over the disestablish- 
 ment of the church of Wales! Only since 1888 
 has it been legally possible for an unbeliever to 
 hold a seat in Parliament ; while up to the present 
 day men are tried for blasphemy and convinced 
 under the decisions of Lord Hale, to the effect that 
 'It is a crime to deny the truth of the fundamental 
 doctrines of the Christian religion or to hold 
 them up to contempt or ridicule.' Said Mr. Jus- 
 tice Horridge, at the West Riding Assizes, 1911: 
 'A man is not free in any public place to use com- 
 mon ridicule on subjects which are sacred.' 
 
 "And the one essential to prosecution is always 
 that the victim shall be obscure and helpless; 
 never by any chance is he a duke in a drawing- 
 room. 
 
 "A teacher of mathematics named Holyoake, 
 presumed to discuss in a public hall the starvation 
 of the working classes of the country. A preacher 
 objected that he had discussed 'our duty to our 
 neighbor' and neglected 'our duty to God' ; where- 
 upon the lecturer replied: 'Our national Church 
 and general religious institutions cost us, upon 
 accredited computation, about twenty million 
 pounds annually. Worship being thus expensive, 
 I appeal to your heads and your pockets whether 
 we are not too poor to have a God. While our
 
 distress lasts, I think it would be wise to put deity 
 upon half pay,' And for the utterance the un- 
 fortunate teacher of mathematics served six 
 months in the common Gaol at Gloucester! 
 
 "While men were being tried for publishing the 
 'Freethinker,' the Premier of England was Wil- 
 liam Edward Gladstone. Read his efforts to prove 
 that the writer of Genesis was an inspired geolo- 
 gist ! This writer points out in Nature 'a grand, 
 fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succes- 
 sion of times : First, the water populations ; sec- 
 ondly, the air population, thirdly, the land popu- 
 lation of animals; fourthly, the land population 
 consummated in man.' And it seems that this 
 division and sequence 'is understood to have been 
 so affirmed in our time by natural science that it 
 may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and 
 established act.' 
 
 "Hence we must conclude of the writer of Gen- 
 esis that 'his knowledge was divine !' Consider that 
 this was actually published in one of the leading 
 British monthlies, and it was necessary for Pro- 
 fessor Huxley to answer it, pointing out that so 
 far is it from being true that 'a fourfold division 
 and orderly sequence' of water, air and land ani- 
 mals 'has been affirmed in our time by natural 
 science,' that on the contrary, the assertion is 
 'directly contradictory to facts known to every- 
 one who is acquainted with the elements of nat- 
 ural science.' The distribution of fossils proves 
 that land animals originated before sea-animals,
 
 357 
 
 and there has been such a mixing of land, sea 
 and air animals as utterly to destroy the requisi- 
 tion of iDOth Genesis and Gladstone as possessing 
 a divine knowledge of Geology. 
 
 "I have a friend, a well-known 'scholar,' who 
 permits me the use of his extensive library. I 
 see in the dim shadows walls lined from floor to 
 ceiling with decorous and grave looking books. 
 There are literally thousands of such, and their 
 theme is the pseudo-science of 'divinity.' I close 
 my eyes to make the test fair, and walk to the 
 shelves and take a book. It proves to be a modern 
 work. 'A history of the English Prayer-book in 
 Relation to the Doctrine of the Eucharist.' I 
 turn the pages and discover that it is a study of 
 the variations of one minute detail of church doc- 
 trine. This learned divine he has written many 
 such works, as the advertisements inform us fills 
 up the greater part of his pages with foot-notes 
 from hundreds of authorities, arguments and 
 counter-arguments over supernatural subtleties. 
 I will give one sample of these footnotes asking 
 the reader to be patient: 
 
 "I add the following valuable observation, of Dean 
 Goode: ('On Eucharist,' II p. 757. See also Archbishop 
 Ware in Gibson's 'Preservative,' vovl. X, chap. II). 'One 
 great point for which our devines have contended, in 
 opposition to Romish errors, has been the reality of that 
 presence of Christ's Body and Blood to the soul of the 
 believer which is affected thru the operation of the Holy 
 Spirit notwithstanding the absence of that Body and Blood 
 in Heaven. Like the Sun, the Body of Christ is both prea-
 
 358 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ent and absent; present, really, and truly present, in one 
 sense that is, by .the soul being brought into immediate 
 communion with but absent in another sense that is 
 as regards the contiguity of its substance to our bodies. 
 The authors under review, like the Romanists, maintain 
 that this is not a Real Presence, and assuming their own 
 interpretation of the phrase of divines who, though using 
 the phrase, and its misapplication by the Church of Rome, 
 have induced many of our divines to repudiate it, etc.' " 
 
 "Realize that of the work from which this Val- 
 uable observation' is quoted, there are at least 
 two volumes, the second volume containing not 
 less than 757 pages! Realize that in Gibson's 
 'Preservative' there are not less than ten volumes 
 of such writing! Realize that in this twentieth 
 century a considerable portion of the mental ener- 
 gies of the world's greatest empire is devoted to 
 that kind of learning!" 
 
 "The date upon the volume is 1910. I was in 
 England within a year of that time, and so I can 
 tell what was the condition of the English people 
 while printers were making and papers were re- 
 viewing the book-stores were distributing this 
 work of ecclesiastical research. I walked along 
 the Embankment and saw the pitiful wretches, 
 men, women and sometimes children, clad in filthy 
 rags, starved white and frozen blue, soaked in 
 winter rains and shivering in winter winds, home- 
 less, hopeless, unheeded by the doctors of divinity, 
 unpreserved by Gibson's 'Preservative.' I walked 
 on Hampstead Heath on Easter day, when the 
 population of the slums turns out for its one holi-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 359 
 
 day ; I walked literally trembling with horror, for 
 I had never seen such sights nor dreamed of 
 them. These creatures were hardly to be recog- 
 nized as human beings; they were some new 
 grotesque race of apes. They could not walk, they 
 could only shamble; they could not laugh, they 
 could only leer. I saw a hand-organ playing, and 
 turned away the things they did in their efforts 
 to dance were not to be watched. And then I 
 went out into the beautiful English country; cul- 
 tured and charming ladies took me in swift, 
 smooth motor-cars, and I saw the pitiful hovels 
 and the drink-sodden, starch-poisoned inhabitants 
 slum-populations everywhere, even on the land ! 
 
 "What the Church means in human affairs is 
 the rule of the aged ... I look up their ages in 
 Who's Who, and I find the average age of the 
 goodly company is seventy. There have been men 
 in history who have retained their flexibility of 
 mind, at the age of seventy, but these men were 
 trained in science and practical affairs, never in 
 dead languages and theology. One of the oldest 
 of the English prelates, the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, recently stated to a newspaper reporter 
 that he worked seventeen hours a day, and had 
 no time to form an opinion on the labor question. 
 
 "But that, you may say, was a long time ago. 
 If so, let us take a modern country, turn to Rafael 
 Shaw's 'Spain from Within.' 
 
 "On every side the people see the baleful hand 
 of the Church interfering or trying to interfere in
 
 360 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 their domestic life, ordering the conditions of em- 
 ployment, draining them of their hard-won liveli- 
 hood by trusts and monopolies established and 
 maintained in the interest of the Religious Or- 
 ders, placing obstacles in the way of their chil- 
 dren's education, hindering them in the exercise 
 of their constitutional rights, and deliberately 
 ruining those of them who were bold enough to 
 run counter to priestly dictation ... 
 
 "As to the location of the schools, a report of 
 the Minister of Education to the Cortes, the Par- 
 liament of Spain, sets forth as follows : 
 
 "More than 10,000 schools are on hired prem- 
 ises, and many of these are absolutely destitute 
 of hygienic conditions. 
 
 "There are schools mixed up with hospitals, 
 with cemeteries, with slaughter houses, with 
 stables." 
 
 At the beginning of our criticism of certain 
 widely spread theories about the mind, let it be 
 said that even so inspired a psychologist as Wm. 
 James committed himself to certain points of 
 view which now are regarded as unsound. For 
 instance, we no longer can accept his view that all 
 conduct is ideo-motor. No more can we agree 
 with him that the best way to break off an old 
 habit is always and necessarily to quit it abso- 
 lutely once for all ; in the case of morphine habit 
 this method may result in stoppage of the heart. 
 James' idea of exercising "the will" by daily 
 unpleasant tasks also smacks of the old faculty
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 361 
 
 psychology. The faculty "was regarded as a pow- 
 er, a vital tendency of our organism, like a limb 
 on tentacle of the soul." This must be borne in 
 mind by the reader when he comes to the lengthy 
 quotation we shall give presently from James. 
 
 But if so noted a psychologist sometimes went 
 astray what shall be said of those commercially- 
 ijmpelled persons and schools whose advertise- 
 ments are found in newspapers and magazines? 
 Exactly like the testimonials for patent medicines 
 are the enticing avowals of the. man who is now 
 paid $50,000 a year as a result of following the 
 exercises in somebody's book, or who has learned 
 to read character at sight, or who increased his 
 "will power in a few hours" or "really" improved 
 his "memory in one evening." Unfortunately the 
 gains made by pupils are only such as any one can 
 make in anything by becoming intensely inter- 
 ested in it. The bases of these systems have been 
 known for many years, but the extravagant claims 
 made are not borne out by the tests of the univer- 
 sity laboratory, nor of commercial firms which 
 have wanted to use them in their employment 
 departments. 
 
 We discussed in Chapter 2, the division of con- 
 ductand of character into two opposing types. 
 It now will be logically in order to take up the 
 further division into four or a comparatively 
 limited number of classifications. Let's first re- 
 view at least one effort of this kind which is of 
 importance at least historically.
 
 362 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 To Miss Taylor we are indebted for the following 
 survey of attempts to account for human characteristics 
 on the basis of "temperaments." 
 
 First the physiological attempt. 
 
 From 131-210 A. D. dates a fourfold division accord- 
 ing to the predominance of one of the four "humors"; 
 the blood giving sanguine temperament, lymph giving 
 the lymphatic or choleric, yellow bile giving bilious 
 or melancholic, and black bile giving atrabilious or phleg- 
 matic. This division is still popular notwithstanding 
 that no such thing as "black bile" exists. A later 
 defines the choleric as quick and strong, the sanguine 
 as quick and weak, the melancholic as slow and strong, 
 and the phlegmatic as slow and weak. 
 
 The phrenologists derived four temperaments from 
 the proportionate mixture of elements in the body. They 
 enumerated : 
 
 1. Motor Temperament Corresponding to ancient 
 choleric. 
 
 2. Vital Corresponding to sanguine and lymphatic. 
 
 3. Mental Corresponding to melancholic. 
 
 4. Balanced or Temperate Corresponding to com- 
 bination of 1, 2 and 3. 
 
 I have failed to find the actual chemical analyses 
 upon which they doubtelss (?) based their theory. 
 
 Kant enumerated a sensitive type with light blood 
 (sanguine), sensitive with thick blood (melancholy), 
 active or volitional with hot blood (choleric), and 
 active or volitional with hot blood (choleric) and active 
 or volitional with cold blood (phlegmatic). He didn't 
 trouble to follow up his assumption with the blood-chart 
 and thermometer. 
 
 Lotze, using the fourfold demarkation based on de- 
 gree of strength and quickness derived from our end 
 organs, notes also: 
 
 1. Kind and degree of excitability for external im- 
 pression.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 363 
 
 2. Extent to which the ideas excited reproduce oth- 
 ers. 
 
 3. Rapidity with which ideas vary. 
 
 4. Strength of pleasure and pain associated with the 
 ideas. 
 
 5. Ease with which external actions associate with 
 these ideas themselves. 
 
 Lotze believes the sanguine temperament typifies 
 childhood; the sentimental, youth; the choleric, ma- 
 turity; and the phlegmatic, old age. 
 
 To certain entire nations also he ascribes one or an- 
 other temperament; tho without telling us how many 
 rods across the border one must go to note the change. 
 
 Secondly we may consider the psychobiological school. 
 
 Thus Baldwin defines the temperaments as the char- 
 acteristic differences in the emotional susceptibilities, 
 in the rapidity of their mental processes, and in the 
 fixity of their conations. 
 
 Lass classifies temperaments on the basis of heredity 
 rather than of environment, since a "disposition" 
 maintains itself under great alternations in circum- 
 stances. When, if ever, it appears greatly modified, this 
 is at the expense of greater effort than is required to 
 alter any mere habit. 
 
 Joseph Jastrow in an article in the Popular Science 
 Monthly reviews the various attempts made since early 
 times to define character and temperament. 
 
 In a book of his own published in 1917, "Character 
 and Temperament," he gives a rambling survey of 
 present-day general information on the subject. 
 
 Jastrow has temperament as a specialization of na- 
 ture upon the basis of common inheritance; and the 
 problem is to classify these individual variations into 
 groups. He proposes the predominance in ail indi- 
 vidual of either sensitivity or activity or of neither or 
 both, as a basis for classification, thus: 
 1. Sensitive-active type, or sanguine.
 
 364 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 2. Sensitive-active or melancholy. 
 
 3. Sensitive-active or choleric. 
 
 4. Sensitive-active, or phlegmatic. 
 
 Each of us has a variety of potentialities, and whether 
 we develop one or other of them is due to the selective 
 action of his profession and other environment. 
 
 Thirdly, let's take up the psycho-physiological school. 
 
 Wundt's classification is derived from the ancients 
 via Kant; he uses strong and quick, strong and slow, 
 etc. 
 
 Kulpe agrees with this. 
 
 Hoffding says we must add to these four combinations, 
 the tendency to one of those great opposites of the 
 life of feeling, and include the light and the dark 
 temperament. These point to the influence of vegi- 
 tative functions upon the brain, where the older four 
 show the responsiveness of the organism to external 
 stimuli. 
 
 Ribot follows Jastrow in his emphasis on sensibility 
 and activity, but with much subdivision and elabora- 
 tion of types. He gives: 
 
 1. Sensitive temperament. 
 
 1'. Humble type. 
 
 2'. Contemplative type. 
 
 1". Irresolute like Hamlet. 
 
 P". Certain unproductive mystics. 
 
 3". Self-analystics. 
 3'. Emotional type. 
 
 2. Active temperament. 
 
 1', Vital. 
 
 2C Intellectually powerful. 
 
 3. Lymphatic. 
 
 1'. Apathetic. 
 
 2'. Intellectually powerful. 
 
 1". Speculative. 
 
 2". Practical calculators, characterized by 
 (!"') effort, and (2"') inhibition.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 365 
 
 4. Temperate, or mixed. ... .:.-._;.; 
 
 1'. Sensitive-active (harmonious) in (1") lower* 
 
 (2") higher, degree. 
 
 2'. Lymphatic-active, unalterable, "moral." 
 3'. Lymphatic-sensitive (stoic). 
 4'. Temperate, "episodic." 
 
 Fourthly, we pass to the psychological type of theories. 
 Here stand today Yerkes, Tichener, Mary Calkins, who 
 all regard temperament as a good term for congenital 
 susceptibility to emotion stimuli and for particular char- 
 acter of response, and accept the usual fourfold divi*. 
 sion. 
 
 Fifthly and finally we come to chemical-physical the- 
 ories. 
 
 Seeland, a Russian anthropologist, rebelling against 
 the assumed equality of value to the race of the several 
 temperaments, arranges the following hierarchy: 
 
 1. Strong or Postive. 
 
 1'. Gay, including (1 ") strong sanguine, (2") 
 weaker, and (3") serene, 2" phlegmatic, or 
 calm. 
 
 2. Balanced or neutral "unknown to science, tho that 
 of the majority of men." 
 
 3. Weak or negative. 
 
 1'. Pure melancholic. 
 
 2'. Nervous, versatile. 
 
 3'. Choleric (rare outside of genius). 
 
 How much of the above notes are Miss Taylor's, 
 we're not sure. Our own notes on the topic, of 
 which the earlier ones were taken in a lecture 
 course given by Prof. Jastrow at the University of 
 Wisconsin back in 1910, follow: 
 
 Experiments on soldiers on a diet showed no dif- 
 ferences in changes of weight, secretions, etc., could 
 be correlated with "sanguinity" or "choler" of tempera- 
 ment. Rejecting the chemical theory, Seeland attribute*
 
 366 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 temperament to an elementary life alleged to exist in 
 the tissues besides their general activity. The gay tem- 
 perament would correspond to rapid and harmonious 
 molecule vibrations, etc. This recalls Hartley's "vibra- 
 tinncles" again, or even Democritus. 
 
 In sum, the great amount of study which has been 
 given to the temperaments by persons of even the best 
 scientific standing, forbids us to pass the subject dis- 
 respectfully by. A scientific basis yet may be found 
 perhaps in motor response to the autonomic system. 
 But the work so far done is suggestively at best and 
 often becomes humorous. When a scientist seriously 
 distinguishes the "humble" as a temperament, we won- 
 der whether "satanic" or "ananiac" won't come next. 
 
 An historical study of various theories of human 
 nature, but of which none have really landed us any- 
 where, has been made by Prof. Joseph Jastrow, and 
 summarized by him in an article in the Popular Science 
 Monthly. From this survey Prof. Jastrow proceeds 
 to his own exposition of the subject in his book, "Char- 
 acter and Temperament," which covers well the field of 
 modern theory, tho is not wholly happy in leaving his 
 readers with a clear-cut idea of its contents. We al- 
 ready have given attention to one of the theories upon 
 which he lays much stress, that of the four tempera- 
 ments. But from early times a more multiform classi- 
 fication of human motives than has been desired. An 
 attempt to supply this was and is made by the astrolo- 
 gers, palmists, phrenologists, physiognomists and char- 
 acter-readers or fortune tellers of every ilk, clime, and 
 time. 
 
 As the outstanding example of the hasty generaliza- 
 tion to which an excess of curiosity may lead, consider 
 the prematurely born pseudo-science of character-read- 
 ing. We abstract from Prof. Jastrow. 
 
 There appears to be little hope of the refinement or 
 discovery of a shortcut method of reading character di-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 367 
 
 rect from human measurements.* To begin with, the 
 very term character itself isn't the designation of any 
 tangible fact, but only a convenient way of referring to 
 certain phases of psychology. 
 
 Then, secondly, so much of characters that strike us 
 as individual are in actuality group traits, and super- 
 ficial. It's possible to fathom the man only after it is 
 proven possible to fathom the group. The apparent 
 qualities that appear in his achievements are largely 
 resultant on interests pushed to the front by the ideals 
 of the group, these ideals of course being in turn a 
 function of the kind of heroes the group feels need of at 
 any particular age. 
 
 Thirdly, the "character" idea has been worked for all 
 it was worth on account of its moral availability, as 
 where in the bible certain types are held up to teach 
 lessons, and show the play of the "ethical." 
 
 Fourthly, an over-emphasis on the possibility of char- 
 acter-reading inevitably has grown out of man's im- 
 memorial unwillingness to accept things merely without 
 accounting for them. 
 
 The wonder excited by new discoveries in science at 
 about the period of the rennaissance served to heighten 
 the natural credulity of the middle ages, and interest 
 in the study of character was revived by Carau and 
 Baptista de la Porta.s It centered about Lavater (1741- 
 1801), a clergyman, who building upon morphological 
 facts supplied by his friend Goethe, founded the "sci- 
 ence" of physiognomy. A greater influence, however, 
 was exerted by the bombastic Herder, author of the 
 anonymous "Secret Diary of a Father," and who found 
 enormous popularity in supplying the demand for handy 
 recipes of a more trashy character than had been coun- 
 tenanced by the credulous but devout Lavater. Franz 
 Joseph Gall (1757-1858), the founder of Phrenology, 
 appealed, owing to his reputation as an anatomist, to 
 an entirely different audience; nevertheless, scientific
 
 368 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 men refused to accept this vagary of his and Spurtzheim's 
 as set forth in the "Anatomy of the Nervous System and 
 of the Brain in Particular." After his death his tenets 
 became greatly corrupted. Gall and Spurtzheim trav- 
 elled Europe extensively, beginning each lecture with 
 an exhibition of their marvelous skill in dissecting the 
 brain and giving a learned dissertation; then they car- 
 ried over the prestige so gained into the other field. 
 Gall had a wonderful collection of head-moulds; it 
 was the age of the beginning of anthroponetry. 
 
 See also Benton, Anatomy of melancholy. 
 
 Spurtzheim had real psychological insight and recog- 
 nized a difference between fundamental and superficial 
 qualities. Gall named 24 faculties, Spurtzheim 37 
 "propensities" and "sentiments." Almost as good as 
 the previous ideas of John Locke! 
 
 Now comes the advent of charlatans. Manuals ignore 
 the sources of their lore, regardless of the fact that 
 Spurtzheim rejected "the four temperaments," etc. We 
 read of "the architectural nose, like a Greek column," 
 etc. We abandon adherence to any kind of system. 
 Faculties are located all over the face, as well as over 
 the brain. The mass of scientists opposed the movement 
 and James Braid, the first scientific hypnotist, lost in 
 this way his prestige; he threw subjects into trance, 
 and pressed organs, later he recognized his error. 
 
 Thus has attempt at a study of character and tempera- 
 ment been swamped by this impatient attempt to storm 
 science, and get conclusions before proof. 
 
 In the 19th century Humbolt, Curier and others drew 
 attention to individual differences till finally it became 
 clear that the nervous system was at bottom of all 
 characteristics. So long as we couldn't tell the functions 
 of the larger parts of the nerve system it was evident we 
 couldn't go into details to the extent that phrenology 
 pretended to have done. 
 
 As an example of a more worthy attempt than most 
 to defend one of those pseudo-sciences which once quite
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULN'SS 369 
 
 overcame popular (untrained) criticism -let us review 
 a chapter on "The Neglect of Phrenology," written by 
 a man whose credulity on this topic too much eclipsed 
 in academic circles the lustre of his real contributions 
 to science A. R. Wallace. Our criticism may show 
 the reader how easily there may be formulated for 
 astrology, palmistry, physiognomy, telepathy, theosophy, 
 theology, or what not an argument able to pass muster 
 even with persons of scientific attainment if they be not 
 versed in the mechanism of minds. But to Wallace: 
 the interspersed numbers in brackets are for reference 
 in the criticism which follows his account: 
 
 "In the last years of the eighteenth century Dr. 'Gall 
 * * * rediscovered the facts * * * that the brain is the 
 organ of the mind that different parts of the brain are 
 connected with different mental and physical manifesta- 
 tions (1), and that, other things being equal (2), size 
 of the brain and of its various parts is an indication of 
 mental power.' He became certain that 'strongly marked 
 peculiarities of character or talent (3) were associated 
 with constant peculiarities in the form of the head' (4). 
 He painstakingly made 'collections of skulls and casts 
 of skulls of persons having special mental character- 
 istics' (5), 'made comparisons of form and size with 
 mental faculties' (6), etc. He began, in 1796, lecturing, 
 taking Dr. Spurtzheim through Europe, in 1807. Spurtz- 
 heim lectured in Great Britain from 1813 to 1817. 
 Through him George Combe became interested and began 
 'his long course of personal observation and study which 
 rendered him the best English exponent of the science.' 
 'His great reputation as a religious, social, and educa- 
 tional reformer and philosophical thinker (7) led to 
 his being welcomed in the best social, scientific, and 
 political circles. But * * * phrenology * * * was 
 *-*.* rejected by the great bulk of the scientific and 
 literary men of his time'." 
 
 Gall, Spurtzheim, and Combe * * * "studied the skull,
 
 370 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 its varying thicknesses in different parts and at dif- 
 ferent ages, as well as under the influence of disease. 
 And it was only after making allowance for every sort 
 of uncertainty or error (8) that they announced the 
 possibility of determining character * * * (9), often 
 (10) with marvelous exactness (11). Surely this was 
 a scientific mode of procedure (12), and the only sound 
 method" (13). 
 
 Combe examined phrenologically the heads of several 
 patients at the Newcastle Lunatic Asylum, in 1835, 
 Mr. Mackintosh, the Surgeon-Superintendent of the 
 asylum, having already noted down their characteris- 
 tics. In the five cases here given there were no dis- 
 crepancies between the reports of the two men, and such 
 striking parallels in each case as the following: 
 
 Phrenologist's Report. Superintendent's Report- 
 
 1. HOPE small, MORAL 
 FACULTIES deficient 
 
 (14). Money mania, wealth. 
 
 2. ACQUISIT I V E N E S S 
 
 enormously large (15). A P roselvte Jew 5 wil1 lea <* 
 
 3. FIRMNESS, SBLF-ES- the Jews tO the con( l ue8t 
 TEEM large (16). of En S land - 
 
 4. Organ of NUMBER Dementia> perpetually em- 
 (17) exceedingly large. ployed wjth figureg and 
 
 5. HOPE extremely small; with arithmet ic. 
 destructiveness (18), 
 
 excessively large. Suicidal monomania. 
 
 At another asylum, with more explicit phrenological 
 readings, the history of each of three cases was clearly 
 indicated by the phrenologist. Also in Newcastle Jail, 
 the same thing was shown in several cases, of which 
 three are given. Dr. Elliotson examined, as a test for 
 a phrenological society, the skull of a person to him 
 unknown. The correspondence between the character 
 outlined and the man's history was remarkably con-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 371 
 
 vincing. A phrenologist examined one hundred forty- 
 eight convicts under charge of a Navy Surgeon previous 
 to a voyage to New South Wales, giving the Surgeon 
 his memoranda for comparison with the traits shown 
 during the voyage. After the four-months' voyage the 
 Surgeon reported that the phrenologist was right in 
 every case but one, and that the phrenologist's report 
 enabled the officer to put in custody malcontents who 
 had planned a mutiny (19). 
 
 Archbishop Whatley sent a cast of his own head to 
 three different phrenologists, and received three har- 
 monious and accurate reports, with revelation of at least 
 one trait known only to the subject himself. Wallace 
 submits the delineation given of his own character by 
 phrenologists, and concludes that the corroboration of 
 facts to insight is convincing (20). 
 
 Phrenology seems easy but is very difficult, as one 
 must be skilled in "detecting the comparative size of 
 the organs * * * and in estimating the complicated 
 results produced by the various combinations of or- 
 gans as influenced by temperament, education, and so- 
 cial position" (21). 
 
 Dr. John Elliotson, founder of the Phrenological As- 
 sociation, was the chief defender of operations during 
 mesmeric trance, "for supporting and practicing which 
 his professorship was taken from him" (22). 
 
 Objection to the detailed classification of the mental 
 faculties, and to the names given to the several or- 
 gans, is the same as to the nomenclature in other sci- 
 ences, as in geology (23). There is room for improve- 
 ment in the enumeration of the mental faculties, but 
 not by those who classify from their own consciousness, 
 which does not reveal the brain-organs on which the 
 faculties depend (24). 
 
 No scientific objector, as Combe urged, "was able to 
 give any knowledge of the relations of the mind and 
 brain by other means" (25).
 
 372 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 \ In . 1870. several Continental physiologists and Pro- 
 fessor Ferrier, in England, began experiments on the 
 brains of living animals, and by galvanic currents local- 
 ized the functions of the brain in producing muscular 
 movements. These facts in no wise preclude the pos- 
 sibility of the brain's being the center for initiating ideas 
 as well. 
 
 Examples showing the "correspondence of the motor- 
 areas of Ferrier with the phrenological organs of which 
 the particular motions are the natural expression": 
 
 Ferrier. 
 
 Excitation of a certain 
 area elevated the cheeks 
 and angles of the mouth 
 with closure of the eyes. 
 No other region pro- 
 duced the same effect. 
 The expression of joy or 
 amazement is the draw- 
 ing back of the corners 
 of the mouth. The 
 earliest symptoms of 
 general paralysis of the 
 insane, which is almost 
 always accompanied by 
 optimism and delusions 
 of wealth, etc., is the 
 trembling at the corners 
 of the mouth and the 
 outer corners of the 
 eyes. 
 
 Facial movements. 
 Center producing mo- 
 tions of the tongue, 
 cheek-pouches, and jaws 
 
 in monkeys, exactly as 
 in tasting. 
 
 4, Center of power of see- 
 ing and attending to 
 definite objects (not 
 the center of vision, 
 which is situated in an- 
 other part of the brain) ; 
 the outward manifesta- 
 tion, a fixed gaze. 
 
 Phrenological Organ. 
 
 1. The brain center cor- 
 responds in position 
 with the organ of 
 HOPE, whose manifes- 
 tation is cheerfulness 
 (26). 
 
 2. Organ of IMITATION, 
 which gives power of 
 mimicry (27). 
 
 3. Organ of GUSTATIVE- 
 NESS (28). 
 
 4. Organ of CONCEN- 
 TRATIVENESS (29).
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 373 
 
 I. Centers for motions in- 5. Organ of DESTRUC- 
 dicating anger; in cats, TIVENESS (perhaps 
 
 opening of mouth, with badly named) (30). 
 
 spitting, and lashing of 
 tail. 
 
 This correspondence is remarkable "confirmation as 
 regards most of the motor-centers. 
 
 "The motions of parts of the body resulting from 
 stimulations of various brain-centers were really the 
 physical expression of mental emotions * * * long since 
 assigned to the phrenological organs situated in the 
 same parts of the brain" (31). 
 
 The main principles of phrenology, once denied, but 
 which now form part of a recognized science, are! 
 
 "1. The brain is the organ of the mind" (32). 
 
 "2. Size is, other things being equal, a measure of 
 power" (33). 
 
 "3. The brain is a congeries of organs, each having its 
 appropriate faculty" (34). 
 
 "4. The front of the brain is the seat of our percep- 
 tive and reflective faculties; the top, of our higher senti- 
 ments; the back and sides, of our animal instincts." 
 (Now all physiologists admit that this general division 
 is correct.) (35.). 
 
 "5. The form of the skull during life corresponds 
 so close to that of the brain that it is possible to de- 
 termine the proportionate development of various parts 
 of the latter by an examination of the former." (Now 
 admitted by all anatomists.) 
 
 Quite aside from the fact that the Zurich neurologist 
 Molokoff has somewhat successfully attacked the whole 
 extreme theory of brain centers, some chief flaws in 
 Wallace's imposing argument are the following: 
 
 (1) But whether these parts of the brain connect 
 with the type of functions claimed by Gall is the point 
 in dispute. 
 
 (2) "Other things" (than the size of the brain or
 
 374 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 organ) never are "equal." So of what value could this 
 test be? 
 
 (3) The trouble is that phrenologists assume gratui- 
 tously unit traits "of character or talent" to corre- 
 spond to certain names which language happens to have 
 developed. The unlikelihood of any such correspond- 
 ence in fact should be evident when we consider how 
 the meanings of words change from generation to gen- 
 eration must we assume a parallel evolution pari passu 
 of the units of human "character or talent?" 
 
 (4) The peculiarities of the head are "constant." 
 But "character or talent" is sometimes enormously al- 
 tered under the tutelage of outward events and the ma- 
 turing of inner processes. 
 
 05) As the characteristics of each person were 
 known to the examiner whom they had interested to 
 the point of procuring the skull, this could hardly have 
 failed to bias his results. We usually find what we 
 eagerly hope to find. 
 
 (6) The crux of the whole matter is here: there are 
 no mental faculties. For example, there is no such thing 
 as "the memory" there are innumerable specific mem- 
 ories for numbers, for faces, for names, for places, for 
 types of boats, for types of locomotives as many as 1 a 
 man's interests, and as impossible even to name and 
 classify. But we shall discuss this at length later. 
 
 (7) Spurtzheim's achievement in certain fields is no 
 voucher for correctness in another. 
 
 (8) "Making allowances for every sort of uncer- 
 tainty" is a sweeping claim. Too sweeping, as we think 
 we shall show. How can a man know he has allowed 
 for every sort? 
 
 (9) Character then is only physical, and independent 
 even of the connections formed between one center and 
 the next by the habits of life, to say nothing of the re- 
 finement of abilities through culture, the alteration of
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 375 
 
 one's whole philosophy through the acquisition of a 
 new viewpoint, or the sway of a great passion? 
 
 (10) "Often" covers a multitude of inexactnesses. 
 
 (11) Who was referee of the exactness? 
 
 (12) Scientific perhaps so far as it went. 
 
 (13) If this is the only sound method perhaps what 
 we need is patience to wait for one more sound. 
 
 (14), (15), and (18) Not highly hazardous guesses 
 in the case of a criminal. 
 
 (16) Why measure a man's head for what can more 
 easily be read from his mannerisms? 
 
 (17) What becomes of the "organ" in child prodi- 
 gies who suddenly acquire or as suddenly lose a spe- 
 cialized ability? Does an "organ" in the one case sud- 
 denly puff up, and in the other case suddenly collapse 
 flat? 
 
 (19) Marvelous! Lombrasso and the whole anthro- 
 pometric school of criminologists have worked for dec- 
 ades and measured thousands and thousands of cases 
 in the endeavor to establish some such correspondences 
 as these. To be able to do so would immensely facilitate 
 the work of the authorities; yet this school is quite 
 discredited. 
 
 (20) Whatley and Wallace were well known char- 
 acters. Had casts of obscure and unknown persons 
 been submitted for examination, the coincidence would 
 have been more remarkable. 
 
 (21) This is really shameless. A loophole provided 
 for every failure, and this pretended science is seen to 
 be negligible compared with the cleverness or otherwise 
 of the person who applies it. When "temperament" as 
 well as "education and social position" are known, the 
 remaining task for phrenology is not severe. 
 
 (22) Too much sometimes is made of these preju- 
 dices, bad as prejudice always is. The early history of 
 "mesmerism" was so full of charlatanry that it's no 
 wonder careful men were skeptical of the whole sub-
 
 376 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ject. We shall study hypnotism later; suffice it that 
 plenty of struggling young surgeons today would jump 
 at the chance of notoriety thru anaesthetising by hypno- 
 tism, had this method proven dependable. These same 
 pioneer phrenologists would hypnotize a subject, and 
 in his hearing say to the audience, "You will now note 
 that when I press (such an) organ, the subject will 
 be struck by (such an) emotion" thereby "proving" 
 their contentions. 7 
 
 (23) Naming and classifying objective things is be- 
 yond all comparison easier than doing the same to 
 things subjective. 
 
 (24) Two false assumptions are (1) that there are 
 "faculties" and (2) that "organs" in the brain can be 
 sharply distinguished at all. 
 
 (25) On the contrary, physiologists have been very 
 ingenious in devising other means of studying the so- 
 called "relations of the mind and brain," as elsewhere 
 we shall see. 
 
 (26) Most other emotions also manifest partly thru 
 the facial muscles. Conversely, hope and cheerfulness 
 are essentially more related to the internal organs and 
 glands. 
 
 (27) Mimicry isn't limited to facial expression. 
 
 (28) "Gustativeness" to be a matter of sensation, 
 not, as here implied, of motivation. 
 
 (29) This "center" is really a bony protuberance, 
 most prominent in the apes, who aren't famous for 
 "concentrativeness." On the other hand, it has been 
 abundantly shown that concentration of various kinds is 
 essentially related to the temporarily dominant interest. 
 
 (30) More than badly named, we should say, since 
 ail the outer muscles of the body are likely to be in- 
 volved in "destructiveness," and since anger has been 
 shown by Cannon* to be related essentially with the 
 Adrenal gland. 
 
 From Jastrow.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 377 
 
 (32) and (33) The truth contained in these state* 
 ments did not originate with phrenology. 
 
 (34) Discussed above. 
 
 (35) Absolutely not. There's no school of physio- 
 logical psychology which designates the front of the 
 brain as a locus of "perceptive faculties" nor the top as 
 locus of "our higher sentiments." One modern tendency 
 even is to regard the fore-brain as an emotional center 
 rather than an intellectual. 
 
 In the same way as we have discussed Wallace's book 
 we might take up with you other works upon the same 
 pseudo-science, or on others. It's a fact that many bod- 
 ily functions have locatable brain centers; phrenology 
 is a scientifically unjustifiable belaboring of that fact. 
 It's a fact that every object in the universe has some 
 minute influence over every other (thru gravity, etc.); 
 astology is the unjustifiable belaboring of this fact. 
 It's sure that our habits of life stamp certain creases 
 upon our hands and faces; palmistry and physiognomy 
 are unjustifiable belaborings of this fact. It's true that 
 the theory of vibration has been of much use in science, 
 also true that people get "hunches" and catch one an- 
 other's feelings by unconscious processes; some of the 
 literature of New Thot is a belaboring of these facts. 
 Any one of these pseudo-sciences can give a remarkable 
 set of testimonials of its success. The question is, was 
 it the technique based upon the "science" which achieved 
 the result, or was it the personality of him who made 
 use of it? Was it by rigid adherence to the rules of 
 card-reading that the gypsy so accurately read your 
 character, or were those rules only a foil for the opera- 
 tions of her shrewd intuition? Was it thru his correct 
 theory and technique that the practitioner of some new 
 cult healed you, or by some more subtle influence which 
 still makes his explanations ridiculous? The difference 
 is profound and is important for so long as our founda-
 
 378 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tion is in the least insecure everything built upon it is a 
 source of danger. 
 
 "No one can deny," says John Newman in a news- 
 paper article, "The amazing exactness with which a for- 
 tune teller appears to be able to read the character and 
 to describe the past events in the life of the person who 
 has come asking to have his or her 'fortune told.' The 
 ability is so general that the scientific basis of it cannot 
 be hard to follow. Like most elements of supposed 
 mystery it is due to a very simple set of circumstances. 
 
 "Every emotion is definitely accompanied by physical 
 changes more or less marked, and this is so true that it 
 is impossible even to imitate these emotions of love, 
 fear, revenge, anger, etc., without these physical changes 
 appearing also. The variation in the size of the pupil 
 of the eye is one of the most infallible of these, always 
 occurring with every change of mood and thought, and 
 always being a purely involuntary act. One cannot in- 
 crease or decrease the size of the pupil of the eye at 
 will, but at the same time one cannot be angry without 
 the pupil contracting, one cannot be filled with passionate 
 ardor without the pupil enlarging. 
 
 "Surprise, such as is felt by the patron or the client 
 at the unexpected guess of a fortune-teller, finds ready 
 response in the blood pressure, and the palmistry ex- 
 pert, in addition to other signs, has a sure guide in the 
 pulsation of the blood when he or she is nearing a dis- 
 closure. A slight movement of the eyes, a deep breath, 
 a quickened pulse, a dampening of the skin reveals to 
 the mind-reader that a hidden thought is on the verge 
 of being revealed * * * It is the same principle that 
 makes some men poker experts. They have learned to 
 read the tiny involuntary changes which chase them- 
 selves unbidden over the faces and gestures of opponents. 
 No amount of self-control can prevent these changes of 
 expression, for they are outside the power of the will. 
 
 "But so many evils have attended these manifestations
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 379 
 
 from the time of the late M. Bishop to my own day, 
 such a widespread cult has arisen through which almost 
 any lying frauds can be palmed off on deluded masses, 
 that the public has every right to know there is not a 
 single strange, unusual, more than prosaic explanation 
 for the whole deceptive system of telepathy and mind 
 reading. I will give here and now, a test which any 
 person can apply to any mind reader, which, simple as 
 it is in its requirements, will force immediate exposure 
 of his claims. 
 
 "Ask him to tell you what you intend to do tomorrow. 
 
 "Unless you yourself have in some way given the 
 information to him or a confederate, he will fail, and 
 fail utterly. He will fail because there has never been 
 in the whole history of the human race a single genuine 
 instance of mind reading. 
 
 "Here is another test for demonstrating that every 
 mind reader does not read minds, but reads signs: 
 
 "Try to find a single instance of mind reading where 
 the thing has been successfully done that has not had 
 the thought, which was read, translated into some word 
 or action by the subject himself. You will find not 
 one because not one has ever existed. For the so-called 
 mind reader to tell you what was in your mind he must 
 have your thought outwardly manifested by you in such 
 a manner that some one of his trained and expert senses 
 can interpret it as plainly as if you had spoken the words 
 in his ear. 
 
 "It is merely because he begins with senses the eye 
 chiefly that are more acute than those of the ordinary 
 civilized man, that he is able to display acumen which 
 to less finely endowed persons looks like telepathic in- 
 sight into their brain and heart. Upon his original 
 gifts he grafts incessant practice and an intensely nerv- 
 ous concentration which practically doubles their effi- 
 ciency, so exhausting is the strain of some of the 'mind- 
 reading' seances, purely because of the operator's con-
 
 380 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ceiitratlon of nervous energy, that they often leave liini 
 weak -as- if from some terrific struggle;" s 
 
 MTich criticism which science must meet is owing to 
 the distortion of her hypotheses by cultists, who wish to 
 bask in her prestige even while they revile her as "ma- 
 terialistic." Usually these cults are themselves more 
 materialistic than science, in their clumsy attempts to 
 revive explanations of mental processes in outworn terms 
 of vibrations, waves, etc. If eventually terms of move- 
 ment for all the phenomena of nature is found acceptible, 
 it can never be as crude a one as those now printed in 
 popular "methaphysical" circles so called. And while 
 as the science of biology is becoming chemical, the sci- 
 ence of psychology is becoming physiologial, still the lat- 
 ter is tending directly away from that premature type 
 of materialism which ignored the meaningful nature of 
 conduct. In C. G. Jung's "Psychology of the Uncon- 
 scious" (p. 315) are some data worth quoting here. In 
 former ages the mind was regarded as a substance, the 
 forces of nature were personified, and mental disorders 
 were the work of evil spirits. Even today this conception 
 has a certain credence and expression, the classical ex- 
 ample being that of the elder Pastor Blumhardt's driving 
 out : the devil, in the famous case of Gottlieb in Deltus. 
 Yet in the sixteenth century at the Julius Hospital in 
 Wurzburg, mental patients received humane treatment 
 side by side with the physically ill. With the coming 
 of the first scientific ideas, the barbaric personification 
 of unknown power disappeared; but the underlying con- 
 ception that "every misfortune was the revenge of of- 
 fended gods" became the belief that mental diseases were 
 due to sin. Such views held until, at the beginning of the 
 last century, in France, Pinel, "whose statue fittingly 
 stands at the gateway of the Salpetriere in Paris, took 
 away the chains from the insane . . and formulated for 
 the world the humane and scientific conception of mod- 
 
 "We think, one of the Hearst Papers dated the fall of 1912.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 381 
 
 ern times." When "Esquirol and Bayle discovered that 
 certain forms of insanity ended in death," and that in 
 such cases changes were found to have taken place in 
 the brain, especially when Esquirol showed that gen- 
 eral paralysis of the insane, called "softening of the 
 brain," was "always bound up with chronic inflammatory 
 degeneration of the cerebral matter," the foundation was 
 laid for the dogma still generally held, that "diseases 
 of mind are diseases of the brain." Gall's discoveries, 
 tracing loss of the power of speech to a lesion in the left 
 lower frontal convolution of the brain, seemed to con- 
 firm it. Tumors on the brain were found to be the 
 cause of extreme idiocy and other intense mental dis- 
 orders. "Wernicke localized the speech center in the 
 left temporal lobe," and then it was hoped that "every 
 physical activity would be assigned a place in the cortical 
 gray matter." The effort was made to trace primary 
 mental changes in the psychoses back to parallel changes 
 in the brain. Meynert, of Vienna, sought an origin 
 of the psychoses in the alteration of blood-supply in 
 certain region. Wernicke saw an explanation in morpho- 
 logical changes. The result of these efforts is that every 
 asylum has its "anatomical laboratory where cerebral 
 sections are cut, stained, and microscoped." Now, how- 
 ever, the pendulum is swinging the other way toward 
 a recongnition of the importance of the reational and 
 emotional factors. 
 
 So much for the chances, of a sytem of reading 
 "character" at sight. Now for the possibility 
 of "training" traits of character "will," "mem- 
 ory," etc. If elementary psychology were but 
 taught in the schools, how hard it would be for 
 the quacks to make a living! But were too busy 
 with Latin and higher mathematics to have time
 
 382 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 for merely vital subjects like physiology or psy- 
 chology. 
 
 Watson gives a chapter 9 to the limits of train- 
 ing in animals. But we shall get most of our 
 material from Thorndikes Educational Psychol- 
 ogy. 
 
 Here is a resume of Chapter IV, "The Relationship 
 between Mental Traits" 
 
 Introduction. Mental traits, and the means of con- 
 trolling them, may be best known through their rela- 
 tionships. The study of these relationships is necessary 
 for the proper estimate of the disciplinary value of stu- 
 dies, for right choice of studies, accurate grading, and 
 conclusive tests of mental growth and condition. The 
 ignorance of mental relationships is, however, enormous, 
 because: 
 
 Thesis: Mental relationships like mental traits, are 
 variable. 
 
 Example: The relation of 39% between ability in 
 Latin and ability in mathematics, means an average not 
 an individual relation. 
 
 A. Variability in mental relationships may be as ac- 
 curately measured as any facts. 
 
 I. By measuring the degree of resemblance, the ratio, 
 between the stations of an individual in two different 
 traits, having first measured the degree of resemblance 
 between the two mental traits in a group of individuals, 
 as an average. 
 
 II. By using the coefficient of correlation, a "single 
 figure so calculated from the individual records as to 
 give the degree of relationship between the two traits 
 which will best account for all the separate cases in the 
 group." Range of possible values: -(-100% ... ... 
 100%. E. g., "A coefficient of correlation between two 
 
 Watson Behavior, p. 297. Chapt. IX.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 383 
 
 abilities of +100% means that the individual who is 
 the best in the group of one ability will be the best in 
 the other." 
 
 B. Relationships between mental acilities or functions 
 may be: 
 
 I. Necessary; i. e., "where the mind is so organized 
 that the condition of one function always involves such 
 and such a condition of the other function," * 
 
 II. Caused; i. e., due to the action of some cause, such 
 as growth or training, that influences both functions in 
 similar ways. 
 
 *I. (a). Necessary relationships are difficult to find, 
 because: 
 
 (1). Correlation between remembering numbers and 
 remembering words is slight and variable. 
 
 (-2). Adding figures in one order does not give facil- 
 ity in adding them in the reverse order. 
 
 (3). "Almost any, if not any, one thing in the mind 
 may happen in partial independence of almost any, If 
 not of any, other thing"; e. g., a great variety of moral 
 and intellectual virutes and vices may accompany ef- 
 ficiency in earning a living, success in school studies, 
 professional skill, or scientific insight. 
 
 C. The notion that any special mental act has for 
 its main component some general faculty or function 
 is not true, because facts bear out the comparative inde- 
 pendence of mental functions. This is shown by the fact 
 that: 
 
 I. Attentiveness to one series of experiences is not 
 necessarily accompanied by attentiveness to any other 
 series. 
 
 II. Correlations in memory (.61), association (.30), 
 and perception (.51) tests between the two members of 
 pairs of practically identical traits, show the above 
 marked and significant divergences. 
 
 II. Numerous other facts confirm this. (See Table of 
 Correlated Coefficients, below.)
 
 384 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ; Conclusion. Therefore, "The mind must be regarded 
 aot as a functional unit nor even as a collection of a few 
 general faculties which work irrespective of particular 
 material, but rather as a multitude of functions each of 
 which is related closely to only a few of its fellows, to 
 others with greater and greater degrees of remoteness, 
 and to many to so slight a degree as eludes measure- 
 ment." (P. 29.) This necessitates: 
 
 A. The readjustment of thinking in accordance with 
 the "singularity and relative independence of every 
 mental process, the thorough-going specialisation of the 
 mind" because this independence is so thoroughly 
 borne out by the facts of the structure and mode of ac- 
 tion of the nervous system. 
 
 B. The readjustment of educational methods, and es- 
 pecially the new formulation of mental tests. 
 
 Table of Correlation Coefficients. (See C, III above.) 
 
 I. Among college freshmen the correlation of effi- 
 ciency in various kinds of mental tests nowhere exceeded 
 .07, except in one case of efficiency in memory of figures 
 heard with that of figures seen, where it was .39. 
 
 The correlation of efficiency in motor quickness with 
 quickness in mental tests nowhere exceeded .09. The 
 correlation of efficiency in memory with quickness in 
 reaction time nowhere exceeded .17. In various tests 
 of quickness, the highest correlation was .21. 
 
 Accuracy tests showed in the main no correlation, but 
 in one case a correlation of .38. 
 
 II. Among highest grammar-school pupils, boys and 
 girls together, no correlation in effeciency tests exceeded 
 .36; in quickness none exceeded .34; in accuracy, none 
 exceeded .30. 
 
 - III. With adults, the correlation between deficiency 
 in sense discrimination and mental tests was 0, or very 
 slight; between delicacy of discrimination of length and 
 weight, with weight and pressure, etc., was at highest, 
 .30. Efficiency in memory tests ran from .02 to .75, as
 
 385 
 
 also did perception tests. In quickness in mental tests it 
 was found that the quickest and the slowest are both 
 more accurate than those of mediocre speed. General 
 efficiency in mental tests ranged from .07 to .61. 
 
 IV. In tests of children from 10 to 15 years, the range 
 in memory was .18; in efficiency, .52. 
 
 The Relationship of School Abilities. 
 
 The mental traits involved in a single school study 
 are always complex, and vary with different aspects of 
 the study and different methods of teaching. Studies 
 should be analysed down to elements that were in each 
 case homogeneous, and the relations amongst them then 
 found. 
 
 As studies stand, the following relations are shown 
 by teachers' marks: 
 
 Science is closer to Latin than to mathematics. 
 
 Science is closer to English than history is. 
 
 Algebra and geometry are as distantly related as 
 though one were a mathematical and the other a non- 
 mathematical subject. 
 
 English and geography are more nearly related than 
 either is to drawing. 
 
 The most striking thing is the small amount of cor- 
 relation among the subjects. This means that "the most 
 talented scholar in one field will be less than half as 
 talented in any other," and "that the most hopeless 
 scholar in one field will in another be not so far below 
 mediocrity." 
 
 The folly of using any one study as a basis for grading 
 and promoting is apparent; and if it were done, Eng- 
 lish and not arithmetic would be the better choice. 
 
 It is also clear that, for whatever reason it may be, 
 there is a "closer correlation of abilities in boys than in 
 girls in the grammar grades." 
 
 The relationships among the abilities involved in some 
 of the simpler processes of arithmetic shows a very 
 slight correlation, in on instance more than .17, which
 
 386 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 proves that each process is really a separate problem. 
 
 We shall come more specifically to our topic, how- 
 ever, with a resume of Thorndike's Chapter VIII, "The 
 Influence of Special Forms of Training upon More Gen- 
 eral Abilities.'' 
 
 Introduction. The problem is, How far does the train- 
 ing of any mental function improve other mental func- 
 tions? That there is some influence upon other mental 
 traits from the training of one, is clear, but it is also 
 evident that this influence is not comparable in amount 
 to that upon the direct object of training. 
 
 Thesis: A change in one function alters any other 
 only in so far as the two functions have as factors identi- 
 cal elements. E. g., Improvement in addition will alter 
 one's ability in multiplication because addition is ab- 
 solutely identical with a part of multiplication. 
 
 (Definition: "By identical elements are meant mental 
 processes which have the same cell action in the brain as 
 their physical correlate.") 
 
 A. The view of the large influence of any special 
 form of discipline upon general functions of the mind 
 is not true: 
 
 I. Although supported by such psychologists and edu- 
 cators as: 
 
 R. N. Roark: "Methods in Education." 
 C. L. Morgan: "Psychology for Teachers." 
 E. H. Babbitt, A Lodeman, and Calvin Thomas on 
 "Methods of Teaching the Modern Languages." 
 
 J. H. Morris and R. Wormell, on "Teaching and Or- 
 ganization," and such college presidents as Woodrow 
 Wilson, Thomas J. Conaty, Nathaniel Butler, H. M. 
 McCracken, and Timothy Dwight. 
 
 II. Because a study of "the relationships of mental 
 abilities proved that there was every reason to dis- 
 believe in the existence of such truly general abilities," 
 as memory, attention, etc. For: 
 
 (a). There is a static independence of mental func-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 387 
 
 -lion, which, however, does not imply in functional inde- 
 pendence; for perfect correlation between two traits does 
 not imply the influence of alteration in one upon the 
 other, br does lack of correlation prevent the improve- 
 ment of one through the training of the other. 
 
 (b). There is a general absence of necessary rela- 
 tionships. 
 
 'B. Experiments do not prove the spread of ability 
 from the one function trained to others. 
 
 I. Experiments on the "extent to which training of 
 one organ of the body improves the bilaterally sym- 
 metrical organ Conducted by: 
 
 (1). Volkmann, who found that practice of the left 
 arm in discrimination improved the right arm without 
 any practice to an almost equal degree. 
 
 (2). Scripture, Smith, and Brown, who found that 
 improvement of strength of grasp in one arm was ac- 
 companied by 80% as much improvement in the other 
 arm. 
 
 (3). David, who found that practice with the toe, 
 hand, and arm movements upon one side was followed 
 by very notable improvement upon the other. 
 
 (4). Woodworth, who found that training in ac- 
 curacy in hitting a dot with one hand, gave an almost 
 parallel degree of facility in the other untrained hand. 
 -are not strictly relevant because: 
 
 (a). The sensations from any pair of bilaterally sym- 
 metrical organs are different from those from any pair 
 of organs taken at random, and 
 
 (b). Cannot be considered as illustrating such in- 
 ferences as that of Stumpf, "that the capacity of con- 
 centrating attention on a certain point in question, in 
 whatever field it is acquired, will show itself efficacious 
 in all others"; or that of Scripture, that "the develop- 
 ment of will power in connection with any activity is 
 accompanied by a development of will power as a 
 whole," etc.; because
 
 388 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 -'.' ('!) They imply - that functions are related as are 
 sensations of one organ with identical sensations from 
 the bilaterally symmetrical organ, which is false. 
 
 (2)i They imply that the amount of "attention" or 
 "will power" in one organ is equaled in the case of an- 
 other, which it is not. 
 
 (3). They make no effort to discover whether the 
 amount of improvement that is common to both is not 
 due entirely to identical elements of a concrete sort, 
 such as sensations, or contractions of the muscles, etc. 
 
 II. Direct experiments in the influence of training in 
 one function upon the condition of another. 
 
 Experiments: (1). The two functions chosen were 
 closely similar, and usually regarded as identical by 
 psychologists. 
 
 (2). The subjects were gifted, compared with people 
 in general. 
 
 (a); James' experiments in memorizing one kind of 
 verse before and after training in memorizing another 
 kind, showed very slight improvement in facility, and 
 in one instance a loss. 
 
 (b). Gilbert and Fracker's tests in quickness in mov- 
 ing the finger at certain signals showed improved re- 
 sults after training except in one case, but "the low cor- 
 relation between the individual's improvement in the 
 special act trained and his gain in other acts tested 
 make the argument from the amount of this gain in- 
 secure"; and the functions trained obviously contained 
 many elements identical with those of the functions 
 tested. - 
 
 (c). Thorndike and Woodworth's experiments in 
 'training in ( 1 ) , estimating areas, lengths, and weights 
 of certain shape and size, showed considei-able improve- 
 ment, but not over 52% in any case. 
 
 (2) . Perceiving words containing certain letters, mis- 
 spelled words, etc., showed an improvement in speed 
 of 39%; in accuracy, of only 25% as much; while train-
 
 389 
 
 ing in perceiving English verbs reduced the time nearly 
 21%, and the omissions 70%; while in perceiving other 
 parts of speech, time was reduced only 3%, hut tb<^ 
 omissions increased over 100%. 
 
 (d). Judd found that though there was "an improve- 
 ment in the direction of attention and in the character 
 of eye movements" in one observer, in another a fixed 
 habit was caused which prevented improvement in a 
 similar task. 
 
 III. The results show: 
 
 (a). In influencing factors: 
 
 (1). The acquisition of ideas of method and general 
 utility. 
 
 (2). Facility in certain elements that appear in 
 many other complexes. 
 
 (b). In improvement. 
 
 (1). That "improvement in any single mental func- 
 tion need not improve," and may injure, "the ability in 
 functions commonly called by the same name." 
 
 (2). That improvement in any single function does 
 not imply equal improvement in any other, however 
 similar. 
 
 (3). That no change of data, however slight, is with- 
 out effect on the function; hence, there is a point in the 
 divergence of data where the loss of effect of training 
 is complete; and the rapidity of the loss implies that 
 that point is nearer than has been supposed. 
 
 (4). Hence, it is to be inferred that "the spread of 
 practice occurs only where identical elements are con- 
 cerned in the influencing and the influenced function." 
 This is borne out by Blair's experiments with type- 
 writer keys and the repetition of the alphabet, experi- 
 ments in which the influence of practice in the forming 
 of certain associative habits showed that "20-days" 
 training . . . put the abilities in the tested series as far 
 ahead as 3 days of direct training would have done,"
 
 390 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 thus- making clear that "influence of training is meas- 
 ured within a very narrow field." 
 
 C. Conclusion. The facts concerning both mental 
 traits and the actual influence of training of one func- 
 tion upon the efficiency of others prove that the amount 
 of disciplinary effect of environmental agencies is 
 greatly overestimated. The reasons are: 
 
 I. The influence of selection is not sufficiently taken 
 into account. The qualities of general discrimination, 
 observation, etc., which may be increased by the study 
 of Latin and Science, may have been the cause of the 
 choice of those studies rather than the effect. 
 
 II. Due discount in results has not been given to the 
 natural efficiency due to growth in maturity. 
 
 III. Those who estimate the acquirement of mental 
 aptitudes are themselves gifted, and so mistake the re- 
 sults of discipline alone upon the average mind. 
 
 SECTION 2 
 
 In the above section we've indicated what are 
 some of the limitations on training. It'll now be 
 in order to show what actually can be accom- 
 plished toward increased efficiency thru habit 
 formation or at least what are the underlying 
 principles upon which we must work. This in- 
 volves first of all a discussion of nerve physi- 
 ology, and then of "the Unconscious." 
 
 You may know that in the simplest forms of 
 organic reaction, the protoplasm which feels the 
 shock is the same as that which acts because of it. 
 The next step is, that a more sensitive type of 
 protoplasm, called a nerve, specializes to convey 
 the stimulus from one part to motor protoplasm
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 391 
 
 at another part, as e. g., when you cause a frog's 
 leg to contract or straighten by stimulating the 
 nerve with electricity. Third, there's an afferent 
 nerve to bring the stimulus into a center, and an 
 efferent nerve to convey it from the center to the 
 acting muscle. These nerves grow longer, con- 
 nect better, and so, supposedly, make easier the 
 passage of a nervous current; or they shrink 
 apart, and make it more difficult for such a cur- 
 rent to pass. We .presume that the beneficial or 
 poisonous compounds which (an analysis of per- 
 spiration shows) are given off respectively in 
 pleasurable or in painful states, have their func- 
 tion in causing the growth of the nerve-fibres after 
 actions of which the results were pleasurable, 
 and shrinkage of them after actions of which the 
 results were painful. This, in some measure 
 would explain why a pleasure-bringing simple re- 
 action is repeated, but one bringing displeasure 
 is avoided. 
 
 But the steps of increasing nervous organiza- 
 tion continue. The fourth of them is, that over 
 the nervous center already spoken of, which we'll 
 say, is located in the spinal cord (tho another 
 such is at the solar plexus) is set a higher center, 
 in the cerebellum, one having more complex func- 
 tions. Thus, a frog having the cord severed in 
 the middle of its back will execute kicking move- 
 
 T. Moore Lalla Rookh (Prologue No. 2). Altho causing electric 
 disturbances, this current itself apparently is chemical rather than 
 either electrical or vibratory, and may be likened to a spark of com- 
 bustion passing along a fuse, which fuse then recovers its former 
 conditions. (SeeMcKindrick and Snodgrass' Physiology of the senses.)
 
 392 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 ments in the water, but can co-ordinate '. these 
 movements properly for swimming, only if the 
 cerebellum's intact. Dominating the centers of the 
 cerebellum, again, are centers in those parts of 
 the cerebrum which control practically all the 
 common activities of life; and supreme over all 
 is, apparently, the fore-brain. By means of this 
 hierarchy of centers a corresponding hierarchy 
 in our habits is made possible. E. g., (1) the 
 foot develops into a confirmed habit, the tendency 
 it had from birth, instinctively to push down- 
 ward when you press up against its sole. The 
 muscles of foot, leg and back, form reactions 
 necessary for balancing the body. (2) a system 
 of co-ordinating these reactions into a single move- 
 ment of the whole, is evolved, in which the sensa- 
 tions from the moving muscles themselves stimu- 
 late those muscles to new movements, which cause 
 new sensations, etc., in a cycle like that of the 
 valves and pistons in a steam engine. Now the 
 rhythm of walking, for instance, can be switched 
 on or off as you can switch on or off an electric 
 fan ; and simultaneously other rhythms, say the 
 muscular combinations necessary to whistling a 
 tune, are reduced to the same subserviency. (3) 
 The automatisms of walking, whistling, and what 
 not, all may be turned on at the same time, and 
 expected to look out for themselves, whilst the 
 higher consciousness directs the threading of our 
 walk thru a maze of city streets to the postoffice, 
 say; or the running thru, in systematic order, of
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 393 
 
 a repertoire of different whistled tunes. (4) 
 Even the threading one's way to the postoffice, 
 and the elaborate -succession of musical selections, 
 and who knows what side activities, such as e. g., 
 flirting with the young persons of opposite sex 
 whom one passes, all may become so purely ma- 
 chine-like, that while they go on, our chief con- 
 sciousness may be concerned with policies of state, 
 the result of the ball game, or what not. The 
 function of habits is, to disburden us of details, 
 so that we may pass on to more puzzling urgen- 
 cies. All which we do so easily now, once had to 
 be made laboriously into a habit, and the energy 
 we then spend in the right direction, gives our 
 career momentum now, as surely as that which 
 we mis-spent them, now drags us back with leaden 
 inertia. 
 
 "Our acts our angels are, or good, or ill, 
 Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still." 10 
 
 James gives three valuable rules on habit- 
 formation. The first is, that we should break 
 with the old ways as sharply as possible. The 
 second, that we should take advantage of every 
 chance that offers, for establishing the new habit 
 firmly at once. Also, we never should allow a 
 beautiful impulse to evaporate without effectively 
 acting upon it. Going to church or grand opera, 
 getting yourself ethically all wrot up, and then 
 simply consuming food and going to bed, is seri- 
 ously morally injurious. Third, we should suffer 
 
 "Fletcher, J.. Upon an Honest Man's Fortune.
 
 394 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 no exception to occur until the new habit is thoro- 
 ly well established. 
 
 But before we proceed further with James, it 
 may be in order to inform you as to the modern 
 idea of "the unconscious." The concept of uncon- 
 scious thinking dates back to Friederick Herbart 
 (1776-1841), who pointed out that when opposed 
 concepts encounter one another, some had to yield 
 and be repressed below the "threshold of con- 
 sciousness," tho (if not destroyed) only to reap- 
 pear as efforts to present themselves again. (A 
 new idea, moreover, had always to pass muster 
 before the "apperception-mass" of preconceived 
 prejudices.) After Herbart, Schaupenhauer con- 
 tributed a great deal to this line of thot. 
 
 What has science thus far ascertained about 
 that hidden thing we've named "the unconscious?" 
 What definitions have been given of it? Freud 
 considers the unconscious as a sort of garbage-can 
 into which are cast all those desires which for 
 social or religious or other reasons have become 
 unbearable to our conscious mind. Lay regards 
 it as a sort of a dwelling place of Titan emotions, 
 which it is our business to drive back where they 
 belong. This is, of course, a conception hardly 
 consistent with the other hypothesis of psycho- 
 analysis. White defines it as the part of the 
 psyche on which reality plays, and strikes the 
 spark of the conscious. Jung regards it as the 
 sum of all processes below the threshold of the 
 conscious, and not only the abiding place of re-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 395 
 
 jected desires, but the source from which future 
 conscious states. 
 
 Treasure the very dust of Time. Never is the 
 disposal of one single second a matter of indiffer- 
 ence. Often, indeed, it may be spent best in abso- 
 lute idleness, as in sleeping, but a short and intense 
 slumber is not only more economical of time than 
 a more prolonged yet restless one, but actually 
 it is more wholesome. The contrary largely is 
 true as regards eating, since to eat slowly is bene- 
 ficial ; but even here time may be saved along with 
 health by partaking of but small quantities of 
 food, and few dishes. Haste seldom achieves 
 values ; but quickness is quite another thing. Most 
 valuable as an economiser of Time, is the habit 
 of intelligent patient industry. Never desire to 
 kill Time; Time is a good servant. 
 
 A compelling influence which we can enlist on 
 our own behalf, is the powerful force of auto- 
 suggestion. We must read the books that are 
 cheerful and inspiring. We must "run with" 
 companions who are overflowing with life and 
 good spirits, and must avoid dining in those cafes 
 where other than energetic types of people sur- 
 round us ; 'tis no harm (since the bodily carriage 
 has an effect upon the mental attitude) to offset 
 our ragged attire by an imperceptible swagger; 
 certainly we should do all that we do, "with an 
 air." To clap our acquaintances upon the back, 
 without arousing resentment as being too famil- 
 iar, and successfully flirt with all the prettiest
 
 396 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 girls ; these are the tests and touchstones of what 
 is called "manner," (distinguish between the 
 singular and the plural) and by his increasing 
 skill one may measure the egoist's progress. 
 
 Jung devotes the tenth chapter of his Psychol- 
 ogy of the Unconscious to its importance in Psy- 
 chopathology. Herein he discusses the content of 
 the unconscious which is defined as sum of all 
 psychical processes below the threshold of con- 
 sciousness. The answer to the question: How 
 does the unconscious behave in neurosis? is 
 found in its effect on normal consciousness, as 
 illustrated by the example of a certain merchant. 
 The compensating function of the unconscious is 
 taken up. Symotomatic acts and Nebuchadnez- 
 zar's dream are discussed. Intuitive ideas, and 
 insane manifestations both emanate from the un- 
 conscious. Eccentricities pre-exist a breakdown. 
 In mental disorder unconscious processes break 
 thru into consciousness and disturb equilibrium. 
 This is true also in fanaticism. Pathological 
 compensations are afforded by the peculiar symp- 
 toms in cases of paranoia. Unconscious processes 
 have to struggle against resistances in the con- 
 scious mind. Distortion of memories is due to re- 
 pression of unpleasant parts: In morbid condi- 
 tions the function of the unconscious is one of 
 compensation. 
 
 The method of arriving at an understanding of 
 the unconscious is highly complex. Technique 
 has been evolved which makes it a distinct art
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 397 
 
 if not a. science in itself. In the. .early days .Breuer 
 and Freud used to hypnotise their ; patients., and 
 then extract from them an account of incidents 
 remembered in the hypnotic state. This method 
 succeeds well at the beginning, but has a number 
 of disadvantages. In the first place not all per- 
 sons are readily hypnotisable. The second objec- 
 tion is still more serious, hypnosis, altho at first 
 it seems to bring about a ready confession of mem- 
 ories hidden in the unconscious soon results in 
 a lack of transference between the hypnotist and 
 his subject as tho the subject were sensing that 
 he was yielding up the inmost secrets of his soul 
 without being able to control his outpouring, be- 
 came suspicious that they might be employed to 
 his disadvantage and thus gradually become more 
 and more reticent. The second method used was 
 therefore to simply have the patient recline at 
 ease and relate various ideas as they occurred to 
 him. 
 
 There came in now that method of following 
 up clues known as the association method in this 
 whenever the patient gave hint of some experi- 
 ences around which a great group of emotional dis- 
 positions seem to cluster or from which trains of 
 association seem to lead away in all kinds of di- 
 rections a special note was made of such experi- 
 ence and he was encouraged to tell to the physi- 
 cian everything that he could recall in connec- 
 tion with it and also every train of thot or fan-
 
 398 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tasy, no matter how absurd that came into his 
 mind at the time. 
 
 SECTION 3 
 
 "Never be idle." 
 
 "Life is too short to waste." 
 
 "Push on keep moving." 11 
 
 "We are not sent into this world to do anything 
 into which we can not put our hearts. We have 
 certain work to do for our bread and that is to be 
 done strenuously; other work to do for our de- 
 light and that is to be done heartily; neither is 
 to be done by halves or shifts but with a will ; and 
 what is not worth this effort is not to be done a' 
 all."* 
 
 "The line between failure and success is so fine 
 that we scarcely know when we pass it so fine 
 that we are often on the line and do not know it. 
 How many a man has thrown up his hands at 
 a time when a little more effort, a little more 
 patience, would have achieved success. As the 
 tide goes clear out, so it comes clear in. In busi- 
 ness, sometimes, prospects may seem darkest 
 when really they are on the turn. A little more 
 persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed 
 hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. 
 There is no failure except in no longer trying, 
 There is no defeat except from within, no really 
 
 "Morton, Thomas A Cure for the Heartache.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 399 
 
 insurmountable barrier save our own inherent 
 weakness of purpose."** 
 
 Purington's article in the Independant, from 
 which we have quoted briefly above, continues to 
 the effect that a "veteran employee" commented 
 upon the executive head " 'the chief won his place 
 by knowing more about the company's business 
 than any other man here; and he keeps it, I 
 think, by aiways knowing just what to do in a 
 crisis. Let me explain. I was here thirty years 
 ago, when the Chief came hardly more than a 
 boy and took a job at $10 a week. From the 
 very first he had to know the why and how of 
 everything. He borrowed technical books from 
 libraries ; talked with officials whenever he could 
 make a chance; found an experienced man in his 
 line too old for active work and took business 
 lessons from the old fellow; did all sorts of un- 
 heard-of things, to master the science of his trade. 
 
 " 'It wasn't long before the head of the depart- 
 ment came to consult this boy whenever a hard 
 problem was being considered. Then one day the 
 head of the department resigned. Before another 
 manager could be found, a crisis developed in that 
 branch of the business, and the whole reputation 
 of the company was involved. The high officials 
 were in a panic. What did that boy do but walk 
 into the directors' meeting and tell the owners 
 of the business how to hande the situation! Of 
 
 Ruskln. 
 Marden.
 
 400 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 course they made him head of the department. 
 
 " 'He held the position a couple of years, made 
 a lot of improvements, earned a large salary in- 
 crease, and saved a few thousand dollars. Then 
 he did a most unusual thing. He asked for an- 
 other job in a more difficult branch of the busi- 
 ness a job that meant lower, harder work, and 
 the pay scarcely a fourth of what he was getting. 
 Some of the directors called him a fool tho now 
 they realize he was a genius ; but they transferred 
 him as requested. Within a year he had invented 
 a scheme for cutting costs that he sold to the com- 
 pany for several thousand dollars and a good roy- 
 alty. Soon he had a share in the business, and 
 a comprehensive idea of the present, past and 
 future of each department. He was always break- 
 ing out in some new place, with some new plan for 
 enlarging the business or reducing the expense.' ' 
 
 Mr. Purington's advice is: 
 
 "Know your job. Learn exactly what you are 
 paid to do and not to do. Organize each class 
 of work on a time schedule. Find the standard 
 output, and the maximum, for a week, a day, an 
 hour; make your output measure up always be- 
 tween the standard and the maximum. Write 
 out a list of all the mistakes apt to occur in your 
 line of work; then take special, itemized precau- 
 tion to prevent each. Analyze the merits and de- 
 merits of every tool, machine, material, supply; 
 compare with different brands of manufacture, 
 and with scientific standards of performance; re-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 401 
 
 jeet faulty equipment, demand the best utensils 
 far your work, Make- a list of the new books in 
 your profession, devote an evening or two a week 
 to study an application of improved methods. 
 Join a national trade association or professional 
 society, and make friends with the leaders in your 
 line. Locate a man who has done bigger, better 
 things than you have; study him, the principles, 
 aims and methods that made him ; detect and cor- 
 rect your especial habits of failure. . . . 
 
 "There are in America today a number of men 
 with salaries of $50,000 or more, who held jobs 
 not so long ago at $15 a week. How did they gain 
 such promotion ? For every dollar in money each 
 man took from his job he took fifty or a hundred 
 dollars' worth of knowledge. Thus each man ulti- 
 mately fixed his own salary. The way to make an 
 occupation valuable is to look on it as an educa- 
 tion." 
 
 But it's not so much the experiences in them- 
 selves thru which a man meanders that are valu- 
 able, as it is his retention of the gist of those ex- 
 periences. In passing thru a book, and equally 
 in passing thru life, we should under-line the key- 
 sentences, to refer to them again. 
 
 If we were to ask, here, just what occurs within 
 us when we recognize an experience to be the same 
 with one which we've had previously, we should 
 find ourselves in a discussion of what James calls 
 one of the foundation pillars of mental life. It 
 may be that each of us has his own peculiar form
 
 402 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 of recognition, as e. g., a sensation from some 
 part of the body. In recognition in its lowest 
 form we simply know that our final attitude is 
 the same. A low form would be the recognition 
 of our own room when we go to it. The case of 
 our reaction is the test; ease when things go 
 smoothly as contrasted with the shock of having 
 to overcome something unfamiliar. We give the 
 name Mediate Recognition to that type in which 
 perceiving an object starts a train of thot and 
 step by step brings back the earlier situation un- 
 til in a sudden flash we have the whole clearly.* 
 Thus in either case the process of recognizing is 
 in the end a coming back to an "already-re- 
 hearsed" motor attitude to the situation. (You'll 
 understand this better when you've read the les- 
 son on Habit. Pass on now.) 
 
 It usually is said that memories of events are 
 blotted out by mere passage of time. Probably 
 this is inaccurate ; for that the unconscious never 
 loses any impression, however trivial is indicated 
 by the revival of a forgotten experience in hypno- 
 sis, etc. 
 
 Jung at least is of opinion that forgetting con- 
 sists in two processes. One is condensation; by 
 a boiling-down process the essentials of situations 
 are made relatively more prominent. 
 
 Theories in regard to recognition are of three types. Theorists 
 of the first type are concerned with a recognition of function. The- 
 orists of the second type include Tichner, Wundt, and the great ma- 
 jority (tho the behaviorists have written little) ; they hold that recog- 
 nition may be superimposed upon a situation. A third type (vide Hob- 
 bes and Mary Calkins) hold that recognition is a not-further-analysa- 
 ble element of. consciousness.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 403 
 
 Recognitions can be divided into (1) the affec- 
 tive tones and (2) the organic sensations con- 
 nected with them. Of these the former are more 
 important. 
 
 Kostyleff (p. 35) by examining hallucinations, 
 shows that "it is not the process of contact, but 
 the process of measure and of identification, 
 which makes the cognizance of things, and lives 
 again thereafter in thot." And their million 
 trivialities become subordinated. Such boiling 
 down, indeed, is what distinguishes the man of 
 discernment from the bore; a child or an imbe- 
 cile may have good memory of photographic type. 
 In time the essential points even of many situa- 
 tions blend into a general impression. A more 
 awkward cause of forgetting is the Distortion of 
 memories due to the fact that the conscious part 
 of our mind squeezes out of itself, that is, re- 
 presses into the unconscious part, all memories 
 in the degree that they are knit up with emotional 
 elements repugnant to our personality. We shall 
 discuss this at length in a later lesson. We're 
 concerned at present more with the discovery of 
 a corrective. 
 
 Right now let me warn you against the so- 
 called courses in "memory training" which are 
 so much advertised in our magazines. Them also, 
 the fallacies on which they're based and the par- 
 tial results they sometimes seem to achieve, we 
 shall have to consider in a lesson devoted to the 
 subject of self -discipline.
 
 404 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 -'--But; here, at the beginning of our -lessons r some 
 hints -on how to study will be most in place. Sev- 
 eral authors have written instructively on this 
 topic. One of the best books is De Garmo's "How 
 to Study, and Teaching How to Study." 
 
 MeKeever in "Psychology and Higher Life" 
 concentrates much thot into the following epitome 
 of "How to Study" (p. 174). 
 
 "1. Have a Program. The student who fol- 
 lows the same program of study and work every 
 day thereby calls to his assistance a powerful 
 agency, viz., habit. It is this way: For instance, 
 if you study algebra every day from 2 to 3 P. M., 
 you will soon find the mind better prepared to 
 master algebra at that hour than at any other. 
 Try it ! 
 
 "2. Have a Method. Every paragraph you 
 read has, or ought to have, a central or specific 
 idea. Find this point and note it carefully. Be- 
 fore beginning the day's duties, have in mind an 
 ideal standard of excellence, and then strive to 
 reach it. In this way one accumulates mental 
 power, generates his own enthusiasm, and con- 
 tributes directly to the building of his own 
 character." 
 
 (In memorizing, read each time entirely thru 
 the piece to be committed without hesitation. At 
 all other times give the newly acquired fact a 
 logical place within your whole system of ideas; 
 relate it by logical association to your other 
 knowledge. For this reason "cramming" a lot
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 405 
 
 of information just before an examination is a 
 poor way to retain knowledge, because it doesn't 
 give "each new fact acquired time to take its logi- 
 cal place among the facts already known.") 
 
 "3. Attention. Positively refuse to permit 
 your attention to be drawn away from the task it 
 is engaged upon. Herein lies the secret of power, 
 and of much so-called genius. If the mind wan- 
 ders, bring it back to the point and hold it there 
 persistently. See that your efforts in this respect 
 are not hindered by sluggishness resulting from 
 insufficient sleep or improper ventilation." 
 
 The importance is also rightly dwelt upon in- 
 this connection of Interest. 
 
 Examples are given of a young woman with re- 
 markable memory for names and faces who 
 "would stand in the hall as the students filed by 
 and have some friend tell her as many names as 
 possible. Then, she would be seen later operat- 
 ing at another place in one of the buildings with 
 a different "helper." She threw her whole soul 
 into the task, and for that reason success was 
 easily attained." 
 
 Mr. Keever himself, "early in life formed the 
 habit of trying to solve all ordinary arithmetical 
 problems mentally. The favorite time and place 
 for this work was at early morning before get- 
 ting out of bed. His memory for long strings of 
 figures is still very active. But another early 
 habit of paying no attention to the names of per- 
 sons with whom he became acquainted has always
 
 406 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 been a source of annoyance and embarrassment 
 to him." To make the subject understandable, to 
 take it out of the realm of abstract theory, and 
 to give "memory . . . another ally in emo- 
 tional interest" laboratory methods and concrete 
 embodiments of the lesson are vital; "the hands 
 and feet and muscles of the body are put thru the 
 process of doing the work so often that they do 
 the remembering." This is one reason we assign 
 observations for you yourself to work out in con- 
 nection with these lessons.) 
 
 "4. Test your Strength. One of the best tests 
 of mind concentration comes during an effort to 
 study in the library. About half of those who 
 pretend to study there waste their time in the 
 childish habit of gazing at those who are moving 
 about the room. If you can't possibly resist the 
 temptation to stare at others, close the book and 
 feast your eyes for a few minutes, then study dili- 
 gently for a while; but don't try to do both at 
 once." 
 
 (This advice is prompted by some observations 
 made under Mr. Keever's direction upon the 
 study-habits of students in the library of Kansas 
 State Agricultural College, and which yielded the 
 table on the following page:
 
 Subject 
 
 PHI 
 
 Total 
 Length of 
 
 LOSOPH 
 
 Total 
 Time 
 
 Y OF HELPFULNESS 407 
 
 Total Efforts to Study Interruptions 
 Time 
 
 Number Test 
 and Sex Min. Sec. 
 
 Studied 
 Min. Sec, 
 
 Lost No. Av. 
 Min. Sec. 
 
 Length No. Av. Length 
 Min. Sec. Min. Sec. 
 
 1. 
 
 M 
 
 31 
 
 52 
 
 25 
 
 65 
 
 5 
 
 67 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 2. 
 
 M 
 
 31 
 
 15 
 
 21 
 
 10 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 3. 
 
 F 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 
 45 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 52 
 
 4. 
 
 M 
 
 33 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 30 
 
 14 
 
 30 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 40 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 5. 
 
 M. 
 
 18 
 
 59 
 
 12 
 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 44 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 37 
 
 6. 
 
 M 
 
 28 
 
 41 
 
 21 
 
 36 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 7. 
 
 M 
 
 22 
 
 5 
 
 19 
 
 40 
 
 2 
 
 25 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 8. 
 
 F 
 
 23 
 
 49 
 
 20 
 
 42 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 9. 
 
 M 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 8 
 
 45 
 
 1 
 
 30 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 10. 
 
 M 
 
 23 
 
 45 
 
 17 
 
 45 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 29 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 11. 
 
 M 
 
 34 
 
 51 
 
 31 
 
 50 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 16 
 
 1 
 
 59 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 12. 
 
 M 
 
 22 
 
 4 
 
 15 
 
 30 
 
 6 
 
 34 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 19 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 "The table is self-explanatory. It shows, for 
 example, that during a period of about thirty-two 
 minutes subject number one looked up from his 
 book forty-five times and made forty-six separate 
 efforts to get his mind on the lesson, the average 
 length of time of the efforts being thirty-four 
 seconds. In the majority of instances the sub- 
 ject looked up from the page in order to see who 
 was passing.") 
 
 "5. Be Orderly and Systematic. Good order 
 and system about the study-room are aids to 
 scholarly work, while disorderliness and untidi- 
 ness are indicative of incoherent thinking. More- 
 over, these bad qualities, if allowed to continue, 
 will become a menace to your own success later in 
 life and a great annoyance to someone who will 
 have to live with you. Motto : A place for every- 
 thing and everything in its place." 
 
 (Happy the child who, making extravagant 
 statements, "had the bare reality pointed out to 
 him." Moreover, "clear thinking and systematic 
 work are twin brothers. . . . Let one in all
 
 408 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 that he undertakes . . . devise a method that 
 will involve the least possible waste of time and 
 energy and yet prove effective . . .let him 
 have a well devised plan for the performance of 
 every task that is before him, and his subsequent 
 development into a logical, systematic thinker is 
 practically assured. ... If the student can, at 
 some time in the course, take up the formal study 
 of logic, he will be enabled to accomplish much 
 toward systematizing his thinking." Elsewhere 
 he emphasizes "the masterly method" of study 
 by making notes of the gist of every argument 
 and the "special thesis of every chapter.") 
 
 "6. Be Punctual. Tardiness and irregularity 
 in attendance to duty are two bad habits that may 
 easily be broken if the matter is undertaken in 
 time; but, if permitted to go on unchecked, they 
 are sure to bring about loss of interest, and dis- 
 couragement. To meet all of one's appointments 
 promptly is an evidence of stability of character, 
 and a good indication of worthy attainment. 
 
 "8. Be Cordial. . . . 
 
 "9. Cultivate Pure-Mindedness." (In a later 
 chapter we can better discuss these.) 
 
 "10. . . . You can become a member of the 
 great class of faithful, diligent workers, and they 
 are the people who are moving the world today. 
 Nearly all the students who fail in their classes 
 do so on account of lack of diligence; very few 
 from lack of ability. If you would master a sub- 
 ject easily, pay special attention to its funda-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 409 
 
 mental, principles given at the beginning of the 
 term." 
 
 So much then, for the method of study. As 
 to that related question, of how much to study, 
 we'll make here only this general remark ; that we 
 should read books not as substitutes for life and 
 experience, but as stimulants of our own observa- 
 tive and feeling powers. Herein lies the immense 
 gulf between books. The popular story is often 
 excused on the ground that it teaches us about 
 people. A novel of the quality of Vanity Fair 
 undoubtedly does this. But we can afford to omit 
 nearly all the trash which passes current as 
 "literature" or "philosophy" or popularized and 
 diluted "psychology" because at best it is life thru 
 other men's eyes second hand. Better save our 
 reading hours for more technical material, for 
 classics whose excellence has stood the test of 
 time, a few standard scienca-texts, and the works 
 of Freud, Adler, Jung, Jones, Bril, etc. Their 
 conclusions we can accept or discard, but the 
 classics will at least cultivate our judgment of 
 what is well presented, and the others will help 
 us avoid pitfalls and equip us with more powerful 
 methods of observing life. 
 
 You see, it is after all the way in which we do 
 things, that counts. The Ancients had innumer- 
 able theories about almost everything under the 
 sun, and wrangled over them ad nauseam, without 
 establishing any of them above others as more 
 than a clever guess because the method of their 
 attempted proofs was weak.
 
 410 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Now for that much quoted classical chapter 
 by James on Habit: 
 
 James quotes from Huxley, "a story, which 
 is credible enough, tho it may not be true, of a 
 practical joker, who seeing a discharged veteran 
 carrying home his dinner, suddenly called out, 
 'Attention!' whereupon the man instantly brot 
 his hands down, and lost his mutton and potatoes 
 in the gutter. The drill had been thorough, and its 
 effects had become embodied in the man's nervous 
 structure," 13 and he continues. "If the period 
 between twenty and thirty is the critical one in 
 the formation of intellectual and professional hab- 
 its, the period below twenty is more important 
 still for the firing of personal habits, properly so- 
 called, such as vocalization and pronunciation, 
 gesture, motion, and address. Hardly ever is a 
 language learned after twenty spoken without a 
 foreign accent; hardly ever can a youth trans- 
 ferred to the society of his betters unlearn the 
 nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by 
 the associations of his growing years. Hardly 
 ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be 
 in his pocket, can he even learn to dress like a 
 gentleman-born. The merchants offer their wares 
 as eagerly to him as to the veriest 'swell,' but he 
 simply cannot buy the right things. An invisible 
 law, as strong as gravitation, keeps him within 
 his orbit, arrayed this year as he was the last; 
 and how his better-bred acquaintances contrive
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 411 
 
 to get the things they wear will be for him a 
 mystery till his dying day. 
 
 "The great thing, then, in all education, is to 
 make our nervous system our ally instead of our 
 enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisi- 
 tions, and live at ease upon the interest of the 
 fund. For this we must make automatic and 
 habitual, as early as possible, as many useful ac- 
 tions as we can, and guard against the growing 
 into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous 
 to us, as we should guard against the plague. 
 The more of the details of our daily life we can 
 hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, 
 the more our higher powers of mind will be set 
 free for their own proper work. There is no 
 more miserable human being than one in whom 
 nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom 
 the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every 
 cup, the time of rising and going to bed every 
 day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are 
 subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full 
 half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, 
 or regretting, of matters which ought to be so in- 
 grained in him as practically not to exist for his 
 consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties 
 not yet ingrained in any one of my readers, let 
 him begin this very hour to set the matter right. 
 
 "In Professor Bain's chapter on "The Morai 
 Habits' there are some admirable practical re- 
 marks laid down. Two great maxims emerge 
 from his treatment. The first is that in the
 
 412 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an 
 old one, we must take care to launch ourselves 
 with as strong and decided an initiative as possi- 
 ble. Accumulate all the possible circumstances 
 which shall reinforce the right motives ; put your- 
 self assiduously in conditions that encourage the 
 new way; make engagements incompatible with 
 the old ; take a public pledge, if the case allows ; 
 in short, envelop your resolution with every aid 
 you know. This will give your new beginning 
 such a momentum that the temptation to break 
 down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might ; 
 and every day during which a breakdown is post- 
 poned adds to the chances of its not occurring at 
 all. 
 
 "The second maxim is: Never suffer an ex- 
 ception to occur till the new habit is securely root- 
 ed in your life. Each lapse is like the letting 
 fall of a ball of string which one is carefully wind- 
 ing up; a single slip undoes more than a great 
 many turns will wind again. Continuity of train- 
 ing is the great means of making the nervous 
 system act infallibly right. As Professor Bain 
 says: 
 
 " The peculiarity of the moral habits, contra- 
 distinguishing them from the intellectual acqui- 
 sitions, is the presence of two hostile powers, one 
 to be gradually raised into the ascendant over the 
 other. It is necessary, above all things, in such a 
 situation, never to lose a battle. Every gain on 
 the wrong side undoes the effect of many con-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 4i3 
 
 quests on the right. The essential precaution, 
 therefore, is so to regulate the two opposing 
 powers that the one may have a series of unin- 
 terrupted successes, until repetition has fortified 
 it to such a degree as to enable it to cope with 
 the opposition, under any circumstances. This is 
 the theoretically best career of mental progress. 
 "The need of securing success at the outset is 
 imperative. Failure at first is apt to dampen the 
 energy of all future attempts, whereas past ex- 
 perience of success nerves one to future vigor. 
 Goethe says to a man who consulted him about an 
 enterprise but mistrusted his own powers: 'Ach! 
 you need only blow on your hands !' And the re- 
 mark illustrates the effect on Goethe's spirits of 
 his own habitually successful career. Professor 
 Baumann, from whom I borrow the anecdote, 1 
 says that the collapse of barbarian nations when 
 Europeans come among them is due to their de- 
 spair of ever succeeding as the newcomers do 
 in the larger tasks of life. Old ways are broken 
 and new ones not formed. The question of 'taper- 
 ing-oftY in abandoning such habits as drink and 
 opium-indulgence, comes in here, and is a ques- 
 tion about which experts differ within certain 
 limits, and in regard to what may be best for 
 an individual case. In the main, however, all ex- 
 pert opinion would agree that abrupt acquisition 
 of the new habit is the best way, if there be a 
 
 'See the admirable passage about success at the outset, in hb Hand- 
 buch der Moral (1878) pp. 38-43.
 
 414 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 real possibility of carrying it out. We must be 
 careful not to give the will so stiff a task as to 
 insure its defeat at the very outset ; but, provided 
 one can stand it, a sharp period of suffering, and 
 then a free time, is the best thing to aim at, 
 whether in giving up a habit like that of opium, 
 or in simply changing one's hours of rising or of 
 work. It is surprising how soon a desire will die 
 of inanition if it be never fed. 
 
 " 'One must first learn, unmoved, looking nei- 
 ther to the right nor left, to walk firmly on the 
 straight and narrow path, before one can begin "to 
 make one's .self over again." He who every day 
 makes a fresh resolve is like one who, arriving at 
 the edge of the ditch he is to leap, forever stops 
 and returns for a fresh run. Without unbroken 
 advance there is no such thing as accumulation of 
 the ethical forces possible, and to make this pos- 
 sible, and to exercise us and habituate us in it. 
 is the sovereign blessing of regular work.' 2 
 
 "A third maxim may be added to the preceding 
 pair; Seize the very first possible opportunity to 
 a6t on every resolution you make, and on every 
 emotional prompting you may experience in the 
 direction of the habits you aspire to gain. It is 
 not in the moment of their forming, but in the 
 moment of their producing motor effects, that 
 resolves and aspirations communicate the new 
 'set' to the brain. As the author last quoted re- 
 marks : 
 
 ; J. Bahnsen : Beitrapre u CharakteroloRie. (1867), vol. 1, p. 209.
 
 415 
 
 " 'The actual presence of the practical opportu- 
 nity alone furnishes the fulcrum upon which the 
 lever can rest, by means of which the moral will 
 may multiply its strength, and raise itself aloft. 
 He who has no solid ground to press against will 
 never get beyond the stage of empty gesture- 
 making.' 
 
 "No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one 
 may possess and no matter how good one's sen- 
 timents may be, if one have not taken advantage 
 of every concrete opportunity to act one's char- 
 acter may remain entirely unaffected for the bet- 
 ter. With mere good intentions, hell is proverb- 
 ially paved. And this is an obvious consequence 
 of the principles we have laid down. A 'charac- 
 ter,' as J. S. Mill says, 'is a completely fashioned 
 will;' and a will, in the sense in which he means 
 it, is an aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm 
 and prompt and definite way upon all the principal 
 emergencies of life. A tendency to act only be- 
 comes effectively ingrained in us in proportion 
 to the uninterrupted frequency with which the 
 actions actually occur, and the brain 'grows' to 
 their use. Every time a resolve or a fine glow of 
 feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit 
 is worse than a chance lost ; it works so as posi- 
 tively to hinder future resolutions and emotions 
 from taking the normal path of discharge. There 
 is no more contemptible type of human charac- 
 ter than that of the nerveless sentimentalist and 
 dreamer, who spends his life in a weltering sea
 
 416 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 of sensibility and emotion, but who never does 
 a manly concrete deed. Rousseau, inflaming all 
 the mothers of France, by his eloquence, to fol- 
 low Nature and nurse their babies themselves, 
 while he sends his own children to the foundling 
 hospital, is the classical example of what I mean. 
 But every one of us in his measure, whenever, 
 after glowing for an abstractly formulated Good, 
 he practically ignores some actual case, among the 
 squalid 'other particulars' of which that same 
 Good lurks disguised, treads straight on Rous- 
 seau's path. All Goods are disguised by the vul- 
 garity of their noncomitants, in this work-a-day 
 world; but woe. to him who can only recognize 
 them when he thinks them in their pure and ab- 
 stract form ! The habit of excessive novel-reading 
 and theatre-going will produce true monsters in 
 this line. The weeping of a Russian lady over the 
 fictitious personages in the play, while her coach- 
 man is freezing to death on the seat outside, is 
 the sort of thing that everywhere happens on a 
 less glaring scale. Even the habit of excessive 
 indulgence in music, for those who are neither 
 performers themselves nor musically gifted 
 enough to take it in a purely intellectual way, has 
 probably a relaxing effect upon the character. 
 One becomes filled with emotions which habitually 
 pass without prompting to any deed, and so the 
 inertly sentimental condition is kept up. The 
 remedy would be, never to suffer one's self to 
 have an emotion at a concert, without expressing
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 417 
 
 it afterward in some active way. 3 Let the ex- 
 pression be the least thing in the world speak- 
 ing genially to one's aunt, or giving up one's seat 
 in a horsecar, if nothing more heroic offers but 
 let it not fail to take place. . . . 
 
 "The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's 
 play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction 
 by saying, 'I won't count this time/ Well! he 
 may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not 
 count it; but it is being counted none the less. 
 Down among his nerve-cells and fibres the mole- 
 cules are counting it, registering and storing it 
 up to be used against him when the next tempta- 
 tion comes." But "as we become permanent drunk- 
 ards by so many separate drinks, so we become 
 saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in 
 the practical and scientic spheres, by so many sep- 
 arate acts and hours of work. Let no youth have 
 any anxiety about the upshot of his education, 
 whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faith- 
 fully busy each hour of the -working-day, he may 
 safely leave the final result to itself. He can with 
 perfect certainty count on waking up some fine 
 morning, to find himself one of the competent 
 ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may 
 have singled out. Silently, between all the details 
 of his business, the power of judging in all that 
 class of matter will have built itself up within 
 him as a possession that will never pass away. 
 
 "See for remarks on this subject a readable article by Miss V. 
 Scudder on "Musical Devotees and Morals," in the Andover Review, 
 for January, 1887.
 
 418 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Young people should know this truth in advance. 
 The ignorance of it has probably engendered more 
 discouragement and faintheartedness in youths 
 embarking on arduous careers than all other 
 causes put together." 
 
 To give to James' beautiful chapter a practical 
 illustration let us translate for you from the sec- 
 ond chapter of Autoine Abalat's "Le Travail du 
 Style." 
 
 " 'Nothing which is done well is done quickly.' 
 To style, above all, is applicable this very true 
 saying of Joseph de Maistre. Toil is the very 
 condition of a good style. Save for exceptions 
 which we shall examine, one may say that there 
 isn't a well-written book but has cost a great 
 deal of trouble; above all if, by the term well 
 written book we understand a work which unites 
 all the beauties of style. Prose which is merely 
 correct and easy can't be considered as a speci- 
 men of finished style. Other samples of prose 
 join resemblance and- embossment to naturalness 
 and to correctness. These latter works are su- 
 perior. George Sand wrote well, but she had 
 neither the Genius of Jean-Jaques nor the color- 
 ing of Bernardin de St. Pierre ; and Chateaubriand 
 shone by virtue of descriptive qualities which were 
 lacking to Bernardin and to Rousseau. More- 
 over, not to avoid meeting the objection, let us 
 admit at once that certain improvisors have at 
 the first attempt realized very beautiful prose. We 
 shall return to that.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 419 
 
 "Having made this concession, we must, under 
 pain of abdicating all instruction, establish some 
 general rules. Well, the example of all our classic 
 authors teaches us that labor is an absolute con- 
 dition of every written work. Perfection is had 
 by retouching and recasting. It is rare for a 
 first editing to be satisfactory, even when inspir- 
 ation is overflowing, because it is always precipi- 
 tate, because we have not had time to reflect 
 nor to choose our expressions, and because we 
 always are much better able to speak all than 
 to speak well. You need only hold a pen, to per- 
 ceive this truth. Only slowness and reflection 
 permit us to judge what we have produced. Recoil 
 is needed; it is indispensable to let our style cool 
 off. The more time we allow between the two 
 draughts, the better chance have we to see our- 
 selves clearly. Very few corrections are made 
 immediately. We must come out of our fever, 
 leave our first ideas, drop the interest in our 
 work and come to feel differently about our sub- 
 ject. Only then come variations of terms, sur- 
 prises in expression, economy of words, the flash 
 of images the sense of relief and of life, and 
 finally the possibility of perfecting that which 
 was but rough-hewn. Compositions written in an 
 examination officially limited to a very short 
 time, are able, under cerebral pressure, to give the 
 measure of aptitude or the presumption of talent ; 
 but never will they be well written, because 
 they've not been done over.
 
 420 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 "For the first drawing-up, everyone has his own 
 method. There are those who finish with a breath, 
 quit to return to it again. Others advance only 
 slowly, and remodel the page so soon as it is fin- 
 ished. Advice can't be given on this. The method 
 matters little; what is essential is the necessity 
 of doing it over again. It is vain to rebel against 
 this fact; a style is not good until it is made 
 over. The first casting is more or less close to 
 banality. We are in haste to write, we have no 
 time to hunt about, the pen flies on, we write what 
 is easiest, and what first comes to hand is 
 banality." 
 
 At heart the man who seeks his own good is 
 dissatisfied with the rewards which have come 
 to him thru the pursuit of self-interest. Happy 
 is he, if he seek the cure thru a revolution 
 of his own soul. He, as St. Paul of old, admires 
 the sweet virtue of Charity all the more ardently, 
 because he yearns, as yet in vain, to feel its in- 
 fluence in his heart. 
 
 If you who read this passage feel this desire 
 of the heart, that is circumstantial evidence that 
 selfishness isn't the fundamental law of your 
 nature, else selfishness would have satisfied you. 
 A nobler type of living will prove more congenial 
 to you, undoubtedly, when once you've sloughed 
 off the old habits of thot and demeanor. To every 
 one, in short, in whom this chapter finds a respon- 
 sive echo or who finds himself pondering its view- 
 point after he has laid this book aside, we may say
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 421 
 
 confidently, "You are one of those, for whom it 
 was written." Many were not so born for it but 
 you were. You, without conscious effort, are al- 
 ready upon the first step of the new sphere of 
 development; you're beyond pure selfishness be- 
 cause that was never natural to you." Whoever 
 has advanced thus far will hardly reverse his 
 evolution, to wallow again in the primeval slime. 
 
 "Foi; he on honey dew hath fed, 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise."* 
 
 You are beyond the blind sensualism of the 
 animal, or the self-centered attention of the 
 egoist; you have entered the realm of the nobler 
 desires of the aspirationist. 
 
 The path of aspiration may be approached via 
 the way of self -hypnotizing habits : by means of 
 Meditation, Prayer and the Reading of inspira- 
 tional and inspiriting books. 
 
 SECTION 4 
 
 Lust of life ebbs low, and the appetites sink 
 down most easily in those individuals whose thot 
 centers too much in themselves. Happy are they 
 who come to realize the cause of their own un- 
 vitality in the smallness of their motives for liv- 
 ing. The motives of life must be multiplied in 
 order to maintain its interest. Tincture of iron 
 isn't the royal road away from anemia ; a better 
 road may well be spiritual aspiration, leading at 
 
 "Coleridge's Kubla Khan.
 
 422 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 length to what Jesus called the "Kingdom of Heav- 
 en," or what less poetical modern psychologists 
 would call Altruistic Abandon. 
 
 Once upon a time every planet had an ocean of 
 air such as our own earth possesses, but this air 
 gradually blew away, or was absorbed by the 
 rocks, at least in the cases of the littler planets 
 it was so, for they didn't keep attracting more 
 air toward them. Every seed at birth also has a 
 certain amount of starch given it, even as the 
 little panets have a certain amount of air. The 
 seeds live on this starch for awhile, thrive and 
 grow. So, too, every animal is able to live for 
 a time upon the fat of its own body, but soon the 
 planet, the seed, and the animal must seek food 
 from the outside, or dwindle and die. We can't 
 live forever as did the man and his dog who were 
 starving in the desert; every day the man cut 
 off a piece of the dog's tail, made for himself a 
 soup of it, and fed the bone to the dog wherewith 
 to grow more tail. 
 
 You've known children who hardly could be per- 
 suaded to eat enough to keep them alive. Most 
 healthy children are different from that oh, so 
 different but they may starve in spite of eat- 
 ing, if their machinery for grinding and digest- 
 ing what they eat gets out of order. When 
 a man who wanted to be an English soldier, late- 
 ly, was told the army wouldn't take him because 
 he had bad teeth, he said, "I want to shoot Ger- 
 mans, not to bite them!" But the doctors knew
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 423 
 
 that with such teeth he couldn't be a strong, well- 
 fed man, such as they wanted for a soldier. If 
 this man had taken proper care of his teeth, and 
 let the dentist examine them and treat them 
 regularly, he would have been allowed to join the 
 army, and go out and be crippled for his country. 
 However, the point we wish to make here is 
 that we neither physically or spiritually can fat- 
 ten and thrive upon ourselves alone. We'd quickly 
 find that we are in the situation of poor Coriola- 
 nus, who complained: 
 
 "Anger's my meat ; I sup upon myself, 
 And so shall starve with feeding." 
 
 The sensualist either sinks still lower or rises 
 to the level of egoism; the egoist sinks back into 
 sensualism unless he becomes a man of moral 
 aspirations; the Aspirationist, in turn will be- 
 come egoist again unless he evolves into an Al- 
 truist; and even the Altruist is insecure in his 
 eminence unless in kindliness, modesty, efficiency 
 and all other good qualities he continues to be 
 active. He must continue to cultivate his quali- 
 ties of personal efficiency and refinement to the 
 end of achieving the best results for society, as 
 surely as he must aim at the good of society if 
 he is to realize the finest personal qualities. This 
 is a point which ardent reformers are apt to 
 overlook. 
 
 The cultural and the social motives are com- 
 bined in the important task of education. It is a
 
 424 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 promising sign that so many educational move- 
 ments are starting among the workers them- 
 selves. There's a Workers College in Boston, as 
 we might expect. In Stelton, New Jersey, is the 
 Ferrer School, part of a New York larger asso- 
 ciation of extreme radicals, which here has its 
 country colony and educates children wholly with- 
 out punishment or stressing authority. In Brook- 
 lyn, New York, is the Williamsburg Culture Cen- 
 ter, with its large number of (non-religious) Sun- 
 day school classes. The most noted socialist col- 
 lege, is of course the Rand School, located where 
 it can do a huge educational work in the heart of 
 New York City. Another radical college of which 
 we know is the Workers Institute in Chicago. We 
 have heard something of a technical-training in- 
 stitution in the west run by the I. W. W. The 
 "Wobblies" are one of several diverse elements 
 which jointly control the thriving Peoples Insti- 
 tute in San Francisco. No doubt but what the 
 list of such schools thruout this country already 
 is a long one, altho our labor organizations are far 
 indeed behind those of Europe. 
 
 Since our own school in California has been 
 closed, we have often thot how much bigger might 
 be the educational harvest to be reaped in this 
 field rather than in that of private institutions. 
 The thing appeals to us as in many ways a larger 
 work to ally oneself with some general move- 
 ment (sobeit not so large as to have crystallized 
 itself.) Then too, a privately owned school, auto-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 425 
 
 cratic more or less in management of at least 
 its employees, is in an amolalous position to be 
 preaching democracy. 
 
 The Roman Catholics long ago realized that they 
 must keep their children in schools of their own. 
 They saw that the state would use the public 
 school to indoctrinate children with the state's 
 own point of view. The Catholics have covered 
 
 MOHAMMEDAN SCHOOL. 
 
 the country with an extensive system of paro- 
 chial schools, advanced schools, and colleges. How 
 long before the Radicals will be as wise as they? 
 When they do will they be broad enough to give 
 us a set of schools which no more attempt to 
 indoctrinate with some new ism than to incul- 
 cate church-dogmas and nationalist dogmas? We 
 doubt whether they'll do so in any great degree, 
 yet we think they'd be freer than are the popular 
 schools we already have. Our existing history- 
 texts for example, to say nothing of systems of 
 school discipline and the whole coercive scheme, 
 are a crime upon childhood. At any rate a new 
 competitor in the field should be welcomed. To 
 upbuild a system of radical popular schools, awaits 
 some educator of large calibre.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 This chapter will deal with Repression and its 
 effects. 
 
 Freud's discoveries of the harmful effects of 
 emotional repression indicate that self-expression 
 must form part of the new ethical code. The 
 sensualist here is in the gravest situation on ac- 
 count of the perverted form which many of his 
 tendencies come to assume because too much in- 
 dulged. Nor is the unperverted natural man in 
 much better situation in the midst of our com- 
 plex society with its innumerable taboos; tho to 
 him Art, at least, opens a symbolic channel of ex- 
 pression. The ambitious man will solve in some 
 degree this dilemma by sublimating his impulses 
 into forms in which they add impetus to his de- 
 liberated purposes. But the truly fortunate are 
 those whose interest is the welfare of society as 
 a whole; because they'll use the anger which un- 
 reasonable restriction always arouses in direct 
 attack upon this very repressiveness of society. 
 
 SECTION I 
 
 "In case of doubt take the safe side. In case 
 of grave doubt take to the woods." 
 
 All enslavement is thru fear. Hence to be 
 fearless is to have achieved freedom. Pain is 
 unendurable chiefly thru the fear of more pain in 
 the next moment.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 427 
 
 Fear is utilized to establish habits and coerce 
 creatures into acting in the ways we desire; by 
 means of fear we may bend the lower animals 
 into habits that are useful to us. 
 
 One vice, a brother to Fear, raises such havoc 
 with mental processes, and is, in every sense, so 
 "awfully common" that we must stop to say a 
 few words again' it : Lying. It, again, shows the 
 danger of the conceit of cleverness, imagining 
 you've a combination that'll beat the game. This 
 chapter's no place to speak of the disruption of 
 communal relations thru deceit, nor can it be pre- 
 tended that no lie ever brot more good than evil. 
 The point we wish to make is, that of the two atti- 
 tudes, "I'll lie only when I'm very sure it's wise 
 to," and "I'll take my chances on not lying even 
 under those circumstances where it surely would 
 be better to," the second is the more prudent state 
 of mind. 
 
 If you're stupid at lying, of course you'll not try 
 it so often. No one exactly likes being caught in 
 lies and therefore having people unsure whether 
 or not they shall believe anything he afterward 
 tells them. "Oh what a tangled web we weave 
 when first we practice to deceive," and all that. 
 Every day of our lives, questions are coming up 
 with a quick "answer this, yes or no?" when we've 
 no time to go into the likelihood of our being 
 caught if we lie so, if we lie sometimes, sooner 
 or later the law of probabilities decrees we must 
 be caught. But the only thing that'll prevent us
 
 428 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 lying at such times is to have a habit of telling 
 the truth automatically, i. e., at all times what- 
 ever. 
 
 Take, for example, the case of the ape, in an- 
 cient times, who fell overboard from a ship that 
 was passing the Piraeus, the harbor of Athens. 
 A dolphin, which saw his mishap, took him upon 
 its back toward land. Mistaking the ape for a 
 man, and an Athenian, the dolphin asked him, 
 "Do you know the Piraeus ?" It tickled the ape's 
 vanity to be mistaken for a human, and in his 
 ignorance, he thot "the Piraeus" must be some 
 noted Athenian citizen. Had he had the habit of 
 "automatic truthfulness," he still would have 
 been saved. But he answered, "0, I and the 
 Piraeus are intimate friends. He often dines with 
 me !" This boast made the dolphin so angry, that 
 he plunged, under the sea and left the ape to his 
 fate. 
 
 One's face, too, becomes, in a slight measure, a 
 means whereby people can tell whether his hab- 
 its are honest or not. 
 
 But that danger, in lying, of which we wanted 
 to speak so particularly here, comes of wanting to 
 lie convincingly well. The vulgar lie with their 
 lips. But your truly polished prevaricator lies 
 with his whole body and mind. The most finished 
 liars we've encountered are the natives of Ceylon, 
 who will run the whole gamut of the emotions to 
 cheat you out of the value of a pin, and all that 
 with such art, such plausibility, such restraint,
 
 429 
 
 that after the conclusion of the deal your con- 
 science simply aches with sympathy for the poor 
 fellow, who has done you out of only a thousand 
 per cent. "Oh what a goodly outside falsehood 
 hath." 1 
 
 The material profits of such trickery must in- 
 deed be tremendous, tho, if they're to counter- 
 balance the spiritual losses of this play-acting. 2 
 The man who can incline himself so easily to de- 
 ceive others, must be an unusual character if that 
 same suppleness doesn't creep into his life in less 
 welcome places. How many persons we've met, 
 who, in developing skillful evasiveness, have lost 
 the power to keep to the point in an argument, 
 and squarely meet the issues involved! Finess 
 
 1 Shakespeare Merchant of Venice, Act I, 1. 
 
 2 A clipping before us says, in 'realizing" the chnrctr. the tra- 
 ditional view, as old as dramatic art itself, is that the actor will fail 
 to achieve the highest effects unless he actually allows the part to 
 possess him so completely that his body responds in spontaneous move- 
 ments. It is true, indeed, that a few great players, like Oquelin. re- 
 ject this view, and insist on the predominance of the purely intellec- 
 tual elements. William Archer, the well-known English criric. in his 
 "Masks and Faces," has collected evidence on this point and finds that 
 most successful actors and actresses declare they must feel the emotion 
 th'y express. 
 
 Salvini. for example, ssys : 
 
 " 'If you do not weep in the agony of grief, if you do not blush with 
 shame, if you do not glow with love, if you do not tremble with trror, 
 if your eyes do not become bloodshot with rage, if, in short, you your- 
 self do not intimately experience whatever befits the diverse characters 
 and passions you represent, you can never thoroughly transfuse into 
 the hearts of your audience the sentiment of the situation.' " 
 
 To the same effect Miss Emily Bateman, one of the greatest emo- 
 ational actr^ses, spys: "If real tears do rot come to my eyes I dn not 
 truly feel what I am acting, nor can can I impress my audience to 
 the same extent when I feign emotion as when I really feel it. I 
 have acted the part of Leah for twenty-four years, and the te?rs always 
 cor"e to my ^yes wh*n the little child says 'My name is Leah.' " 
 
 Th foregoing instances establish two facts with positive certainty: 
 (1) To the successful actors themselves, the feelings, however induc?d, 
 are for the time being real; and (2). there is an exceedingly close 
 relation between the mental state and the physical expression, no mat- 
 ter whether the physical expression be regarded as the cause or as th 
 effect of the mental.
 
 430 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 is necessary, to carry many points; and in some 
 professions, e. g., of statesman, detective, etc., 
 "Economy of truth," doubtless, is part of the 
 game. But if it's a question of one's personal 
 happiness, we should bet on the man who'll "speak 
 the truth and shame the family." "A crafty fel- 
 low never has any peace," goes the proverb. To 
 lie to your fellow-men hardens your heart in the 
 degree that it softens your backbone; and a hard 
 heart is a stranger to peace. Lies are "Like Dead 
 Sea fruits, that tempt the eye, but turn to ashes 
 on the lips." 
 
 This subject is knitted closely with that of 
 spreading pious legends for "the greater glory of 
 God," or atrocity tales for "patriotic motives," 
 (a modern substitute among more peoples than 
 need here be mentioned) . It is vicious to preach 
 that the defense of whatever cherished insti- 
 tution justifies us in besmirching the ideal of 
 strict historic truth. "Truthe is the hyeste thing 
 that man may kepe." 3 
 
 Deceit undermines not only all relations be- 
 tween the deceiver and his fellows, but, for three 
 reasons, it brings chaos into his own thinking. 
 
 First, because, as you will remember, every lie 
 you "got away with" confirmed you in the feeling 
 that whether or not it were "an abomination un- 
 to the Lord" certainly it was "a very present help 
 in time of trouble." 4 Having let down the bar- 
 riers by ever so little, you lost the habit (which, 
 
 "Chaucer, Frankeleyns Tale.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 431 
 
 as we hope, you once had) of automatically tell- 
 ing the truth upon all those little occasions, a 
 hundred of which come up every day, when 
 there's no time to think. If there always were 
 time enough so you could figure out just how 
 much other people could be expected to know of 
 the truth, then you might always succeed in de- 
 ceiving them. But life is so full of sudden sur- 
 prises, that unless we're in the habit of telling 
 the truth always, we usually will have to spend a 
 good deal of time making new lies to back up the 
 old ones. Telling the truth saves worry. 
 
 Secondly, if still you persist that you want to 
 be a liar, we're afraid you'll want to be a clever 
 one. Remain a stupid liar if you're wise; when 
 you become a clever liar, you become a fool. This 
 is because to be an artist at lying means you 
 must throw your whole soul into it; yes, and be- 
 lieve in it, yourself, accepting on faith what you 
 know to be a fable making a religion of it, in 
 short. Do you think such practices can leave 
 your intellect unharmed? Do you think, if you 
 today practice persuading yourself that black is 
 white you can remain a careful, skeptical, scien- 
 tific thinker, reasoning carefully, and not easily 
 deceived?" "No man can follow two masters." 
 
 Thirdly, the new branch of mental therapy 
 called psycho-analysis, shows that in extreme 
 cases terrible all-around harm to health may re- 
 
 4 St. Paul. 
 
 Apropos of Expression, we may discuss the necessity of adequate 
 provision for play.
 
 432 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 suit from pretending not to feel what you 
 really do. 
 
 Lije Williams was haled to court to answer a 
 complaint arising out of a broken bargain. Among 
 the witnesses called was one Steve Collins. 
 
 "Mr. Collins," said the examining lawyer, "you 
 know the defendant in this case, do you not?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," answered Collins. 
 
 "What is his reputation for veracity?" con- 
 tinued the lawyer. "Is he regarded as a man 
 who never tells the truth?" 
 
 "Waal, I can't say that he don't never tell the 
 truth," replied Steve, "but I do know that if he 
 wanted his hogs to come to dinner he'd have to 
 git somebody else to call em!" 
 
 Apropos of Expression, we may discuss the 
 necessity of adequate provision for play. 
 
 We find to hand an old excerpt, perhaps put 
 out by the playground association, which runs: 
 "Societies to the number of 111, 406 athletic 
 clubs, and 59 industrial organizations were report- 
 ed by Sheldon 5 among 1,139 boys, and 911 such 
 associations among 1,145 girls. Forbush 6 found 
 among 1,022 boys 862 societies, of which 77 per 
 cent were predatory or athletic. Puffer discov- 
 ered that 128 of 146 boys in the Lyman Indus- 
 trial School were members of gangs devoted to 
 sociability and physical activity, or in general 3 
 boys in 4. 7 "The time for the formation of 
 
 5 American Journal of Psychology. V. 9, p. 429. 
 8 Pedagogical Seminary. V. 7 p. 313. 
 7 Pedagogical Seminary- V. 12, p. 175.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 433 
 
 gangs is from 10 to 11 years of age to about the 
 16th year. Under certain conditions the period 
 may be~ extended, but when that is the case it 
 usually indicates arrested development. Gangs 
 are the expression of primitive tendencies. An 
 environment incapable of draining off these in- 
 stincts into channels which will make for social 
 growth perpetuates the racial impulses of early 
 man. Examples are the Mafia .... and the Ca- 
 morra .... The history of criminology is replete 
 with organizations that owe their existence to the 
 survival of primitive instincts." 8 All of which, 
 let it nevertheless be observed, is not to be taken 
 as indicative that even the "primitive instincts 
 themselves might not quite easily embody them- 
 selves usefully, even today. 
 
 New York police captains several years ago 
 told the committee on small parks that they had 
 no trouble with boys who live in the neighbor- 
 hood of playgrounds and parks." 9 
 
 After two years of parks, the Chicago South 
 Side "showed a decrease in delinquency of 17 
 per cent, relative to the delinquency of the whole 
 city, while the rest of the city had increased its 
 delinquency 12 per cent." 10 
 
 "If we consider three districts in the South 
 Side which are better equipped with playgrounds 
 
 8 Swift, in "Youth and the Race." p. 246-7. He gives at a footnote 
 "numerous examples" (of organizations ba?d on primitive instincts) 
 "mpybe found in Jacob A. Ri's's 'How *he Other Half Lives.' 
 
 9 Swift, "Youth and the Race," p. 103. 
 
 10 Allen Burns, reprint from the "Proceedings of the Second Annual 
 Playground Association," p. 11.
 
 434 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 and apparatus than the other portions of that 
 section we find that two of them which had a 
 rapid increase in population during the period 
 under consideration showed a decrease in delin- 
 quency of 28 per cent and 33 per cent respec- 
 tively, while the delinquency of the third, in 
 which the population remained more nearly uni- 
 form, decreased 70 per cent. And this decrease 
 occurred- at a time when the delinquency of the 
 entire city increased 11 per cent. In St. Louis, 
 again, the police reports have shown a decrease 
 of 50 per cent in juvenile crime in the neighbor- 
 hood of playgrounds during the summer months 
 when they were open. 11 
 
 Already we've given some brief history of the 
 psychoanalytic movement. Let us now survey 
 somewhat more widely the entire field. 
 
 Although psychoanalysis was originated by 
 Dr. Sigmund Freud, some of his pupils have start- 
 ed schools of their own, based upon slight or 
 serious divergences from his position on various 
 technical points. 
 
 From the four primal instincts above men- 
 tioned, Freud has singled out the reproductive as 
 being, on account of the great repression accord- 
 ed it in our civilization, the source of all neuroses. 
 He holds that inasmuch as in our modern life the 
 instincts of nutrition and derivatives 12 are fairly 
 
 11 Swift. "Youth and the Race." p. 104. 
 
 12 Prof. James dr--w up a l^ng list of human irstincts, to refute the 
 notion that man had fewer instincts than the lower animals. An in- 
 stinct has been defined as a "birth-given tendency to act in a specific 
 way." Examples are the tendency of all birds to build nests, even
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 435 
 
 satisfied in most of us, therefore it's only the 
 love instincts which make trouble. Freud's own 
 classification of instincts, therefore, runs as fol- 
 lows: Primary are the tendencies to normal 
 active and passive sexual role; secondary are 
 sadism and masochism; tertiary are "Schaulust" 
 pleasurable curiosity in beholding sex phe- 
 nomena and exhibitionism. 
 
 As opposed to this, Adler, the first prominent 
 pupil to break away from Freud, emphasizes as 
 the center of all complexes the Ego, and believes 
 that neuroses are simply inefficient attempts to 
 compensate symbolically for slights to self-re- 
 spect. Personally, we think that Freud's pleasure- 
 motive and Adler's masculine protest are two 
 compensating branches, of the family of the ro- 
 mantic instincts, whose relative importance will 
 vary according to the individual who is being 
 
 tho they have been hatched and reared indoors and never have seen 
 a nest ; or the tendency of dogs to make scratching motions suitable 
 for burying a bone, even though since puopyhood they've lived, well- 
 fed, in a house with h?rd floors. A birdling who has never seen a 
 nest, or a puppy who has never known the use of buried food, can 
 hardly be presumed to act in th-se ways from a calculation of future 
 bliss to be thus gained. No more is this the case with every day ac- 
 tions of human beings. 
 
 Four innate tendencies are so much more primitive than any other* 
 that the rest are considered as descended from them. Therefore, as 
 we've said, we conveniently may think of the Tree of Life as having 
 two main trunks one the tendency to seek things that it feel* are 
 desirable ; the other the tendency to avoid what it feels are odious. 
 The first of the trunks aeain silitting giv-s as a proslc branch the 
 tendency to assimilate food, and as a romantic branch the tendency to 
 unite with a mate for reproduction ; conversely, the second trunk of the 
 tree of life also splitting gives us as a prosaic branch the tendency to 
 flee from danger and as a romantic branch the tendercy to combat 
 enemies. The emotions corresponding to these primal instincts are 
 hunger end love, fear ?nd anger. 
 
 As descended from the primal assimilation-of-food instinct, we'd 
 class hunting with its further derivatives of play and of general phys- 
 ical activity; also hoarding, with its derivatives of collecting, and so 
 forth.
 
 436 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 analyzed; and will be emphasized according to 
 whether the analyst himself is predominently of 
 this or of the other make-up. Jung recognizes a 
 value in both the Freudian and Adlerian ex- 
 planations, .but he puts a great deal of emphasis 
 also on what we may call the higher branching 
 of the tree of instincts, and not merely upon these 
 two fundamental tendencies. Moreover, Jung 
 considers it necessary to give more attention 
 than his predecessors to not merely analyze the 
 motives of action, but to see in what direction the 
 character of the individual is trending and how 
 he may form a helpful new systhesis of all his 
 tendencies. 
 
 Among the proofs offered to psychoanalysts to 
 substantiate their concept of the unconscious 
 part of the mind one would seem to be the fact 
 of disassociated personality. For example, there 
 are many persons who, on account perhaps of 
 some fall or injury to the head, will forget for 
 many years who they are perhaps go off to some 
 other city and begin life anew and eventually 
 awake to the trends of thought of the original 
 character, return to their former home, resume 
 their former life, and entirely forget all they did 
 during the intermittent years. It is a well known 
 fact that in hypnotism the subject may go from 
 one trance into another deeper and deeper, each 
 time assuming an entirely different character, 
 and upon being hypnotized again he will resume 
 one or another of these definite states. Further-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 437 
 
 more, each of us is surprised sometimes at the 
 way in which different attitudes arise seemingly 
 from nowhere and overwhelm him; as Professor 
 James (or was it Emerson?) said: "Our moods 
 <Jo not know each other." Finally, there is the 
 tremendous amount of evidence not familiar to 
 the layman but available for all those who will 
 read the literature compiled by all psychanalists, 
 to the effect that certain ideational complexes 
 can be dug up from some portion of the mind of 
 every individual, which he thereafter recognizes 
 as his own, and recognizes as the basis of actions 
 which he hitherto falsely explained on rational 
 grounds. 
 
 The reason why these complexes of ideas get 
 detached from the prime body of our conscious 
 thoughts, we find explained by human impatience 
 of recognizing that desires have any existence in 
 us which we deplore or despise. For there is a 
 double tendency in our own natures, at once for 
 and against every 1 proposition, the tendency 
 technically called Bi-valence. The conception of 
 Bi-valence is due, we believe, chiefly to Freud and 
 Adler, and it may be explained somewhat as fol- 
 lows : Whenever we have an impulse to perform 
 an act of a certain kind, there goes with it always 
 an impulse in exactly the opposite direction; and 
 positive conduct is possible only as one of these 
 tendencies continuously outbalances the other. 
 This doubleness of value in our impulses is called 
 ambi-tendency. When, however, we have lived
 
 438 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 out to the point of surfeit our tendencies in one 
 direction, it will often happen that the directly 
 opposite tendency then gains the ascendency. 
 This is why frequently an individual whose life 
 has been most unexceptionable will suddenly 
 seem to change his character completely and com- 
 mit acts of the most scandalous nature. It ex- 
 plains, on the other hand, why persons who have 
 lived out only the evil side of their characters, 
 as e. g., gamblers, prostitutes, etc., astonish those 
 who do not well understand human nature by 
 manifesting a wholly unexpected self-sacrifice, 
 generosity, etc. The libido, surfeited with evil, 
 craves good. 
 
 In each of us exists this complex nature, re- 
 sulting from his multitude of contradictory in- 
 stincts, but, moreover, every impulse that 
 prompts us to act in one direction is accompanied 
 by a contrary tendency to act in precisely the 
 opposite manner. We cannot think, for instance, 
 of remaining seated without the idea occurring of 
 getting up. Where the individual completely de- 
 nies all expression, even in sublimated or sym- 
 bolical form, for a long period of time, to any ele- 
 ment of his nature, that neglected tendency is 
 likely at some time to completely overbalance his 
 whole system of life and cause him to run amuck 
 to the astonishment no less of himself than of his 
 friends. The saint will become sinner; and the 
 sinner will experience emotional religious con- . 
 version, throw himself ecstatically into work of
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 439 
 
 reform or whatever it may be, or perhaps will 
 show a degree of kindness and self-sacrifice that 
 the ordinary good person despairs of. This ex- 
 plains many of the inconsistencies of life. 
 
 Moreover, where our natural desires are slight- 
 ed in a way that we find it impossible to rem- 
 edy directly, our nature tends to compensate it- 
 self for these injuries in some other direction. 
 In the case of a normal person, the repressions 
 of his personality which he has experienced may 
 spur him to renewed effort and to the achieve- 
 ment of extraordinary success. Thus we find 
 Napoleon Bonaparte in his childhood when 
 scorned by all his playmates at the aristocratic 
 French military academy, plunging into his 
 studies and evolving his plans for future great- 
 ness with a concentration of energy which goes 
 far to explain his subsequent career. Again, the 
 philosopher Kant produced his system of meta- 
 physics as a means of withdrawing from the 
 physical pain which his illness caused him. The 
 neurotic is the person in whom this compensa- 
 tion takes a useless channel, a merely symbolical 
 or delusive channel, or in which it goes to an ex- 
 treme that is as bad as or worse than the origi- 
 nal trouble itself. This last case, that of swing- 
 ing irrationally far to an opposite extreme, is 
 over-compensation. 
 
 Adler it is who has stressed the most emphati- 
 cally the principle of over-compensation. The 
 philosopher Kant tells us that he entered upon his
 
 440 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tremendous philosophical speculation as a means 
 of relief to the physical pain to which he was sub- 
 ject. By abstracting his mind from his ailment 
 as effectually as was required upon metaphysical 
 problems he was able for the time being to forget 
 his suffering. There are many other similar in- 
 stances of where great work has been accom- 
 plished in order to take the mind away from its 
 unpleasant obsessions. Still more, however, is the 
 tendency to compensate shown in our daily life by 
 the efforts made by an individual who feels him- 
 self held in dis-esteem on account of let us say 
 physical deficiencies, the efforts to achieve some 
 manner of success, in a business or intellectual 
 way. Now it may happen that the compensation 
 of which these things are the normal and proper 
 expressions may instead take the form of some 
 adaption which is wholly inefficient to achieve the 
 end desired. It may result simply in a tremendous 
 ego-mania, in foolish bragging, etc. These and 
 still more pathological forms of compensation 
 never bring to the individual in any completeness 
 the satisfaction which they are designed by the 
 unconscious to achieve and consequently he is 
 likely to continue developing more and more seri- 
 ous psychosis. To these forms of the "manly pro- 
 test" Adler attributes the formation of all mental 
 ailments. That is to say, where Freud lays stress 
 chiefly on the amatory phase of life Adler lays 
 stress on its opposite side, the vanity branch. 
 Jung takes the position that both these concepts
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 441 
 
 are necessary, and balance each other; and, in- 
 deed, it may be thot that the one explanation is 
 most applicable to one individual and the other 
 explanation the more applicable to others. Over 
 compensation means the carrying of a compensa- 
 tory tendency beyond the degree of a sane balance. 
 Jung devotes Chapter VI of his Analytic Psy- 
 chology to a criticism of Bleuler's "Theory of 
 Schizophrenic Negativism." Bleuler's concept of 
 ambivalency and ambitendency, is that every ten- 
 dency is balanced by its opposite tendency, and 
 (as Jung adds) "positive action is produced by a 
 comparatively small leaning to one side of the 
 scale." The causes of Schizophrenic negativism 
 are summed up by Bleuler as (1) "The autistic 
 retirement of the patient into his own phantasies. 
 (2) The existence of a life-wound (complex) 
 which must be protected from injury. (3) The 
 misconception of the environment and of its mean- 
 ing. (4) The directly hostile relation to environ- 
 ment. (5) The pathological irritability of Schizo- 
 phrenics. (6) The 'press of ideas,' and other ag- 
 gravations of action and thought. (7) Sexuality 
 with its ambivalency on the emotional plane is 
 often one of the roots of negative reaction. The 
 painfulness of the complex necessitates a censor- 
 ship of its expression. Thought disturbance is 
 the result of a complex; thought pressure is due 
 to Schizophrenic introversion. Resistance springs 
 from peculiar sexual development. Schizophrenia 
 shows a preponderance of introversion mechan-
 
 442 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 isms. Ambivalency is the concept which "gives ex- 
 pression to the universal and ever present inner 
 association of pairs of opposites." (A contrary 
 meaning of root words is mentioned by Freud.) 
 So also with ambitendency : "Neither is specific 
 of schizophrenia, but applies equally to the neu- 
 roses and the normal. All that remains of kata- 
 tonic negativism is the intentional contrast, i. e. 
 the resistance, . . . the dynamic factor which 
 makes manifest the ambivalency is everywhere 
 latent. What is characteristic of the diseased 
 mind is not ambivalency but resistance." "It is 
 a conflict of wills, bringing about a neurotic con- 
 dition of 'dis-harmony within the self.' This con- 
 dition is the only 'splitting of the psyche' known 
 to us, and is not so much to be regarded as a pre- 
 disposing cause, but rather as a manifestation re- 
 sulting from the inner conflict, the 'incompati- 
 bility of the complex' (Rikin) ," 13 
 
 Vanity always is ill-bred and intolerable; from 
 the above we may recognize in it also the hall- 
 mark of unconsciously sensed inferiority deserv- 
 ing rather pity than the hatred it always calls 
 down. When it calls down hatred, we may know 
 that it has antagonized a counter-vanity in the 
 hater. A person who has been analyzed, and 
 stripped thereby of the garment of vanity which 
 he once assumed as a protection against the world, 
 learns to despise these affectations in himself as 
 he perceives that to persons who know, vanity is 
 
 "C. G. Jungr Analytic Psychology, pp. 101, 102.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 443 
 
 a tell-tale evidence of deficiencies acknowledged 
 by the unconscious. It is by no mere coincidence 
 that in this day of world-wide revolt against the 
 harsh economic foundations of present-time so- 
 ciety, we should witness the birth of a psycho- 
 therapy, which discovers that repression of nat- 
 ural desire is also the cause of individual ill- 
 nesses. And with the evidence pointing so clear- 
 ly towards need of a mitigation of the severity 
 alike of our social system and of our mental 
 therapy as the only road towards avoiding the 
 hysterias which seem to be the regular accom- 
 paniment of civilization, it would be strange in- 
 deed if we found education, which is life in minia- 
 ture, a contradictory case. 
 
 As in every other field, the proper starting 
 point is not the exasperation we adults feel when 
 children decline to accept our point of view, but 
 the cause of transgression in terms of the nature 
 of children. We must recognize that whereas the 
 young lion, ape, or eagle finds himself in an en- 
 vironment to which thousands of centuries of 
 evolution have had time to adapt him quite com- 
 pletely, the young human's environment, on the 
 contrary, is so totally different from what it was 
 even a thousand years ago, that if our ancestors 
 of that time were to return to this room, they 
 would be as bewildered at our ways as we dis- 
 dainful of theirs. But though our crude instincts 
 are thus incompatible with civilization, yet we 
 are as instinctively and as equally averse to re-
 
 444 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 nouncing all that civilized life offers us; hence 
 comes at once an inner conflict. This conflict 
 more especially if it becomes repressed into the 
 unconscious part of our mind may cause us to 
 experiment upon the patience, and upon the all 
 around adequacy to the situation, of those who as- 
 sume to be our guardians. 
 
 But perhaps you will ask, "What is the uncon- 
 scious; what definitions have been given of it?" 
 Freud considers the unconscious as a sort of gar- 
 bage can into which are cast all those desires 
 which for social or religious or other reasons have 
 become unbearable to our conscious mind. Lay 
 regards it as a sort of a dwelling place of Titan 
 emotions, which it is our business to drive back 
 where they belong. This is, of course, a concep- 
 tion hardly consistent with the other hypothesis 
 of psychoanalysis. White defines as the part of 
 the psyche on which reality plays, and strikes the 
 spark of the conscious. Jung regards it as the 
 sum of all processes below the threshold of the 
 conscious, and not only the abiding place of re- 
 jected desires, but the source from which the fu- 
 ture conscious states spring. 14 
 
 Again, you will ask us : "What proofs have we 
 of the unconscious?" The most evident proof 
 would seem to be our ability to learn new habits, 
 from which we are then able to divert our con- 
 scious attention, feeling sure that an unconscious 
 automatism will then take care of their subse- 
 
 14 For this summary we're indebted to Mrs. Wilshire.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 445 
 
 quent performance. Another proof is in the fact 
 of dissociate personality; for example, there 
 are many persons who, on account perhaps of 
 some fall or injury to the head, will forget for 
 many years who they are perhaps go off to 
 some other city and begin life anew and even- 
 tually again awake to the trends of thought of 
 the original character, return to their former 
 home, resume their former life, and entirely for- 
 get all they did during the intermittent years. It 
 is a well known fact that in hypnotism the sub- 
 ject may go from one trance into another deeper 
 and deeper, each time assuming an entirely dif- 
 ferent character, and upon being hypnotized 
 again he will resume one or another of these def- 
 inite states. Furthermore, each of us is surprised 
 sometimes at the way in which different attitudes 
 arise seemingly from nowhere and overwhelm 
 him, as Professor James (or was it Emerson?) 
 said : "Our moods do not know each other." Final- 
 ly, there is the tremendous amount of evidence 
 not familiar to the layman but available for all 
 those who will read the literature compiled by 
 all psychanalists, to the effect that certain idea- 
 tional complexes can be dug up from some por- 
 tion of the mind of every individual, which he 
 thereafter recognizes as his own, and recognizes 
 as the basis of actions which he hitherto falsely 
 explained on rational grounds. 
 
 As for the reason why these complexes of ideas 
 get detached from the body of our conscious
 
 446 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 thoughts, the explanation is to be found in our 
 impatience of recognizing what stands in contrast 
 to our superficial wishes, for there is a double 
 tendency in our own natures which we already 
 have explained, Bivalence. 
 
 We will trace for you in very brief way the 
 history of psychotherapy as it has developed into 
 analysis. The older school of Psychologists 
 were chiefly philosophical until about 1860 
 Fechner (following Weber's lead) and his 
 learned pupil Wuunt struck out a new path. Still 
 the academic psychologists, if they further con- 
 cerned themselves, no longer indeed with the 
 purely metaphysical aspects of the subject, at 
 least were now interested in only those phases 
 of it which knit up very closely with physiology. 
 Somewhere in the 80's Breuer struck out the 
 new line which his more famous colleague Freud 
 has developed into what Bleuler distinguishes by 
 the name of "deeper psychology" meaning the 
 psychology of those underlying currents of the 
 unconscious which are the chief determinants of 
 our actual conduct. 
 
 Breuer had a patient, a young woman whose 
 arm occasionally became paralyzed, and who had 
 for some time been unable to speak her native lan- 
 guage. He gradually elicited from her the story 
 of how this condition had come about. Years ago 
 she had acted as nurse to her invalid father and 
 one evening had fallen asleep at his bedside with 
 her arm hanging over the foot of the bed. She
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 447 
 
 awoke dreaming that a snake had come toward 
 her father and when she attempted to save him 
 her arm was paralyzed and the tips of her fingers 
 were all little snakes heads when she attempted 
 to cry out she was unable to speak until she hap- 
 pened to think of some nursery rhymes in the 
 English language and afterwards she was able to 
 converse in that language alone. Of course the 
 paralysis was easy to trace to the feeling of the 
 arm to being asleep. Thus was evolved by 
 Breuer the conception of hysteria as due to cer- 
 tain foreign bodies as it were in the psyche which 
 might be removed by a process called catharsis. 
 Hence the term mental catharsis or abreaction. 
 Freud at first accepted this theory but presently 
 he came to wonder why it was that experiences 
 of this sort which were often very puerile in their 
 make up often produced such tremendous effects. 
 Eventually he had to conclude that not to the 
 mere event in itself but to an already present 
 neurotic constitution must be attributed the sub- 
 sequent neurosis. 
 
 Moreover he found that every trauma which is 
 the technical work for these mental foreign bodies 
 contined an element of sexuality; and it was 
 the emphasis upon this point which caused most 
 of the tremendous hostility with which his wrft- 
 ings were first received. Among Freud's many 
 pupils we shall only mention as among the 
 first Bleuler as above noted; Adler, who in con- 
 tradistinction to Freud considered the nature of
 
 448 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 all neurosis as not sexual but involving the egotis- 
 tic will to power ; and Jung, the head of the Zurich 
 School. The earliest method of treatment that 
 we can call psycho-analytic was the cathartic 
 based upon the theory that the neurosis was due 
 to a trauma a foreign body in the unconscious. 
 This, however, passed away with the realization 
 that these experiences to which neuroses were 
 often seemingly traced would not of themselves 
 have caused any such trouble had they occurred 
 to a person not already neurotically constituted. 
 We can find illustrations of this fact in a field, 
 that of war-neuroses, which is especially related 
 to our present of topic of fear. "Of 250 cases 
 of objective disorders, Adrian and Eyland found 
 99 cases with paralysis of one or more extremities 
 and 18 with disturbances of gait. . . these cases 
 usually give a suggestion of external injury in 
 their history; thus a man who has fallen on his 
 shoulder will have paralysis of that arm." Evi- 
 dently the fall onto the shoulder merely served 
 as a convenient means of localizing into that mem- 
 ber a disorder which otherwise would have oc- 
 curred somewhere else. 
 
 In practically all cases it was found that where 
 we are face to face with a neurosis of any kind 
 the first question for us to ask is "Qui bono?" (of 
 what use) . Terhune has compiled a table of vari- 
 ous cases; among them we may note some such 
 as photophobias (fear of light) of which six per 
 cent are mostly easily accounted for thru the assq-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 449 
 
 elation of light with the blinding and terrifying 
 explosion of a shell which began the trouble. 
 But other cases "the symptoms of war neurasthe- 
 nia . . f atigability ; weakness vague obsessions 
 or fears ; . . . shortness of breath . . ." or again "the 
 symptoms of war hysteria . . . disorders of special 
 senses blindness and other disorders of vision, 
 deafness, . . . and anosmia (loss of smell) motor 
 disturbances; paralysis . . . sensory disturbances 
 . . . pain, etc. all these serve the purpose of un- 
 fitting the victim to return again to the fighting 
 line. Without an audience the tremors stopped. 
 One authority tells of a man who took his various 
 treatments in a very bored way, remarking that 
 all these things had been tried out upon him but 
 without any success. Civil cases "frequently . . . 
 are made worse by litigation in the courts over 
 damage suits, and it has also been noted, on the 
 other hand, that some are wholly relieved of their 
 paralysis and other complaints soon after a set- 
 tlement has been reached." Terhune states that 
 a severe case of shell-shock in wounded is rare. 
 Woof sohn comments upon the fact that wounded 
 soldiers do not suffer from shell-shock except in 
 rare instances "prisoners of war but rarely de- 
 velop a neurosis, only eigjit cases occurring among 
 80,000 French prisoners." 
 
 Following the Carthartic method of analysis, 
 the Association method came into prominence; 
 and at length Freud elaborated what is essentially
 
 450 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 the staff upon which the psycho analysis leans, 
 the method of dream-analysis. 
 
 We resume our brief account of the analytic 
 movement here to show you (1) the role which 
 fear may play in causing mental disturbances, 
 and (2) to give you a glimpse of the mechanism 
 of the unconscious, which never reacts in an in- 
 different way to any experience, but expresses in 
 a neurotic or in an hysterical way whatever it is 
 not permitted to express normally. If we have 
 chosen pathological cases for the purposes of ex- 
 plaining this to you, it is because "pathological 
 types show only with the clearness of exaggera- 
 tion the same processes which take place in the 
 normal." You must rid yourself of the idea that 
 any sharp dividing line exists between the men- 
 tally sick and the mentally well. In the former 
 the sense of proportion has become distorted, but 
 the laws by which thinking goes on are still the 
 same laws as before. 
 
 In the Atlantic monthly 15 W. Parsons in an ar- 
 ticle on war neuroses says : 
 
 "War neuroses are rarely found among the 
 wounded, although the slightly wounded occasion- 
 ally develop neurotic symptoms, and sometimes 
 even the severely wounded, but only when con- 
 valescence becomes well established and a return 
 to duty approaches. Prisoners of war never have 
 a neurosis. Being wounded or taken prisoner ac- 
 complishes the same purpose as a neurosis, there- 
 
 "March, 1919.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 451 
 
 fore neurosis is unnecessary. Even the thought 
 of an active participation in war produces a neu- 
 rosis in highly unstable individuals, and there are 
 a number of so-called anticipation types develop- 
 ing as men are drafted, as the sailing time ap- 
 proaches, or when the European training period 
 draws to a close. These cases show precisely the 
 same symptoms which were formerly attributed 
 to shells. 
 
 "A number of patients show no spectacular 
 symptoms, and this applies largely to officers. 
 They have an anxiety reaction. Officers doubt 
 their ability and worthiness to lead and have the 
 responsibility of men. This is a transference of 
 the emotion of fear for themselves to the possi- 
 bility that injury may come to others. The trans- 
 ference of an emotion from the real to a false ob- 
 ject is a common psychological experience." 
 
 The experience of the war is that some men are 
 helped by the mere opportunity for expression of 
 their repressed ideas. For example Forsyth finds 
 that the depression, listlessness, loss of confidence, 
 etc., "are best and most quickly relieved when the 
 patient has been induced to talk freely of what 
 is on his mind." In other cases, and this proves 
 how much deeper the emotional life is than the 
 mere superficial consciousness, what is necessary 
 for cure is the liberation of a rightly directed 
 emotion. "Mott records . . . one case (of mutism) 
 while watching a ball game, was overturned from 
 his wheeled chair by a runner. The sudden emo-
 
 452 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 tional shock and surprise caused him to exclaim 
 aloud and he recovered his speech. Another of 
 eight months standing, shouted out when cap- 
 sized into the water from a boat." Facts like this 
 last have given rise to the "maniere forte" as op- 
 posed to the "maniere douce" or treating some 
 neurotic cases, which is to make continuance in 
 the neurosis more painful than return to the bat- 
 tle field e. g., by tickling the throat electrically 
 to cure mutism and other veiled forms of mild 
 torture. 
 
 The third chapter of his analytic Psychology of 
 the unconscious, Jung devotes "the significance 
 of the fathers in the destiny of the individual," 
 and in earlier lessons we've discussed the progres- 
 sion of the childish libido thru various successive 
 steps. Be it recognized that all these stages are 
 perfectly normal things to experience in their 
 time and to pass through and outgrow, but if 
 the individual remains in any one of them and 
 does not graduate to the normal adult attitude in 
 which the sexual element of the libido fixates upon 
 a man or woman, as the case may be, and in 
 which the whole attention directs itself to over- 
 coming the practical obstacles of life if the in- 
 dividual remains thus backward or having passed 
 on terns again back to his childhood condition, 
 he is abnormal or regressive. Apropos of this we 
 recall a passage in Terhune on the relapse of sol- 
 diers under stress of danger to infantile stammer- 
 ing, As indicated by another writer, to whom we.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 453 
 
 cannot at this moment refer, moments of extreme 
 danger tend to revive the childhood cry for the 
 protection of our mothers ; fear makes us long to 
 be back in the period when we could run to some- 
 one who'd take care of us. Always fear is an 
 unmanning influence, an influence that outward- 
 ly may seem to help, but which builds upon foun- 
 dations which are unsolid and some day will have 
 to be torn down and all reconstructed. It's an 
 anti-social force, whether in its more crude bru- 
 tal manifestations, or whether manifested in the 
 refined form of social disesteem. 
 
 Suppose we now treat in alphabetical order 
 some of the more important terms and concepts, 
 explaining them to you. 
 
 Conscious, Unconscious and Fore-conscious are 
 terms employed to distinguish respectively those 
 ideas which we retain and reckon with without 
 embarrassment, those ideas which are driven out 
 of sight by reason of strong emotional concom- 
 mittants so that we can't summon them nor even 
 entertain them when we strive to do so, and last- 
 ly those ideas which momentarily are in the back- 
 ground but, like the multiplication table, are re- 
 callable at pleasure. 
 
 Determination of the content of a dream is the 
 selection for it of such manifest elements as will 
 symbolize the dreamers unconscious complex. The 
 over-determination of the dream is such selection 
 to symbolize simultaneously more than one such 
 complex.
 
 454 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Dream-making and Distortion are respectively 
 the arrangement of the elements in such a way as 
 to form some sort of connected story, and the dis- 
 guising of the latent meaning so it will pass the 
 "censorship" of the conscious. 
 
 Erogenous zones are all those parts of the body 
 which have come to awaken sexual feeling when 
 touched. In the child the anal and oral passages 
 are such zones (hence the peculiar pleasure of 
 children at stool or in sucking objects). 
 
 Exhibitionism and Peeping Tendency are re- 
 spectively the passive and active phases which 
 succeed to masocism and sadism. In young chil- 
 dren you will note the tendency to exhibit them- 
 selves on all possible occasions and also to mani- 
 fest a curiosity of intense degree which leads 
 them to looking thru keyholes. 
 
 Fetichism is employed in a psycho-analytic 
 sense to mean the treatment of any object such 
 as a lock of hair, a slipper, etc., of the beloved 
 person, as though it were in essence that person 
 himself. 
 
 Free Association is a method of exploring the 
 unconscious which consists in asking a person to 
 name the word or to describe the scene or memory 
 which first comes to his mind when you give him 
 some key-word. For instance in analyzing a per- 
 son's dream about a black cat, you would prob- 
 ably ask for his association in connection with 
 the word cat, when he might recall that he had 
 called an acquaintance a cat on a certain occasion.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 455 
 
 This might give you a clue by means of which 
 you could determine the real significance of the 
 dream in question. 
 
 Infantile Sexuality is the theory of Freud that 
 sexuality does not as was formerly considered 
 to be the case develop from puberty onward. 
 Freud holds that even the young child has its ap- 
 propriate sexual desire all be it of a different type 
 from that of the adult. At this age the indi- 
 vidual is normally homo-sexual and fixates his 
 affections upon the members of his immediate 
 household although indeed the members of the 
 opposite sex, for instance the mother in the case 
 of her son, comes in for a greater degree of affec- 
 tion usually than members of the same sex. 
 
 Infantilism is the dependent and irresponsible 
 attitude, which is proper to a child, but which 
 normally should be outgrown and give way to the 
 interests and responsibilities of adulthood. In 
 neurotic cases, however, we commonly find that 
 the grown up individual still clings to his child- 
 hood loves, lives on in a kind of dream world and 
 refuses to meet the facts of reality as they are. 
 
 Introversion and Extraversion we have already 
 discussed. Besides the introvert and extravert 
 types Miss Moltzer postulates a third type com- 
 pounded of the two which she calls the intuitive 
 type. The intuitive, according to this analyst, is 
 the kind person whose conscious and unconscious 
 parts of the mind never get greatly out of touch 
 with one another.
 
 456 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Inversion and Perversion are both to be dis- 
 tinguished from each other and from Introver- 
 sion. The invert is the person whose sexual satis- 
 faction is found entirely within himself. The per- 
 vert represents the individual whose desires are 
 completely turned about, so that their object is 
 not the opposite sex but individuals of like sex 
 with himself. 
 
 Libido is the term employed to denote the sum 
 of the individual desire. In the infant, his libido 
 is almost wholly interested in the nutritive func- 
 tion. Only gradually is his passion for eating 
 turned partly into other channels. 
 
 Manifest and latent content of dreams must be 
 distinguished from each other. The manifest 
 content is that which is evident on the surface 
 that is, in the dream about the black cat, the 
 actual performances of said cat, would be the 
 manifest content, and these might very well be 
 taken from actual scenes witnessed by the 
 dreamer on the day before. The latent content, 
 however, is always obscured, and is made up of 
 request material. For example, an elment of the 
 latent content, would perhaps be the person to 
 whom the dreamer had on some previous occa- 
 sion referred as "an old cat." 
 
 Neurotic Anxiety, as shown through the 
 anxiety dream (like a dream of a burglar enter- 
 ing the house and frightening the dreamer), 
 nearly always hides unconscious desire for sexual 
 assault.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 457 
 
 Nuclear-Complexes are those essential groups 
 of ideas rigidly excluded from consciousness 
 around which a great number of associated ideas 
 become clustered. The object of the analysis is 
 to get at these nuclear-complexes ; but, before re- 
 solving them, it is necessary to get rid of a vast 
 amount of protecting material. 
 
 Oedipus and Electra Complexes derive their 
 name as we have already said from the great 
 myths of Oedipus and Electra, of whom Oedipus 
 killed his father and married his mother, while 
 Electra ridded herself of her mother, in order to 
 be united with her father. These myths as we 
 have already said are presumed to embody infan- 
 tile tendencies which are in some degree present 
 at some time in all persons. 
 
 Pleasure of gratifications needs no explanation. 
 Freud distinguishes the end-pleasure from the 
 anticipatory fore-pleasure. 
 
 Prophylaxis and Therapy are used with regard 
 to the mind and emotions in the same sense as 
 with regard to the physical body and its microbic 
 enemies. 
 
 Psycho Analytic Technique is the art of probing 
 the unconscious. Its chief weapon is the analysis 
 of dreams. 
 
 Psycho-sexual constitution is the make-up of 
 the individual as regarded by Freud and his fol- 
 lowers who place emphasis upon the errotic mo- 
 tive as the most impelling one in life and as the 
 cause of practically all hysterias.
 
 458 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Saddism and Masochism are respectively the 
 disposition to derive gratification through the 
 maltreatment of another creature, especially a 
 person of opposite sex, or on the other hand of 
 being injured or beaten by such a person. 
 
 Secondary Elaboration is the process whereby 
 when certain symbols which represent and yet 
 sufficiently disguise an unconscious desire, have 
 been slipped past the censor that stands at the 
 gate of the conscious mind, these materials are 
 then woven into some form of story, so that they 
 appear to have some degree of sequence. 
 
 Somatic is a term referring to the body as op- 
 posed to the psysic (emotional and intellectual). 
 
 Symbolism for analysis is the representation of 
 repressed ideas by means of other ideas which 
 have something in common with them but which 
 are in themselves sufficiently innocent-seeming, 
 so that they themselves are not repressed. 
 
 Wish-fulfillment is a function sometime sub- 
 served by the dream. For example, the alarm 
 clock rings and it is time to get up, whereupon 
 the sleeper simply dreams that he has actually 
 got out of bed and is dressing. And so in reality, 
 he is able to go on sleeping. 
 
 We saw that an entire school of thinkers have 
 been so impressed by the nature of man as an 
 economic animal, and another school we saw had 
 been so impressed by his nature as a sexual ani- 
 mal, that they account for all his acts on the 
 basis of the first or the second of these respective
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 459 
 
 traits alone. So we find certain writers speaking 
 of man as essentially motived by fear of enemies 
 and of distruction. 
 
 This isn't quite, but is a fair approximation to 
 the view expressed by LeDantec in "L' Egoism, 
 Seule Base de Toute Societe,"* (reviewed by Mr. 
 G. Allport) in which he defines "egoism" as the 
 "instinct to self preservation." 
 
 LeDantec is characterized by scientific manner 
 combined with lack of precision in statement 
 which is dangerous. For instance he gives as 
 an analogy of selfishness that every cell in the 
 body e. g., a phagycite, or white blood corpuscle 
 lives on its own account. As a matter of fact, of 
 course, they can do nothing of the sort, unless we 
 suppose them to be intellectual. Because a peb- 
 ble may not exist "for" me to throw it, is no proof 
 it does exist "for" itself. 
 
 Egoism is his name for a vague "instinct to self- 
 preservation." That all which seems altruism is 
 a deformation of egoism due to life in society, is 
 the sweeping conclusion he draws from the surer 
 premise that the social varnish is superficially 
 laid over a primitive cave man (whose nature he 
 assumes to know) . That "Christian" wars show 
 us to be no nearer the "unnatural" ideals of Jesus 
 is shown by the indulgence of Christians in wars 
 even for religion. 
 
 His keenest insight is where he shows the part 
 played by a common enemy (or factor exciting 
 
 Fundamental idea also of a book on strikes published in 1916.
 
 460 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 antagonistical activity) , is a much more powerful 
 force in integrating a group than even the in- 
 creased economic productivity of combined effort. 
 "To be at all is to struggle," and "the individual 
 should consider himself an enemy to all the rest 
 of the universe." But for safety's sake the con- 
 quered are friends. 
 
 Ever since agriculture succeeded hunting, the 
 chief enemies of men have been other men. That 
 "hungry wolves don't eat each other" is untrue 
 all pick upon a disabled member and the col- 
 lege man of today is as much a wolf as ever, and 
 as ready to disregard the rights of weaklings, so 
 that our society is a "bloodless war." Indeed, to 
 get on well with a person, find a ground of com- 
 mon hatred (lots of truth in that! P. H). Jeal- 
 ousy is everywhere, associations "for that com- 
 mon good" are really to fight a common evil, and 
 people forget ego only and hardly in face with 
 a common foe. 
 
 To be sure, a sex-attraction exists. But the 
 family itself was the first unit against enemies, 
 and its type of fraternity is the prototype of all 
 other. Even "mother-love is based on egoism. 
 Here the father from old custom remains a chief, 
 and children continue the habit of obedience ; sen- 
 timents are a blind persistence of old-time biologi- 
 cal compulsion; superstitions much the same; so 
 also 'rights' and duties" surviving in spite of hu- 
 mane societies and legal regulation of parental 
 power.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 461 
 
 Clannishness is frowned upon as neighboring 
 families unite for mutual protection, and the 
 smaller unit became no longer necessary. Such 
 prized virtues as undying gratitude are mythical. 
 The increase of populations according to Malthus' 
 law beyond what the countries can easily support 
 embitters that competition for a living, and 
 France is to be congratulated that her population 
 is decreasing (quite right P. H.) At present 
 wars can't cease. 
 
 As against Trotter's concept of a "herd in- 
 stinct" and the popular metaphysical rationaliza- 
 tion of altruism, LeDantec reduces conscience 
 to a basis of habits based on custom and acquired 
 tradition which are generally to be followed, and 
 to break which is unpleasant. Martyrs for a 
 cause indicate to LeDantec how strong such hab- 
 its may become. In face of a common enemy the 
 individual attenuates his egoistical response for 
 the purposes of social organization, and after the 
 fight is over this deformation is perpetuated thru 
 hypocrisy and meta-physical absolutes. E. g., a 
 god is postulated to reward merit, and the failures 
 of faith are excused by saying the time of reward 
 is of God's own choosing. Law is the codifica- 
 tion of a hierarchy of principles built up in these 
 ways, and both religion and law are now weak 
 because divorced. 
 
 An important note is added at the end the 
 resolution of motives to three mainsprings: (1)
 
 462 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Outgoing acts, (2) withdrawing acts, (3) two or 
 more appetites. 
 
 APPENDIX TO SECTION I. 
 
 We've compiled the following list and synopsis of the 148 cases 
 cited by Jung in his Analytical Psychology, Psychology of the Un- 
 conscious and Theory of Psycho-Analysis. 
 
 LIST OF CASES. 
 
 Cited in Jung's Analytical Psychology. 
 
 1. Pp. 3 ff. Disease: Hysteria, relatively mild. (Jung's case). 
 Patient: Elsie K., 40 years, single; a psychopathic defective. 
 Menstruation, 14-day intervals. Scratched up graves ; saw the 
 dead as skeletons. 
 
 Cause: Nervous exhaustion, producing hallucinations under al- 
 coholic stimulus. 
 
 2. P. 7. Disease: Hystero-epilepsy. (Mentioned by Richer). 
 Patient : Married woman of 30. Saw her children carried away 
 and wild beasts devouring them. 
 
 Symptoms : Twilight states, with terrible hallucinations ; am- 
 nesia for content of individual attacks. 
 
 3. P. 7. Disease: Semi-hysteria. (Mentioned by Richer). 
 Patient: Girl, 17 years. Saw her dead mother coming to claim 
 her. 
 
 Symptoms : Amnesia for content of attacks. 
 
 4. P. 8. Disease: Somnambulism with recurrent amnesia. (Naef). 
 Patient: Man of 32 years. Family history showed degeneration. 
 Symptoms : Suddenly travelled from Australia to Zurich. Am- 
 nesia for entire trip to and from, and sojourn in Australia. 
 
 5. P. 9. Disease: Periodic amnesia, several weeks at a time (Azam). 
 Patient: Albert X., 12Mj years; of hysterical disposition. 
 Symptoms : Forgot everything, even his own language. Normal 
 in intervals. 
 
 6. P. 9. Disease : Hystero-epilepsy and ambulatory automatism. 
 (Proust). 
 
 Patient: Educated man, 30 years. Very suggestible. 
 Symptoms : Repeated attacks from 2 days to several weeks long ; 
 wanders about irresponsibly. 
 
 7. P. 9. Disease: Ambulatory automatism, with hysteria and som- 
 nambulism, and total amnesia. (Boileau). 
 
 Patient : Widow of 22 ; traveled about 38 miles to fetch her 
 
 child ; awoke after 3 days. 
 
 Cause : Threatened operation for salpingitis. 
 
 8. Pp. 9 and 10. Disease : Ambulatory automatism, with com- 
 plete amnesia. (Wm. James). 
 
 Patient : Rev. Ansel Bourne, 30 years. Itinerant preacher ; 
 psychopathic. Attacks of loss of consciousness. 
 Symptoms : Disappeared : 2 months later woke in distant town, 
 where he had bought and managed a shon. 
 
 9. P. 10. Disease: Somnambulism with hallucinations. (Mesnet). 
 Patient: F. 27 years. Sergeant in African regiment. 
 
 Cause: Wound in parietal bone, causing hemiplegia until healed. 
 10. P. 10. Disease: Hysteria. (Guinon and Sophie Waltke). 
 
 Patient: Female, in hysterical attack, saw elaborate pictures in 
 
 colors. 
 
 Cause: Experiments in holding colored glass before patient's eyes.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 463 
 
 11. Pp. 10, 11. Disease: Amnesia in a secondary state which alter- 
 nated with normal corsciousness for years. (MacNish). 
 Patient: A young lady, apparently healthy. 
 
 Cause: An abnormally deep and long sleep. 
 
 12. Pp. 12. 75. Disease: Somnambulic dream-pictures, seen in wak- 
 ing consciousness. (Sse No. 38). 
 
 Patient: Goethe; related in "Zur Naturwissenschaft in Allge- 
 meinen." 
 
 13. i. Disease: Attempted suicide. (Bleuler). 
 
 Patient: An educated middle-aged gentleman, who had done 
 
 over-strenuous mental work. 
 
 Cause: As no epileptic antecedents, nervous exhaustion simply. 
 
 14. Pp. 16 ff. Disease: Somnambulism, with hallucinations and au- 
 tomatisms, amounting to secondary personality. (Spiritualistic 
 medium). (Jung). 
 
 Patient: Miss S. W., 15% years. Neuropathic inheritance. 
 Symptoms: Attecks occurred at frequent intervals for more than 
 two years ; partial amnesia. 
 
 15. y l so. 37, 44. 45, 69. 87-93. Disease ( ?) (Justinus Kerner). 
 Patient: Frau Haffe, "Die Seherin von Prevorst " 
 
 16. Pp. ii and 0. Disepip. Hysteria, automatic substitution of ad- 
 jacent association. (Binet). 
 
 Patients : Man whose pricked aneasthetic hand made him think 
 "points ;" woman who saw mentally the word her aneasthetic 
 hand was writing unseen. 
 
 17. Pp. 54 ff. Disease: Automatic writing. (Myers). 
 
 Patient: Mr. A., a member of the Society for Psychical Research, 
 making experiments on himself. 
 
 18. Pp. 55, 66, 75. Disease: Multiple personality (?). (Janet). 
 Patient : "Lucie." 
 
 Symt>toms: The method of creating the sub-conscious personality 
 "Adrienne." 
 
 19. Pp. 61-64, 69, 72, 84, 89, 90, 91. Disease: Hallucination and 
 automatism. (Flournoy). 
 
 Patient: Helen Smith. 
 
 Symptoms 'Somnambulism with glossolalia. 
 
 20. P. 62. Experiments : 
 
 Patient: Maury experimenting upon himself. 
 
 Symptoms : Pictures seen hypogogically became the subjects of 
 
 the dreams that followed. 
 
 21. P. 62. Experiments to the same effect as the above. 
 Patient: G. Trumbull LaHd. experimenting on himself. 
 
 22. Pp. 63, 84. Disease: Hallucinations. (Jules Quicherat). 
 Patient: Jeanne d'Arc. 
 
 Symotoms : Hallucinations appearing in accordance with pre- 
 dominating presentations. 
 
 23. P". 37. 44 63 Disease: Hallucinations. (Hagen). 
 Patient : Swedenborg. 
 
 Symptoms : Hallucinations appearing in accordance with pre- 
 dominating presentations. 
 
 24. P. 63. Disease: Hallucinations. (Goethe). 
 Patient: Be^venuto Cellini. 
 
 Symptoms : Ibid. 
 
 25. P. 63. Disease : Hallucinations. 
 P"t\" r -t: An unnamed student. 
 Symptoms : Ibid. 
 
 26. Pp. 64, 65. 84. Disease: Character-change. (S. Weir-Mitchell). 
 Patient: Miss Mary Reynolds, who lived in Pa, in 1811. 
 Symptoms : Long sleep ; complete amnesia ; character and dis- 
 position totally changed. Alternating two states of conscious-
 
 464 
 
 ness for 16 years ; last 25 years of life spent in the secondary 
 state exclusively. 
 
 27. P. 65. Disease: Character-change: (Schroeder von de Kalk). 
 Patient : Young woman, 15 years. 
 
 Symptoms : After 3 years of illness, she was seized with peri- 
 odic and complete amnesia. Normal state, intelligent, well- 
 read ; abnormal state, silly, childish. 
 
 28. P. 66. Disease Character-change. (Hoefelt). 
 Patient : Girl, submissive and modest. 
 
 Symptoms : Spontaneous somnambulism, and change to imperti- 
 nent, rude, and violent. 
 
 29. Pp. 66, 84. Disease: Character-change. (Azam). 
 Patient: Felida, 14% years. Depressed and timid. 
 Symptoms: Amnesic attacks, with secondary state gradually be- 
 coming chief ; new disposition, lively, reckless. Later, an ap- 
 proximation of conduct between the two states. 
 
 30. P. 66. Disease: Hysteria, with amnesic alternating character. 
 Patient: Louis V, of France. 
 
 (Bourru and Burot, and others). 
 
 Symptoms : At periodic intervals displays the worst tendencies. 
 
 Second, agreeable, sympathetic, industrious, and obedient. 
 
 31. P. 66. Disease: Character-change. (Rieger) 
 Patient: "A case parallel to Lindau's criminal lawyer." 
 
 32. P. 66. Disease: Character-change. (Morton Prince) 
 Patient ; Case from "an Experimental Study of Visions." 
 
 33. P. 67. DLease: Periodic change in personality without am- 
 nesic dissociation. (Renaudin) 
 
 Symptoms : First stage, rude, greedy, thievish, inconsiderate. 
 Patient : A young man of excellent character. 
 Body aneasthetic during bad intervals. 
 
 34. P. 69. Disease : Double consciousness. (Janet) 
 Patient: Leonie I and Leonie II. 
 
 Symptoms : A naturalness in contrast with "Ivenes," S. W.'s 
 second personality. 
 
 35. Pp. 70, 71. Disease: Hysterical dreaming. (Pick) 
 
 Patient: Woman. Thinks herself the Empress Elizabeth. (Same 
 
 Case?) 
 
 Symptoms : Acted out the idea of attempted rape upon herself. 
 
 36. P. 70. Disease: Pathological dreaming. (Bohn) 
 Patient: Woman. 
 
 Symptoms : Dreamt herself into a marriage engagement with a 
 totally imaginary lawyer, and corresponded with him, disguising 
 her handwriting. 
 
 37. P. 71. Disease: Hysterical identification. (Erler) 
 Patient : Woman, acutely hysterical. 
 
 Symptoms : Thought herself one of several little paper riders 
 whom she saw hypnogogically. 
 
 38. P. 75. Disease : Hypnotic somnambulism. 
 
 Patient: Bettina Brentano, who suddenly fell asleep upon Goethe's 
 
 knee, the first time she met him. 
 
 Cause : Psychic stimulation bringing about the hypnotic state. 
 
 39. P. 75. Disease : Susceptibility to somnambulic states. 
 Patient: A sensitive lady about to have a splinter cut out of 
 her finger. 
 
 Symptom : Pleasurable hallucination of plucking flowers, the 
 state disappearing spontaneously when the operation was over. 
 
 40. P. 76. Disease: Spontaneous hypnosis. (Bonamaison) 
 Patient : Remarkable case, "in which not only was the sense 
 
 .of touch retained, but the senses of hearing and smell were 
 quickened."
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 465 
 
 41. P. 76. Disease: Hysterical lethargy. (Loewenfeld) 
 Patients : "D." 
 
 Symptoms : A fleeting recollection of the lethargic interval, in- 
 stead of the usual total amnesia. 
 
 42. P. 76. Disease: Hysterical lethargy. (Loewenfeld) 
 Patient: "St." 
 
 Symptoms : Lethargy was turned into hypnosis by mesmeric 
 passes, and thus combined with the rest of consciousness during 
 the attack. 
 
 43. P. 81. Disease: Hystero-epilepsy. (Janet) 
 
 Patient: Man who had a vision of a conflagration during at- 
 tacks, and in whom an attack could be induced by the sight of 
 a lighted match. 
 
 Cause: This relatively slight amnesic dissociation shows the 
 d.ep foundation of the ego-complex. 
 
 44. P. 84. Disease : Somnambulism. (Dyce) 
 Patient : ( ?) during age of puberty. 
 Cause: Puberty as inducing somnambulism. 
 
 45. Pp. 87-89. Disease: Cryptomnesia. (Frau E. Forster-Nietzsche) 
 Patient : Nietzsche. 
 
 Symptoms : Almost verbal reproduction of a passage from Ker- 
 ner's "Blatter aus Prevorst," in "Thus Spake Zarathustra." 
 
 46. P. 89. Disease: Glossolalia. 
 
 Patient: Judge Edmond's daughter Laura. 
 
 47. P. 89. Disease: Glossolalia. (Bresler) 
 
 Patient: Probably identical with Blumhardt's Gottlieben Dittus. 
 
 48. P. 96. Circumstarc : Use of Association method. 
 Test-person : A hysterical woman. 
 
 Result: Her reactions showed the two typically hysterical ten- 
 dncKS ; long reaction time ; explanatory woris rather than 
 simple reactions (Jnet's sentiment d'incompletude, Freud's re- 
 . inforced object-libido). 
 
 49. P. 103. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : A hysteric. 
 
 Result: Many failures to react at all. 
 
 50. P. 106. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 
 Test-person : A man of small stature, younger than his three 
 
 tall brothers ; had a psychosis. 
 
 Result: The word short came frequently and without meaning. 
 
 51. Pp. 106-118. Circumstance: Suspicion of theft of money. 
 Test-person : "A," a woman friend of Read nurse : had been 
 present at probable time of theft; later confessed to it. 
 Result: Association experiment pointed in every detail to her 
 guilt. 
 
 52. Pp. 106-113. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 
 Test-person : "B," the head nurse of the hospital. 
 Result: In spite of suspicious outward appearances, every re- 
 action to the test indicated innocence. 
 
 53. Pp. 106-113. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 
 Test-person : "C," the nurse who had charge of cleaning the 
 
 room. 
 
 Result: Outwardly calm, every reaction indicated innocence, and 
 
 even ignorarce till near the end of the test 
 
 54. P. 114. Circumstance: Reaction to test given by older intelligent 
 woman student. 
 
 Test^person : A young student, who thought the test an exam- 
 ination in intelligence. 
 
 Result: He reacted with definitions, seeking the significance of 
 the stimulus words ; results similar to those of an idiot.
 
 466 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 55. Pp. 118-119. Disease: Episodic excitement, with violent jeal- 
 ousy of husband. 
 
 Patient: An educated woman of 30 years, married 3 years. 
 Cause: Reactions to association test showed jealousy was pro- 
 jection of her own sexual wishes, as she was faithless in her 
 fancies. 
 
 56. Pp. 121, 122, 125, 158, 159. Circumstance: Association method 
 applied according to 15 separate standards. 
 
 Test-t>erson : A middle-aged man, husband of No. 57, father of 
 No. 58 ; a drunkard and quite demoralized. 
 
 57. Pp. 121, 122, 125, 126, 158, 159. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : A woman of 46 years, wife of No. 56, and mother 
 of No. 58. 
 
 Result: A pure predicate type, with marked subjective tendency. 
 
 58. Pp. 121, 122, 125, 126, 158, 159. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : Girl of 16 years, the daughter of Nos. 56 and 57. 
 Result : A pure predicate type, with marked subjective tendency ; 
 almost complete agreement with mother. 
 
 59 ; Pp. 122, 123. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : The husband of No. 60. 
 
 Result : Predicate objective type ; almost complete agreement 
 with wife. 
 
 60. Pp. 122, 123. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : Wife of No. 59. 
 
 Result : Predicate objective type ; almost complete agreement 
 with husband, though with some few more subjective tendencies. 
 
 61. P. 123. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : The father of Nos. 62 and 63. 
 
 Result : Predicate objective type ; quite close agreement with 
 daughters. 
 
 62. P. 123. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 
 Tst n-rs'-m : First r'j'Ufirhtrr of No. 61. 
 
 Result: Predicate objective type somewhat more pronounced than 
 
 eiJier father or sister, but in quite close agreement with them. 
 
 63. P. 123. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : Second daughter of No. 61. 
 
 Result: Predicate objective type, somewhat less pronounced than 
 sister, and a trifle more than father. 
 
 64. P. 123. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 
 Test-person : A woman, single, living with her sister, who is 
 No. 65. 
 
 Result: Fairly predicate-objective type, excelling in some re- 
 spects her married sister and falling below in others. 
 
 65. P. 123. Circumstances: Ibid. 
 
 Test-person : A woman, married, living with her sister, No. 64. 
 Result: Fairly predicate-objective type, quite harmonious with 
 the sister who is single. 
 
 66. Pp. 123, 124. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 
 Test-person : A man, the husband of No. 67, and brother-in-law 
 
 of Nos. 64 and 65. 
 
 Result: A fairly subjective and emotional type. 
 
 67. Pp. 123, 124. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 
 Test-person : Wife of No. 66, and sister of Nos. 64 and 65. 
 Result: Rapid falling away from objective type of sisters, and 
 almost complete agreement with husband's type. 
 
 68. Pp. 124, 125. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person : Mother of No. 69. 
 
 Result: Mother and daughter, living together, show complete 
 agreement both in thought and form of expression.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 467 
 
 69. Pp. 124, 125. Circumstance: Ibid. 
 Test-person: Daughter of No. 68. 
 
 Result: Complete agreement with mother; L e., utterly subject 
 to milieu. 
 
 Patient: A youth who ran away from parents, yet cherished 
 a box of childhood treasures. 
 
 Cause: The depressions of puberty, resulting from effort to free 
 himself from spell of family, and difficulty in forming new 
 adjustment. 
 
 71. Pp. 127, 128. Disease: A neurosis. 
 
 Patient: An intelligent and educated young woman, who thought 
 her eyes influenced men disagreeably. 
 
 Cause : Repressed erotic wishes ; a certain predilection for lov- 
 ing mentally abnormal persons a result of her love for an 
 older brother who became hopelessly insane at 14 years. 
 
 72. Pp. 129-131. Disease: Dementia praecox. 
 
 Patient: A lady whose husband was in every way suitable for her. 
 Cause : The favorite daughter of her father, she continually 
 compared with him her husband to the disadvantage of the lat- 
 ter; the infantile constellation. 
 
 73. Pp. 132-5, 149, 150, 170. Circumstance: Study of the psy- 
 chology of the child. (Freud) 
 
 Case: Little Hans, a 5-year-old boy. 
 
 R suit: A knowledge of a child's mental processes, especially in 
 
 relation to the discoveries concerning sex. 
 
 74. Pp. 135-154. Circumstance: Ibid. (Jung) 
 
 Case: Anna, a 3 year-old girl, a healthy, lively child of emo- 
 tional temperament. 
 Result: Ibid. 
 
 75. P. 153. Disease: Excessive masturbation. 
 Patient: A 4-year-old girl. 
 
 Cause: The child slept in the same room with parents. 
 
 76. PD. 160-2. Disease: A climacteric neurosis. 
 
 Patient: A well-preserved woman of 55, a favorite daughter, 
 twice married. 
 
 Cause : The parental constellation ; The dominance of her father 
 throughout her life. 
 
 77. Pp. 162-165. Dis ase: Nervousness with suicidal tendency. 
 Patient: Man of 34 years, of small build, youngent of three 
 brothers ; married to his brother's widow ; in love with a young 
 girl. 
 
 Cause : The familial constellation ; the relation to the father 
 strongest, with masochistic homosexual coloring. 
 
 78. Pp. 165-170. Disease: Nervousness and anxiety, because of 
 religious fears after father's sudden death. 
 
 Patient: A peasant woman of 36 years, a/erage intelligence, 
 healthy, the mother of 3 children. 
 
 Cause: Father's favorite; married against his wbhes, refusing 
 an idiot servant, whom her father wished her to marry. Her 
 husband a good man: her father a drunkard and swearer; great 
 anxiety over her father's soul. 
 
 79. Pp. 170-172. Disease: Enuresis. 
 
 Patient: Bey of 8 years, intelligent, afraid of his father, lov- 
 ing his over-indulgent mother. 
 
 Cause : In a position of too much dependence on parents ; Jeal- 
 ous of his father, yet homosexual toward him. 
 
 80. P* 174-175. Reference to the love episode in the Book of 
 Tobias. 
 
 Case: Sarah, daughter of Raguel, had 7 successive husband*
 
 468 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 who all died on the wedding night ; her 8th, Tobias, lived tho 
 
 Raguel had dug his son-in-law's grave beforehand. 
 
 Cause : A mythological account of the father constellation. 
 
 81. P. 174. Disease: Hysteria. 
 
 Patient: A woman who had three husbands. 
 Cause: Husbands were all chosen under the infantile constella- 
 tion. 
 
 82. Pp. 176-190. Disease: A phantasy of puberty. 
 
 Patient: Marie X., a 13-year-old school girl, expelled for start- 
 ing an ugly rumour about her teacher. 
 
 Cause: A dream of Marie's, of wish-fulfillment, which dream, 
 when retold, became a rumour because it voiced the sexual 
 complex of the girls of the school. 
 
 88. Pp. 191-196. Circumstance : Three dreams each containing a 
 number. 
 
 Patient: A middle-aged man, having an extra-conjugal love 
 affair. 
 
 Causes : The first and second numbers showed a tendency to 
 count up the cost of the love affair ; the third, envy of his doc- 
 tor because the latter had one child more than he. 
 
 84. Pp. 196-199. Circumstance: A dream consisting only of a 
 name and number. 
 
 Patient: The wife of No. 83. 
 
 Cause: The repressed wish that her husband, impotent as re- 
 gards herself, might die, and she marry again and have another 
 child. 
 
 85. Pp. 209-211. Disease: A neurosis. 
 
 Patient : A man about 40, with wife and children ; has an in- 
 tense resistance toward his professional work. 
 Cause : Difficulties with wife, a childish egoism, etc. 
 
 86. Pp. 209, 210. Disease: A neurosis. 
 
 Patient: A woman of 40, mother of 4 children; after death 
 e h'd s fi th : neurosis better; now wants another; can 
 find no other interest sufficient to make her well. 
 
 87. Pp. 217, 218. Circumstance: Dream of fire in hotel, from which 
 patient was rescued by husband and father. 
 
 Patient: A married woman, of frivolous mental attitude. 
 Result of analysis : In a hotel patient had a questionable love 
 affair. 
 
 88. Pp. 219, 220. Circumstance: Dream of going upstairs with 
 . mother and sister. 
 
 Patient : A young man ; neurotic ; difficulty in choosing pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Result of analysis: Dream symbols have more than one mean- 
 ing ; here, signified patient's neglected biological duties. 
 
 89. P. 239. Disease : Various neurotic troubles. 
 Patient: A withered peasant woman of 50 years. 
 
 Result: Her reaction to hypnotism aroused the suspicion that 
 there was a sex element in suggestion. 
 
 90. Pp. 239, 240. Disease: Enuresis nocturna. 
 
 Patient : Girl of 17 years ; had suffered since early childhood. 
 Result of hypnotic treatment: Success of cure due in part to 
 an evident sex element in the method. 
 
 91. Pp. 240, 241. Disease: Pain in knee-joint of 17 years duration. 
 Patient: Woman of 65 years. 
 
 Result of hypnotic treatment: A wonderfully sudden cure which 
 gave good evidence of the purely personal nature of the success. 
 
 92. P. 246. Disease: Enuresis nocturna. (Loy) 
 
 Patient : A girl of 15 years, who had suffered from infancy. 
 Result: Rapid cure by hypnotism.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 469 
 
 93. P. 246. Disease: The washing mania. (Loy) 
 Patient: A woman. 
 
 Result: Cure thru light hypnotism and psychoanalysis. 
 
 94. P. 247. Disease: Masturbation. (A colleague of Ley's) 
 Patient: A young French boy whose grandmother interfered 
 when sexual enlightenment was given. 
 
 95. P. 265. Disease: Extreme erotic transference phantasies. 
 (Jung) 
 
 Patient: A very intelligent lady, who unconsciously acted on 
 the insight gained from analysis, and dreamed of the doctor 
 and herself without the forms of transference. 
 
 96. PD. 303, 304, 305-311. Circumstance: Dream of surreptitiously 
 plucking an apple from a tree in a strange garden. 
 
 Patient: A young man. 
 
 Result of association method applied to dream material : A love 
 affair with a housemaid, with whom he had a rendezvous the 
 day before. 
 
 97. Pn 319-322. Disease: Dementia Praecox. 
 
 Patient : Cook, woman of 32 years ; no hereditary taint. Teeth 
 extraction caused anxiety attacks. 
 
 Result of psychoanalysis : She had had an illegitimate child, 
 knowledge of which she wished to keep from her present lover. 
 
 98. Pp. 322-328. Disease: Dementia Praecox. 
 
 Patient : Man of 30 to 40 years ; a foreign archaelogist of great 
 learning and unusual intelligence. 
 
 Result of T>sychoanp]ys ; s : All delusions, etc., are explicable by 
 the incidents of a futile love affair of many years before. 
 
 99. Po. 327-328. Circumstance : The psychosis has one noteworthy 
 picture in 1'terature, "Impgo." 
 
 Author: The artist Spitteler. 
 
 Cause: "The er+i~t knows PS a rule better than the psychiatrist." 
 
 100. Pp. 328, 329. Disease: Dementia Praecox. 
 
 Patient: Man five years in bed without uttering a word. No 
 
 explanation given. 
 
 Cause: Time makes no difference to the patient. 
 
 101. P. 329. Disease : Dementia Praecox. 
 
 Pt*ent: Man silent for y~rs, "to snare the German language." 
 Cause: To patients, nothing peculiar in experiences. 
 
 102. Pp. 329-330. Disease: Dementia Praecox. 
 
 Patient: Woman for 35 years ill in bed: back bent, head bowed, 
 
 knees somewhat drawn up, and hand held as in position of 
 
 sewing. 
 
 Analysis: A love affair that had come to nothing. The man 
 
 was a shoemaker. 
 
 103. P. 330. Disease: Dementia Praecox. 
 
 Patient: Man with mad medley of delusions and words except 
 
 when physically seriously ill. 
 
 Conclusion : Reason survives in some corner of the mind. 
 
 104. Pp. 331-335. Disease: Dmentia Praecox ; "the classic example 
 of meaningless delusional ideas." 
 
 Patient: A woman, dressmaker; fell ill at 39 yars : sat for 
 20 years mechanicelly sewing, apparently an imbecile yet utter- 
 ing odd words which proved to be keys to rich and satisfying 
 phantasies. 
 
 105. P. 335. Circumstance: The character of 'Hannele in the. 
 drama of that name. 
 
 Author : Hauptmann. 
 
 Cause: "Something common both to the artist and the insane 
 
 and to ... every human being."
 
 470 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 106. Pp. 337-343. Disease: Paranoid dementia. (Freud) 
 
 Patient : P. Schreber, revealed in his autobiography, "Denk- 
 wurdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken." 
 
 Ann lysis : The infantile complex ; also bizarre concatenations 
 of ideas. 
 
 107. PT>. 338-343. Circumstance: The interpretation of "Faust" 
 causally. 
 
 Patients : The symbol Faust, the man Goethe ; the human being. 
 Analysis : The causal standpoint leads to constructive under- 
 standing. 
 
 108. Pp. 358-361. Disease: Hysteria, spastic paralysis of right arm, 
 systematic aphasia; twilight states. (Breuer & Freud) 
 Patient : A very intelligent young woman : the psychic injury, 
 or trauma, occurred while nursing her dying father. 
 
 Cure: Effected by psychoanalysis, one of the first cases. 
 
 109. P. 358. Disease: Hysteria, causing loss of hearing. 
 
 Patient: A lady, who still sang. The doctor, accompanying 
 her, changed the key, and she sang on in the altered key, show- 
 ing she heard. 
 
 CPUSC: An anatomical impossibility is often symptomatic of 
 hysteria, 
 
 110. Pp. 358, 359. Disease: Hysteria, causing comolete blindness. 
 Patient: A man, who. gradually recovering his sight, sees 
 everything but people's heads. 
 
 Cuse: The consciousness only, not the sense function, is 
 affected. 
 
 111. Pp. 361-366. Disease: Hysteria, following a sudden fright. 
 Patient: A young lady, who is in love with her friend's hus- 
 band and not with the man she is engaged to. 
 
 Cause : The erotic conflict, and not the trauma resulting from 
 the fright of runaway horses in her childhood. 
 
 112. Pp. 381-383. 392-394, 414. Circumstance: Conflict of soul, as 
 seen in the life ard works of Nietzsche ; wherein he differed from 
 Wagn-r: the "will to power." 
 
 113. Pp. 385-391, 406-408. Disease: A neurosis; terror, nervous asthma; 
 choking. 
 
 Patient: A young married woman, hr father's favorite, who 
 had hd before her marriage, a flirtation with an Italian. 
 Analysis : Cause in conflict between the infantile-Totic relation 
 to father pnd love for hr husband (according to Freud). 
 Cause in the will to power of the ego, which first took advantage 
 of parents' estrangement, then asserted the ego by neurosis when 
 influence over husband flogged (according to Adler). 
 
 114. Pp. 399-401, 405, 415. Disease: Hypochondria. 
 
 Pt s "nt: A retired American business man, of 45 years; self- 
 made. 
 
 Csuse: Active creative energy turned back into himself with 
 destructive force. A hopeless case. 
 
 115. Pp. 418-430, 434. 435. Disease: Infantile comolex directed to- 
 ward a friend ; homosexual tendency : trsnsfererce to doctor. 
 Patient: A woman artist whose "Heal friendship" with an- 
 other woman artist produced a neurosis in both. 
 
 Analysis : Succss in restoring the individual psyche. 
 
 116. Pp. 447, 448. Disease: Schizophrenia. (Maeder) 
 
 Patient : A man who called the world his picture-book ; a lock- 
 smith, without intellectual gifts. 
 
 Analysis : His idea just as universal in character as Schopen- 
 hauer's world, but has stood still in an embryonic stage of
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 471 
 
 growth, while Schopenhauer's has changed to an abstraction 
 
 universally valid. 
 
 Cases cited in Jung's "Psychology of the Unconscious." 
 
 117. Pp. 37-41. Disease: Introversion psychosis. (Anatole France) 
 Patient: Abbe Oegger, a priest much given to phantasies; re- 
 ceived a sign to prove that Judas was saved. 
 
 Cause: Unconscious preparation of his mind for hhwelf play- 
 ing the part of Judes. as he left the Roman Catholic Church 
 and became a Swedenborgian. 
 
 118. PT>. 41-138 191. ff. thruout book. Subject: Poms and auto- 
 biographical material from "Quelque faits ^'imagination crentice 
 sub-onsciente." Author: Miss Frank Miller, an American 
 woman. 
 
 Disease: Archaic definition overlays real meaning of modern 
 
 word. 
 
 Patient: A woman, who discf>vrd the mythologic (Spielrein) 
 
 m">ni"<r of alcohol to be "an effusion of seed ;" had a symbolism 
 
 of boiling ; used water and earth to express mother ; and deemed 
 
 the sun's rays solid. 
 
 120. v-> i*;7-l60. D ; sese: Dementia praecox. 
 
 Patient: A woman marrifd many years, and taken ill after 
 the death of her child ; symptom, a peculiar boring movement 
 on her left temnje. 
 Cause: Prdominance of the infantile. 
 
 121. P 162. Disease: A catatonic state. 
 
 Patient: A ymi*>sr girl, just engaged; on first seeing the doctor, 
 
 requested something to eat. 
 
 Cu<!': P<rressior> t.o th" prsexual stage. 
 
 122. P. 162. Disease: Dementia praecox. 
 
 Pftint: A yiuni? maidservant; had delusions mixing sexual 
 
 pnd rutirMve element*. 
 
 Cause: Regression to the presexual stage. 
 
 123. P 18S. Disease: Imbecility showing in incendiarism. (Dr. 
 Schmid) 
 
 Patient: A peasant youth. 
 
 C"us-: CiTPCti^d with masturbation. 
 
 124. P 203. CircuT"sti>r>c': A dr*>rn tht th physician speared to 
 the wall an animal half pig, half crocodile. 
 
 Patient: A neurotic man who had questionable relations with 
 
 women. 
 
 Cus-: The fear that the physician would forbid his sexual 
 
 adventures. 
 
 125. P. 206. Circumstance: Hynogo<?'c vision of the patient's 
 mother t>aint.ed o a By,*"tine chroh wH : one hnn-1 with 
 g _ r ..,4 fingers, which were large and had knobs at the end. 
 Patient: A man. 
 
 Ou p- T,-, h""d h<H a php"'"c m-nning. 
 
 126. *->. 20<?. ?07. Circn^starc". Phnntasy of a "sVy-rocket," which 
 then becomes a golden pheasant, ascending from his mother's 
 hr>d. 
 
 Pntient: Same man PS No. 125. 
 
 C"iie' Th <--n-ctin of the idea of fire which is also a bird. 
 
 with the T-hslHc hand. 
 
 127. P. 210. Circumstance: Phantasy that defecation is like the 
 emotion of a volcano. 
 
 Patient: A man who h^d this phantasy in his childhood. 
 -<,<> "Th trrm- 'or **"* ^'"mental occurrences of nature are 
 originally not at all poetical."
 
 472 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 128. P. 211. Circumstance: Phantasy that the patient's father was 
 sitting on the toilet in dignified manner, and receiving greetings 
 from people who passed. 
 
 Patient: A woman characterized by special veneration for her 
 
 father. 
 
 Cause : The close connection of the idea of veneration with 
 
 the anal region. 
 
 129. P. 211. Circumstance: A dream of the representation of "the 
 Crucified on the bottom of a blue-flowered chamber pot." 
 Patient: A young man very religiously trained. 
 
 Cause: The intimate connection of the faeces and gold, the 
 most worthless with the most valuable, i. e., with the religious. 
 
 130. P. 212. Circumstarce : Child's reply, when on toilet, that she 
 was making "A little wagon and two ponies," things she es- 
 pecially wished for. 
 
 Case: "Anna," who had a well-developed anal theory of birth. 
 Cause : The child's enormous interest in derecation and its 
 products, seeing that thereby something is produced. 
 
 131. P. 212. Circumstance: The phantasy of childhood that from a 
 crevice in the wall of the toilet a fairy would come and bring 
 everything it wished. 
 
 Patient: A woman. 
 Cause : Ibid. 
 
 132. Po. 212-213. Disease: Insanity. (Lombroso) 
 
 Patient: An artist who considered himself God and the ruler 
 of the world, making it come forth from the rectum. 
 Cause : The great valuation placed upon the excrement. 
 
 133. Pp. 212-213. Disease: Insanity. (Lombroso) 
 
 Patient : An artist who had the same phantasy as No. 132, and 
 who painted a picture of himself with the world coming forth 
 from his arms. 
 Cause : Ibid. 
 
 134. P. 213. Disease: Insanity. 
 
 Patient: An educated woman, separated from husband and child 
 under tragic circumstances ; smeared herself with excrement when 
 the doctor had established a hopeful train of thot. 
 Cause : Now known to be an infantile ceremony of welcome, or a 
 declaration of love. 
 
 135. PD. 248 249. Disease: Illness resulting from typical retention 
 of the libido ; dream of a garden containing a remarkable exotic 
 tree with flowers and fruit : she ate and found herself poisoned. 
 Patient: A woman many yars married, who had recently met a 
 young man very pleasing to her. 
 
 Cause: The tree has a nhallic significance. 
 
 136. P. 275. Circumstance: Drsm that th patient's IMT is encircled 
 by a large red worm, for whom she had a tender interest. 
 Patient: A girl of 6 years, who goes to school unwillingly. 
 Cause : The motive of encircling is the mother symbolism. 
 (For case mentioned Pp. 275-276 see No. 115.) 
 
 137. P. 362. Circumstance: Explanation of the maternal significance 
 of water in regard to the mother complex. 
 
 Patient: A woman, who shuddered at the explanation and thot 
 of a jellyfish. 
 
 Cause : The encircling and devouring motive in the jellyfish 
 denotes th re-absorption in the mother complex. 
 
 138. P. 363. Circumtance : Dream of being as high as a church 
 steeple, and of threatening a policeman. 
 
 Patient: A girl of 11 years. 
 
 Cause: A wish inversion; the policeman is the father, "whose 
 
 gigantic size is overcompensated by the church steeple."
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 473 
 
 139. P. 413. Circumstance: Dream of a serpent bite in the region 
 of the genitals. 
 
 Pat.ent : A man trying to free himself from his mother complex. 
 Cause: The conviction that he was inspired and poisoned by 
 his mother expressed itself by the contrary phallic symbol. 
 
 140. Pp. 413, 414. Circumstance: Dream that the patient was filled 
 . with a great snake, whose tail could be seen but not seized. 
 
 Patient: A woman in a relapse, during which the libido was 
 
 again introverted. 
 
 Cause: The snake the symbol of the libido. 
 
 141. P. 414. Disease: A very strong introversion (catatonic state). 
 Patient: A woman who complained that a snake stuck in her 
 throat. 
 
 Cause : Ibid. 
 
 Cases Cited in Jung's "Theory of Psychoanalysis." 
 
 142. P. 10. Disease : Hysteria ; hallucinations of smell. 
 Patient: Miss Lucy R., an English governess in Vienna. 
 Result: Cure effected by psychoanalysis. (Freud) 
 Conclusion : The etiological moment not found in traumatic 
 scenes, but in the "insufficient readiness of the patient to set 
 store upon the convictions passing thru her mind." (Jung) 
 (For case discussed Pp. 12-14, 46-49, 72-77, see case No. 111.) 
 
 143. Pp. 25, 26, 28. Disease: Homosexuality. 
 
 Patient: A young man who conquered the homosexual tendency, 
 and after being heterosexual for some years, became homosexual 
 again because of a woman's refusal to marry him. 
 
 Cause: A reversion of the libido. 
 
 (For case mentioned Pp. 35, 36 ; also "Psychology of the Un- 
 conscious," P. 152 ; see case No. 106.) 
 
 144. P. 48. Circumstance: A lively fear of earthquakes. 
 Cause: The shock of an earthquake long recovered from. 
 
 145. Pp. 84-89. Disease : An ordinary hysteria. 
 
 Patient: The elder of two sisters but a year apart in age. 
 Cause: Indecision as to marriage, while her sister married 
 without any emotional obstacle ; also, she was the favorite daugh- 
 ter, and had apparently an incest phantasy toward her father. 
 
 146. Pp. 89, 90. Disease: Hysteria. 
 
 Patient: A woman whose mother had written of her in early 
 childhood, that she was always good-tempered and enterprising. 
 Conclusion : Unusual sensitiveness in children is discernible in 
 infancy. 
 
 147. Pp. 8y, 90. Disease: Catatonia. 
 
 Patient: Sister of No. 146. Her mother had written of her, 
 when she was 2% years old, that she was always in difficulties 
 with both people and things. 
 Conclusion : Ibid. 
 
 148. Pp. 112-133. Disease: A neurosis in a child. (Jung and Miss 
 Mary Moltzer.) Patient: A girl of 11 years; intelligent. Sud- 
 den sickness and headache ; reluctance to go to school ; later, 
 fever; liking for a teacher, followed by estrangement; a boy 
 friend. 
 
 Cause: Complicated emotional processes, due to the gradual 
 approach of puberty.
 
 474 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 SECTION 2 
 
 The above section has told you something of the 
 pathological aberrations caused when instincts 
 are too much repressed. It is time we enquired 
 into the normal nature of instincts. 
 
 This chapter continues our skeleton of funda- 
 mental principles of human nature. Human na- 
 ture is what we have to deal with every day more 
 than with anything else. It is more important 
 than all the arts, and is the key to an understand- 
 ing of history and politics; perhaps this is why 
 nothing ever is said about it in the public schools, 
 for a general knowledge of it would .explain too 
 many of our cherished delusions. 
 
 For most of our institutions not only, but also 
 our habitual manner when provoked, is based 
 upon a tacit assumption that human conduct is 
 best controlled thru the single motive of Fear. 
 
 Never has much intelligence been required, to 
 see in other's fears, emotions easy to exploit to 
 our own advantage. The mother-cat makes use of 
 it when she raises her bristles so as to look for- 
 midable to her enemy, dog; or when she cuffs a 
 recalcitrant kitten. No wonder, then, that non- 
 resistant philosophers like Lao-tse, Bhudda, and 
 Tolstoi have been regarded as somewhat other 
 than human. And yet that there's at least far 
 more truth than error in their position is being 
 demonstrated by an essentially non-spiritualistic 
 development of modern science psychoanalysis.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 475 
 
 Let's discuss the characteristics of this flight 
 instinct, before we enquire whether other primal 
 or evolved urges are also important in the motiva- 
 tion of men. 
 
 Turning to the classics of modern psychology, 
 we get from Wm. James' following description: 16 
 
 "Fear is a reaction aroused by the same objects 
 
 that arouse ferocity .... Fear stands beside 
 
 lust and anger, as one of the three most exciting 
 emotions of which our nature is susceptible. The 
 great source of terror to infancy is solitude. The 
 teleology of this is obvious, as is also that of the 
 infantile expression of dismay the never failing 
 cry on waking up and finding himself alone. 
 
 "Black things, and especially dark places, holes, 
 caverns, etc., arouse a peculiarly gruesome fear 
 .... says Schneider: 
 
 "'.... Children who have been carefully 
 guarded from all ghost-stories are nevertheless 
 terrified and cry if led into a dark place, especially 
 if sounds are made there. . . . 
 
 "'.... The fact of such instinctive fear is easily 
 explicable when we consider that our savage an- 
 cestors thru innumerable generations were accus- 
 tomed to meet with dangerous beasts in caverns, 
 especially bears, and were for the most part at- 
 tacked by such beasts during the night and in the 
 woods . . . .' 
 
 "Fear of the supernatural is one variety of 
 fear. It is difficult to assign any normal object 
 
 "James. Wm. Principles of Psychology pp. 415-420.
 
 476 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 for this fear, unless it were a genuine ghost. But 
 science has not yet adopted ghosts ; .... To bring 
 the ghostly terror to its maximum, many usual 
 elements of the dreadful must combine, such as 
 loneliness, darkness, inexplicable sounds, .... 
 moving figures half discerned .... and a ver- 
 tiginus baffling of the expectation. This last ele- 
 ment, which is intellectual, is very important. It 
 produces a strange emotional 'curdle' in our blood 
 to see a process with which we are familiar de- 
 liberately taking an unwonted course. Professor 
 W. K. Brooks .... told me of his large and noble 
 dog being frightened into a sort of epileptic fit 
 by a bone being drawn across the floor by a thread 
 which the dog did not see. Darwin and Ro- 
 manes have given similar experiences. The idea 
 of the supernatural involves that the natural 
 should be set at naught. . . But in view of the 
 fact that cadaveric, reptilian, and underground 
 horrors play so specific and constant a part in 
 many nightmares and forms of delirium, it seems 
 not altogether unwise to ask whether these forms 
 of dreadful circumstance may not at a former 
 period have been more normal objects of the en- 
 vironment than now." 
 
 SECTION 3 
 
 "The object of education is to make men, to 
 produce the man of truth and honor, to give men 
 the grace of the gentleman, which cannot mani-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 477 
 
 fest itself save in good manners, modesty." 17 
 "Dare to be true." 18 
 
 "To thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night 
 
 the day 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 19 
 
 To what has been said on the evils of lying, 
 it may be objected, that whatever marks us as 
 lacking in adroitness and self-control, makes rea- 
 sonable the surmise that we also will turn out to be 
 peddlers of gossip, unworthy of confidences. 20 To 
 be accepted as a confessor, one first must estab- 
 lish his reputation for discretion. How then shall 
 we dare to become entirely frank? 
 
 The answer is that we can be truthful and yet 
 maintain a certain reserve. But our sociability 
 and loquaciousness, as human animals are indeed 
 to be taken into account; where direct statement 
 of our views is imprudent, another outlet should 
 be provided. This outlet is to be found in art. 
 Thru an artistic medium we can express in sym- 
 bolic fashion the deepest passions. It would be 
 well to put in the first half hour of every morning 
 at some artistic effort. 
 
 The religions of the world which have endured 
 have built upon this fact. Long after a man has 
 lost, intellectual contact with his church, he may 
 continue to be lured by her music, her vaulted 
 aisles, and her stately pageantry. Among these 
 
 17 F. Marion Crawford. 
 
 18 G. Herbert, The Temple (The Church Porch). 
 '"Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act. 2, 1. 
 
 ^The author learnt this by bitter experiences, which he may con- 
 fide to you some day if you ask him delicately.
 
 478 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 he knows himself to be inexplicably more com- 
 fortable than when wrangling with his hoarse- 
 voiced co-radicals in some ugly hall ; yet he would 
 vote down any proposition to devote even a 
 meager sum toward making this hall aesthetically 
 more attractive to himself and his fellow humans. 
 
 The Japanese are peculiarly a people of artistic 
 discrimination. On visiting Japan at the time of 
 the mikado's coronation our party were fortu- 
 nately enabled to see, one evening, the Cherry 
 Dance. This isn't usually given at this time of 
 year; in the present instance real cherry blos- 
 soms were counterfeited in paper; so as to have 
 their sauce to celebrate the coronation. We were 
 in the loges and had real chairs. The medium- 
 priced place in front of us was simply a sloping 
 platform, upon which people merely squatted, and 
 the cheapest places were squatting room upon the 
 main floor in front. 
 
 When first we entered the house, they put us 
 thru the "tea ceremonial." Having left our shoes 
 without, we all sat around the sides of a large 
 room and ate the queer cakes and drank the tea 
 which was brewed and served us after certain so- 
 cial formulae. 
 
 The whole show was conducted by Geisha 
 girls. These girls are professional entertainers, 
 something after the pattern of members of Rus- 
 sian ballet. 
 
 When the curtain rose, a troup of Geishas were 
 disclosed sitting in a row upon a log. They
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 479 
 
 thrummed their instruments with a precision ex- 
 tended to the point of having them all move their 
 hands in exactly the same way at the same time. 
 All costumes were the most gorgeous we ever saw 
 on any stage; nothing "faked" but all materials 
 genuine. 
 
 Two other stages, one on each side wall of the 
 theatre, were afterward revealed, disclosing other 
 musical troops. Their music teachers sat behind 
 them, and publicly reproved any girl who made 
 a mistake. 
 
 From the rear troops of dancing Geishas en- 
 tered, and passed via the side stages on to the 
 main one. Each act ensuing consisted of music 
 and ceremonial dancing expressive of some phase 
 of the rice harvest. We couldn't guess the inner 
 meaning of many of their moves, yet there 
 seemed to be a subtle pantomimic element in this 
 and in other Japanese dancing we've seen, that 
 makes the ballet or folk dances of Europe seem 
 very artless by comparison. 
 
 A curious sight in Japanese streets, especially 
 in the early morning, is to see an old lady stand- 
 ing in the middle of the sidewalk, face toward 
 the east and with folded hands, mumble her 
 prayers. She is worshipping the sun, the chief 
 Shinto deity. And yet the Japanese aren't what 
 you'd call an essentially religious people. Their 
 real religion is Patriotism. Shintoism is rather 
 a set of ceremonial observances. It has an aes- 
 thetic value. Its temples and shrines are very
 
 480 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 lovely, and so are the observances. Why (by the 
 way) should dancing before the altar be absent 
 from all western forms of worship? This custom 
 is as much in place as singing, and should be in- 
 troduced among us. 
 
 At Delhi, we were nearly prevented from in- 
 
 CROWD OF THE FAITHFUL WORSHIPPING IN JUMNA 
 MOZHID, DELHI. 
 
 specting the beautiful Pearl Mosque, because it's 
 inside the fort and we as foreigners, were halted 
 from entering there. But by good fortune, 
 
 Mrs. Meyer of our party, knew Lady , 
 
 whose husband yf a very influential man; and she 
 gave us a feed and then personally conducted us 
 thru. There's a singular dignity about the Mo- 
 hammedan worship, which is reflected with deli-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 481 
 
 cate beauty in their mosques, tombs and palaces. 
 In approaching the Taj Majal, that architectural 
 pearl secreted by the labor of many thousand 
 slaves, we felt sure no building could realize the 
 expectations that its describers had raised in 
 us of this one. But on the night that we saw its 
 white domes float like bubbles in the moonlight, 
 we knew that no description ever did this struc- 
 ture justice. 
 
 SECTION 4 
 
 "Art thou a statesman and canst not be a 
 hypocrite? Impossible! Do not distrust thy vir- 
 says he has been reported dead on the authority 
 his death and his burial. On 15 occasions Villa 
 tues."- 1 
 
 Repression and lying are found together. Each 
 is born of a sort of mistrust. In a repressive 
 society, deceit will flaunt itself everywhere. The 
 ruling elements themselves, not content with for- 
 bidding frank expression by those whom they re- 
 gard as dangerous to the community, go further, 
 by setting an example in conscienceless deceit. 
 Gradually a profound mistrust is growing up 
 everywhere of the press, that institution which 
 once was hailed as safeguard of the people's liber- 
 ties. All are coming to realize that it is not to 
 their readers that newspapers and magazines 
 look for eighty per cent of their income (which 
 
 ' J1 Dryden Don Sebastian.
 
 482 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 means their possibility of life) but to advertis- 
 ers, and consequently that news will be suppressed 
 which is unwelcome to big business. 
 
 A few days ago we clipped the amusing and 
 pertinent item printed below. 22 It concerns the 
 claim by the Mexican, Villa, that "the present ad- 
 ministration in Washington has been hoodwinked 
 and victimized by Carranzista propaganda into 
 believing all sorts of unreliable and fantastic re- 
 ports about himself and his activities. 
 
 "In support of this latter contention Villa cites 
 numerous specific instances. He calls attention 
 to the frequency with which the administration 
 here has officially and semi-officially announced 
 of witnesses which the United States accepted as 
 reliable, and on four occasions his body has been 
 identified by agents in whom Washington placed 
 implicit confidence, he says, while on one occasion 
 four witnesses swore they had seen him buried, 
 and their reports were accepted, he says, without 
 question." 
 
 Sometimes the most annoying statements in the 
 press are those which put one in a situation mere- 
 ly ridiculous, or which represent him as express- 
 ing views which he never dreamed of holding. The 
 writer in the course of a lecture at a California 
 hotel, expressed views which displeased local pa- 
 pers. The meeting itself was perfectly orderly 
 rather dull indeed and at the end of it we hap- 
 pened to remark that we were catching an out of 
 
 ? 5 From White Sulphur Springs, (W. Va.) Day Letter, June 4, 1919.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 4&3 
 
 town train. Imagine our astonishment to learn 
 from the write ups of the affair (by a reporter 
 who had not even been present) that we had been 
 "hooted from the platform," that "hisses" had 
 drowned our talk, so that we'd been obliged to flee 
 from town !- :! Certain of our acquaintances, more 
 or less believing what they read, had much merri- 
 ment at our expense ! On the occasion of our next 
 address in Los Angeles, the most notorious of 
 these same papers came out with a series of abso- 
 lute misquotations. A paper in our home town 
 which has a shady reputation for blackmail, steal- 
 ing the news, etc., copied these misquotations, to 
 make them a subject for editorials, and for some 
 time continued to publish the letters of indignant 
 correspondents on the absurdity of our (sic) 
 views! We replied but no paper would give us 
 space. On this occasion we took written testimony 
 of several persons as to the discrepancy between 
 our utterances and those of the papers ; and when 
 for the third and last time we spoke in Los An- 
 geles, we had every word taken down by a re- 
 porter of our own. So this time the account in- 
 cluded nothing about the speech, but only of an 
 occurrence afterward, an article made up whole- 
 piece of imagination ! This was in the Times. In 
 one column of print there were by count thirty 
 lying statements! "Going some!" The papers 
 knew themselves to be safe because we stood for 
 
 23 We wrote a reply to these charges, but of course could not suc- 
 ceed in getting more than a few lines space in a not-prominent 
 section of the paper.
 
 484 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 an extremely unpopular cause, were badly in- 
 volved with the courts, and because they formed 
 an almost impregnable aggregation. 
 
 But in any case you've scarcely any chance of 
 winning a libel case against them, because they 
 guard their statements with "alleged," etc., and 
 deal so much in innuendos. Thus a paper comes 
 out with : "We wish to apologize to Mrs. Orville 
 Overholt. In our paper last week we had a head- 
 ing, 'Mrs. Overholt's Big Feet.' The word we 
 had ought to have used is a French word, pro- 
 nounced the same way, but spelled fete. It means 
 a celebration and is considered a very tony 
 word." Williamsville (N. D.) Item. 
 
 "Never state as a fact anything you are not 
 certain about," the great editor warned the new 
 reporter, "or you will get us into libel suits. In 
 such cases use the words 'alleged,' 'claimed,' 
 'reputed,' 'rumored,' and so on." 
 
 And then this paragraph appeared in the society 
 notes of the paper : 
 
 It is rumored that a card party was given yes- 
 terday by a number of reputed ladies. Mrs. Smith, 
 gossip says, was hostess. It is alleged that the 
 guests, with the exception of Mrs. Bellinger, who 
 says she hails from Leavitt's Junction, were all 
 from here. Mrs. Smith claims to be the wife of 
 Archibald Smith, the so-called "Honest Man" 
 trading on Key Street. 
 
 And when the editor had read the report a
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 485 
 
 whirling mass claiming to be the. reporter was 
 projected through the window. 
 
 It's hard to say which is the more mischievous 
 a lying press, or the censorship of opinion. A 
 story is told of a woman who never permits any 
 argument or discussion of her mandates. One 
 afternoon a storm came up and she asked her son 
 Tommy to close the trap-door leading to the flat 
 roof of the house. 
 
 "But, Mother " began Tommy. 
 
 "Thomas, I told you to shut the trap." 
 
 "Yes, but Mother " 
 
 "Thomas, shut that trap !" 
 
 "All right, Mother, if you say so, but" 
 
 "Thomas!" 
 
 So Thomas slowly climbed the stairs and shut 
 the trap. The afternoon went by and the storm 
 howled and raged. Two hours later the family 
 gathered for dinner, and when the meal was half 
 over, Aunt Anna, who was staying with them, had 
 not appeared. The mother started an investiga- 
 tion, but she did not have to ask many questions. 
 Tommy answered the first one : 
 
 "Mother, she is on the roof." 
 
 We read in an article by H. A. Warren: 
 
 "Interference with freedom of inquiry and in- 
 struction in recent years has been largely confined 
 to the department of philosophy, psychology, and 
 economics, particularly the last. Philosophic 
 theory and psychological principles occasionally 
 come into conflict with traditional ecclesiastical
 
 486 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 interpretations. Only last year, for example, Dr. 
 John M. Mecklin, professor of philosophy and 
 psychology at Lafayette College, resigned under 
 pressure on account of alleged lack of harmony be- 
 tween his teachings and the tradition of his insti- 
 tution .... 
 
 "This summer the head of the psychological de- 
 partment at a state university, a psychologist 
 in good standing, was dismissed on indefinite 
 charges, his petition for a faculty committee of 
 inquiry being denied. At one of the state normal 
 schools an assistant professor of psychology of 
 several years' standing was dismissed without 
 warning after a brief hearing before the board. 
 
 "The researches of economists and sociologists 
 often conflict with the interests of political lead- 
 ers and organized wealth. In 1895 Professor Be- 
 mis of Chicago, and in 1900 Professor Ross of 
 Stanford, were retired from their chairs in 
 economics. Friends of the meji claimed, in each 
 case, that pressure had been exerted by patrons of 
 the institution on account of certain economic doc- 
 trines which they taught. . . . 
 
 "In 1911 Professor Banks was dismissed from 
 the University of Florida, following the publica- 
 tion of an article in The Independent, in which 
 he stated his conviction that teachers and others 
 in positions of influence made a grievous mistake 
 in the generation prior to the Civil War in not pav- 
 ing the way for a gradual removal of slavery
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 487 
 
 without the loss of so many lives and the conse- 
 quent pension burden. 
 
 "Early in 1913 the professor of economics and 
 social science at Wesleyan, Dr. Willard C. Fisher, 
 was summarily suspended after some casual re- 
 marks in a public lecture regarding the observa- 
 tion of the Sabbath. Last autumn Dr. J. L. 
 Lewinsohn, professor of law at the University of 
 North Dakota, resigned under pressure, the au- 
 thorities having disapproved of his active partici- 
 pation in the political campaign. He claims to 
 have been censured by the dean for attending a 
 conference of leaders of the Progressive Party. 
 
 "During the past winter it was charged in the 
 press that Dr. King and Dr. Nearing, two econo- 
 mists in the Wharton School of Finance at the 
 University of Pennsylvania, had been denied de- 
 served promotion on account of some statistical 
 inquiries relating to local and state enterprises. 
 
 "In March, Professor A. E. Morse relinquished 
 the chair of political science at Marietta College, 
 Ohio. He claims to have been 'practically forced 
 to resign for political reasons.' .... The attitude 
 of the college toward the principle of academic 
 freedom is announced in an official bulletin .... 
 'it is the sacred duty of the institution (to censor) 
 according to their own judgment and the dictates 
 of their own conscience. At the close of the ses- 
 sion two members of the faculty, friends of Dr. 
 Morse, were offered the choice of resignation or 
 dismissal. No charges were formulated in the
 
 488 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 resolution which summarily cancelled their profes- 
 sional license. Both men were professors of sev- 
 eral years' standing and heads of departments." 2 * 
 
 We ourselves so thoroly despise the argu- 
 ment 'that the number of assenting minds is 
 proof of a proposition's Tightness,' that we have 
 to confess we haven't the least right to over-ride, 
 rough-shod, the objections of morally and even 
 intellectually, the most despicable persons. If 
 any one can't agree with the point of view now 
 to be propounded, we release him from any obli- 
 gation to respect our standards of right and 
 wrong and beg him to find others of his own; 
 only in return we demand that he, too, shouldn't 
 presume to hold us bound by his standards, but 
 admit our right to formulate, and follow, stand- 
 ards of our own. 
 
 Tolerance of others, as Spencer 25 has shown, 
 must be extended to the point where liberty ac- 
 corded does not interfere with an equal liberty 
 being enjoyed by others. Only; the following 
 testimony may reasonably be looked for from 
 those who profess a higher morality than their 
 fellows, namely that they make as much of a 
 point of manifesting the new virtues enjoined by, 
 or cultivated by, their creed, as they are of en- 
 joying the new liberties which it permits. 
 
 We can't conclude this chapter better than by 
 
 24 Howard Crosby Warren in an article on Academic Freedom. 
 "Herbert Spencer Man vs. State.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 489 
 
 quoting at length from an editorial by B. H. 
 Stamper. 26 
 
 "One day a friend met an enthusiastic sup- 
 porter of the proposed union of the provinces to 
 say: 'Pastor, do you know that your elder, Mr. 
 Blank, is very angry because you are advocating 
 Confederation?' 'But have you and Elder Blank 
 ever thought how angry I am with him because 
 he is opposing Confederation?' quietly asked Dr. 
 Grant. 'Now go back and tell him how foolish 
 it is for either of us to refuse the other the right 
 of deciding for himself.' 
 
 "Has it ever occurred to you it is the opposer 
 who usually manages to find an intermediary will- 
 ing to go to the man manifestly within his rights 
 and plead with him to smother his convictions or 
 yield an essential point, in the interest of peace. 
 The third person rarely has the courage to rebuke 
 the tyrant's insolence .... "our neighbors had the 
 only organ in our farming community. We fairly 
 revelled in the hymn singing the new instrument 
 developed. But one evening when the older 
 scholars went to rehearse some songs for our 
 school exhibition we found that the organ had 
 disappeared. 
 
 "The eldest son pinched me to follow him out 
 to the woodshed, where he informed me that his 
 mother's uncle, Joshua, who had just arrived was 
 a Mennonite of the old school and hated musical 
 instruments as devices of the devil. So the organ 
 
 M B. H. Stamper, Los Anueles Examiner, April 4, 1913.
 
 490 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 had to be hidden in the clothes closet until the be- 
 whiskered guest's departure. Otherwise the 
 family knew that Uncle Joshua would rage with 
 righteous indignation and make his entire stay 
 most unpleasant. 
 
 "Now, that old man's attitude toward innova- 
 tions is a fair type of the opposition of the op- 
 poser in every realm. He always considers his 
 anger toward the proposed reform to be infinitely 
 more sacred than the reformer's anger toward the 
 evil he is warring against. . . . Then it is sur- 
 prising and chagrining to notice how many fool- 
 ish people there are who set about to mollify him 
 even to blaming the reformer who has aroused his 
 ire. 
 
 "These tyrants of yesterday are usually prompt 
 to abdicate after their first outburst of rage has 
 been bravely met. They have very little reserve 
 strength. Argument demolishes their defences. 
 
 "And this is my plea: Stand by the innovator 
 if you believe he is right. Do not heed the op- 
 poser's pretense at indignation. Let not his show 
 of rage bully you into a plea for peace when there 
 should be no peace. Turn upon the reactionary, 
 not upon the progressive and rebuke Him." 
 
 Thus when a radical gets into trouble with the 
 authorities on account of something he clearly 
 had a right to do, everyone who stood inertly by 
 while wrongs were being perpetrated now bit- 
 terly reproaches the radical for the worry he has 
 brought upon his dear ones. Scarcely anyone
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 491 
 
 goes to the authorities and calls them down for 
 their abuse of power. Yet we claim we've not 
 become a servile people! 
 
 "When some falsehood with its brand 
 Stalks like Goliath, ravaging the land 
 Fit thou the pebble Truth within thy sling 
 And then, like David, fling!"
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Losing one's temper is particularly character- 
 istic of degenerate minds. The normal mind more 
 quickly throws off a spasm of this unpleasant emo- 
 tion. The foresighted person will utilize his fight- 
 ing propensities themselves in combating his own 
 proneness to anger, on account of the remorseful 
 consequence which follow this passion. Finally, 
 the altruist especially will battle against the hu- 
 man weakness for following with the mob into 
 violence. 
 
 SECTION I 
 
 "Blessed be the Lord, my strength, which 
 teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to 
 fight." (Ps. 144:1) 
 
 "And thou shalt consume all the people which 
 the Lord thy God shall deliver thee: thine eye 
 shall have no pity upon them." (Deut. 7:16) 
 
 "Of the cities of these people, which the Lord 
 thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou 
 shalt save alive nothing that breatheth ; but thou 
 shalt utterly destroy them." (Deut. 20:16-17) 
 
 "And they warred against the Midianites, as 
 the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew al> 
 the males." (Num. 31 :7-10) 
 
 "And we took all his cities at that time, and 
 utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 493 
 
 the little ones of every city, we left none to re- 
 main." (1 Deut. 2:24-25-34) 
 
 "And we utterly destroyed them as we did unto 
 Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the 
 men, women and children of every city." (Deut. 
 3:3-6) 
 
 "And the Lord said unto Joshua, 'See I have 
 given into thine hand Jericho . . . and they 
 utterly destroyed all that was in that city, both 
 man and woman, young and old.' " (Josh. 6 :2-21) 
 
 It should be evident enough from the above 
 quotations that Javeh, the god of the Hebrews, 
 by no means shared the pacifist convictions of 
 his alleged son Jesus. Allah and Mohammed 
 were in much better accord, and preached the 
 sword as a legitimate means for the settlement of 
 differences. But Jesus' followers seldom have 
 taken seriously his really radical utterances, 
 whether in regard to war or to property, etc. 
 
 If anyone claims that the days of persecution 
 and of religious wars are over, we call his atten- 
 tion to the way in which religious sanctions were 
 invoked upon their bloody work by all the partici- 
 pants in this recent war. 
 
 Miss Slocum, in a newspaper article, describes 
 her experiences of this thing in Germany : 
 
 "Germans believed the 'fatherland' attacked by 
 cruel envious foes. . . . 
 
 "During the early stages of the war they 
 thronged the churches. While in no respect sen- 
 sational, the countrywide rush to the churches
 
 494 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 had in it certain elements of a huge religious re- 
 vival. . . . 
 
 "Despite a considerable lapse from the first in- 
 tensity of emotion the churches have held a good 
 share of their gains, and the Kaiser's pious talk 
 'Forward with God!' and all that goes down 
 whole. 
 
 "Even today German pastors can bid their peo- 
 ple 'stand for the right, as Martin Luther did,' 
 tho the Kaiser's prayers for an 'honorable peace' 
 and for divine grace to 'treat our enemies in a 
 Christian manner' is no longer read in churches 
 by his majesty's orders. Perhaps his conscience 
 smote him. 
 
 "Meanwhile the Kaiser talks piety. The Ger- 
 mans swallow that with the same willingness 
 even delight. Beyond question, the religiosity of 
 the imperial household has accomplished a lot 
 toward preventing rebellion in Prussia. . . . 
 
 "Their devotion to the Prince of Peace bred few 
 if any, pacifists among the clergy. . . . 
 
 "The great bulk of the German people, religious 
 by instinct, cleave to the church, and the imperial 
 German government finds in the church an in- 
 valuable medium for propaganda. Thus it con- 
 trives to maintain its hold on the sentimentality 
 of Germans behind the lines and of Germans in 
 the trenches. Innumerable books and pamphlets 
 linking war with religion are flooding Germany 
 today.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 495 
 
 "While the immediate cause of this worst of 
 wars is autocracy," comments C. S. Hunt, in The 
 Truth Seeker, 1 a "cause of autocracy is religion." 
 The autocrat finds precedent and sanction for all 
 tyranny in the bible. 
 
 "In 2 Kings, Chapter IX, he reads that the Lord 
 anointed Jehu king of Israel, and told him to 
 smite the house of Ahab. 
 
 "We no longer punish the son for the crime of 
 the father. The Lord and Jehu did. In Chapter 
 X Jehu directs that seventy men of Ahab's fam- 
 ily be beheaded. The seventy heads were brot 
 in baskets ; after which Jehu denied what he had 
 done, just as the autocrat now does (Verse 9) : 
 'I conspired against thy master, and slew him; 
 but who sleiv all these?' 
 
 "Then, as if admitting the act, he slays more 
 (11) : 'So Jehu slew all that remained of the 
 house of Ahab, all his great men, his kinfolks, 
 and his priests, until he left none remaining/ 
 
 "Still bloodthirsty, he met forty-two brethren 
 of another king, Ahaziah, and 'slew them at the 
 pit of the shearing house.' Then he went to Sa- 
 mariah and 'slew all that remained of the house 
 of Ahab . . . according to the saying of the 
 Lord which he spake to Elijah.' Then, disliking 
 the Baalites, who were created by the Lord for 
 some unknown reason, Jehu pretended to join 
 them and assisted in their rites, then smote every 
 one of them. All the autocrat's preachers learned 
 
 J October 12, 1918.
 
 496 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 this lesson; then taught the people that their 
 monarch was divine and should kill all peoples 
 whom he disliked, or when he wants their lands. 
 
 " 'Now we understand why the other nations 
 pursue us with hatred; they do not understand 
 us. So were the Jews hated in antiquity, because 
 they were the representatives of God on earth.' 
 
 "See 'Gems of German Thot, by Wm. Archer, 
 page 78:' Then these expressions from preach- 
 ers: 
 
 " 'God has chosen the German people/ De 
 Preuss. 
 
 " 'Germany is chosen, for her own good and 
 that of other nations, to undertake their guid- 
 ance.' H. S. Chamberlain. 
 
 " 'God has taken the German nation under his 
 care or in any case has some special purpose in 
 view for it.' Pastor Lehmann. 
 
 " 'World mission that of imparting to the 
 other peoples the achievements of its Kultur, so 
 that all lands may be filled with the Glory of 
 God.' Pastor Hennig. 
 
 " 'We shall permeate, in the name of God, a 
 world which has become poor and desolate.' 
 Pastor Rump. 
 
 " 'This German mission is : to look after the 
 world.' Pastor Traub. 
 
 '"Germany the center of God's plans for the 
 world.' Pastor Lermann. 
 
 " 'Jesusless horde, a crowd of the Godless, are 
 
 Prof. W. Sombart, Handler und Helden, page 142.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 497 
 
 in the field against us. May God surround us 
 with his protection . . . since our defeat would 
 also mean the defeat of his son.' Pastor Rump. 
 
 "As the Lord gave Canaan to the Jews, so he 
 gave Belgium to the autocrat, the land to be 
 earned by killing the people. 
 
 " 'When thou comest nigh to a city, . . . and 
 it makes the answer of peace and open unto thee, 
 then all the people therein shall be tributaries, 
 and serve thee. And if it make no peace, thou 
 shalt beseige it, ... and smite every male.' 
 
 "King Menahaem knew this divine law, and 
 followed it. 
 
 " 'Then Menahaem smote Tiphsah, because 
 they opened not to him, . . . and all the women 
 therein that were with child he ripped up.' 2 
 Kings, XV, 16. 
 
 " 'So Joshua . . . utterly destroyed all that 
 breathed, as the Lord had commanded.' 'Go and 
 smite Amalek, slay both man and women, infant, 
 ox and sheep. . . . And Saul smote the Amale- 
 kites, and utterly destroyed all the people/ 
 
 " 'And David smote the land and left neither 
 man or woman alive.' 
 
 "Higher criticism rejects the Jewish horrors; 
 but our people do not know the Bible. When they 
 do, they will discard it. If not, we are doomed 
 to frequent slaughter, outrage and destruction. 
 By chance, Hosea was right: 'My people are de- 
 stroyed for lack of knowledge.' This is evident:
 
 498 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 Those who sanction the autocrat believe in Moses 
 and Elijah." 
 
 "A writer in The Westminster Gazette, M. 
 Matheson, draws attention to an article in The 
 Quarterly Register of the Presbyterian Alliance. 
 For some years, he declares, large secessions from 
 the German Protestant State Church have been 
 in progress, it being estimated that during 1912- 
 13 some 80,000 withdrew and during the first four 
 months of this year about 30,000. The reasons 
 suggested are 'the spread of the scientific spirit 
 and the growth of social democracy.' In explana- 
 tion of the latter the writer quotes this : 
 
 "^he authorities of the Protestant State 
 Church, and notably the pastors, are the tradi- 
 tional supporters of the Throne, the buttresses 
 of the ruling caste. Every measure introduced 
 by the Government having for its purpose the 
 limitation or curtailment of the liberties of the 
 people has had the support of the Church. Never 
 a protest is raised at the piling up of armaments." 
 
 Regarding the persecutions which were abetted 
 by the Church when it had the power, Lecky, we 
 think it is, says : * 
 
 "They were, in the overwhelming majority of 
 cases, simply the natural, legitimate, and inevit- 
 able consequences of a certain portion of the re- 
 ceived theology. That portion is the doctrine 
 that correct theological opinions are essential to 
 salvation, and that theological error necessarily 
 
 *History of European Morals.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 499 
 
 inyolves guilt. To these two opinions may be 
 distinctly traced almost all the sufferings that 
 Christian persecutors have cause, almost all the 
 obstructions they have thrown in the path of 
 human progress; and these sufferings have been 
 so grievous that it may be reasonably questioned 
 whether superstition has not often proven a 
 greater curse than vice and that obstruction was 
 so pertinacious, that the contraction of theologi- 
 cal influence has been at once the best measure 
 and the essential condition of intellectual advance. 
 The notion that he might himself be possibly mis- 
 taken in his opinions which alone could cause a 
 man who was thoroly imbued with these princi- 
 ples to shrink from persecuting, was excluded by 
 the theological virtue of faith, which, whatever 
 else it might involve, implied at least an absolute 
 unbroken certainty, and led the devotee to regard 
 all doubt, and therefore all action based upon 
 doubt, as sin. 
 
 "To this general cause of Christian persecution 
 I have shown that two subsidiary influences may 
 be joined. A large portion of theological ethics 
 was derived from writings in which religious 
 massacres, on the whole thot ruthless and san- 
 guinary upon accord, were said to have been cor- 
 rectly enjoined by the Diety in which the duty 
 of suppressing idolatry by force was given a 
 greater prominence than any article of the moral 
 code, and in which the spirit of intolerance has 
 found its most eloquent and most passionate ex-
 
 500 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 pressions. Besides this, the destiny theologians 
 represented as awaiting the misbeliever was so 
 ghastly and so appalling as to render it almost 
 childish to lay any stress upon the earthly suffer- 
 ing that might be inflicted in the extirpation of 
 error. 
 
 "That these are the true causes of the great 
 bulk of Christian persecution, I believe to be one 
 of the most certain as well as one of the most im- 
 portant facts in history. For the detailed proof, 
 I can only refer to what I have elsewhere written ; 
 but I may here notice that that proof combines 
 every conceivable kind of evidence that in such 
 a question can be demanded. It can be shown 
 that these principles would naturally lead men 
 to persecute. It can be shown that from the time 
 of Constantine to the time when the rationalistic 
 spirit wrested the bloodstained sword from the 
 priestly hand, persecution was uniformly de- 
 fended in long, learned and elaborate treaties, by 
 the best and greatest men the Church had pro- 
 duced, by sects that differed on almost all other 
 points, by multitudes who proved in every con- 
 ceivable manner the purity of their zeal." 
 
 But it would be unjust to accuse the Church of 
 monopolizing the leadership in this direction. The 
 Church monopolizes leadership in nothing; it fol- 
 lows. Both religion and philosophy function to 
 adjust the popular conscience to that as moral or 
 reasonable which stronger influences have de- 
 cided upon as expedient. As regards philosophy,
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 501 
 
 we may take for an analogous example a tendency 
 thus criticized by John Dewey:* 
 
 "Recently, there has sprung up a so-called 
 'naturalistic' school of ethics which has formu- 
 lated explicitly the principle of self-assertion, 
 and which claims to find scientific sanction for it 
 in the evolutionary doctrine of Darwin. Evolu- 
 tion, it says, is the great thing, and evolution 
 means the survival of the fit in the struggle for 
 existence. Nature's method of progress is pre- 
 cisely, so it is said, ruthless self-assertion. . . . 
 Nature affords a scene of egoistic endeavor or 
 pressure, suffer who may, of struggle to get 
 ahead, that is ahead of others, even by thrusting 
 them down and out. But the justification of this 
 scene of rapine and slaughter is that out of it 
 comes progress, advance, everything that we re- 
 gard as noble and fair. Excellence is the sign of 
 excelling ; the goal means outrunning others. The 
 morals of humility, of obedience to law, of pity, 
 sympathy, are merely a self-protective device on 
 the part of the weak who try to safeguard their 
 weakness by setting fast limitations to the ac- 
 tivities of the truly strong. . . . 
 
 "PRACTICAL VOGUE OF THE UNDERLY- 
 LYING IDEA. Such a theory, in and of itself, 
 is a literary diversion for those who, not being 
 competent in the fields of outer achievement, 
 amuse themselves by idealizing it in writing. 
 Like most literary versions of science, it rests 
 
 *Dewey and Tuft's Ethics,
 
 502 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 upon a pseudo-science, a parody of the real facts. 
 But at a time when economic conditions are put- 
 tin? an extraordinary emphasis upon outward 
 achievement, upon success in manipulating na- 
 tural and social resources, upon "efficiency" in 
 exploiting both inamimate energies and the minds 
 and bodies of other persons, the underlying prin- 
 ciple of this theory has a sanction and vogue 
 which is out of all proportion to the number of 
 those who consciously entertain it as a theory . . . 
 our current standards are sentimental and arti- 
 ficial, aiming to make survive those who are unfit, 
 and thus tending to destroy the conditions that 
 made for advance, and to introduce such as make 
 towards degeneration. But this argument (1) 
 wholly ignores the reflex effect of interest in those 
 who are ill and defective in strengthening social 
 solidarity in promoting those ties and reciprocal 
 interests which are as much the prerequisites of 
 strong individual characters as they are of a 
 strong social group. And (2) it fails to take into 
 account the stimulus to foresight, to scientific dis- 
 covery, and practical invention, which has pro- 
 ceeded from interest in the helpless, the weak, the 
 sick, the disabled, blind, deaf, and insane. Tak- 
 ing the most coldly scientific view, the gains in 
 these two respects have, through the growth of 
 social pity, of care for the unfortunate, been pur- 
 chased more cheaply than we can imagine their 
 being bought in any other way. In other words, 
 the chief objection to this "naturalistic" ethicgrts
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 503 
 
 that it overlooks the fact that, even from the Dar- 
 winian point of view, the human animal is a hu- 
 man animal. It forgets that the sympathetic and 
 social instincts, those which cause the individual 
 to take the interests of others for his own and 
 thereby to restrain his sheer brute self-assertive- 
 ness, are the highest achievements, the high-wa- 
 ter mark of evolution. The theory urges a sys- 
 tematic relapse to lower and foregone stages of 
 biological development." 
 
 Catherine seemed such a reliable girl that Mrs. 
 Moran had no hesitancy in leaving her in charge 
 of the children while she went for a long drive. 
 
 "How did they behave during my absence?" 
 she asked on her return. 
 
 "Beautifully, madam," Catherine replied, "but 
 in the end they fought terribly." 
 
 "Why on earth did they fight?" 
 
 "To decide which was behaving best." 
 
 A Topeka business man. employs two negroes to 
 work on his gardens, which he personally over- 
 sees. One morning Sam did not appear. 
 
 "Where is Sam, George?" he asked. 
 
 "In de hospital, sah." 
 
 "In the hospital? Why, how did that happen?" 
 
 "Well, Sam he been a-tellin' me ev'ry mornin' 
 foh ten days he gwine to lick hia wife 'cause o' 
 her naggin'." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, yistiddy she done ovahhead him, dat's 
 all."
 
 504 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 SECTION 2 
 
 False faiths and similar influences only have 
 excited in abnormal degree the ferocious tenden- 
 cies which in all of us are instinctive. Hear what 
 Wm. James says on "pugnacity, anger, resent- 
 ment. In many respects man is the most ruth- 
 less and ferocious of beasts. As with all gregari- 
 ous animals, 'two souls,' as Faust says, 'dwell 
 within his breast/ the one of sociability and help- 
 fulness, the other of jealousy and antagonism to 
 his mates. Though in a general way he cannot 
 live without them, yet, as regards certain indivi- 
 duals, it often falls out that he cannot live with 
 them either. Constrained to be a member of a 
 tribe, he still has a right to decide, as far as in him 
 lies, of which other members the tribe shall cpn- 
 sist. Killing off a few obnoxious ones may often 
 better the chances of those that remain. And kill- 
 ing off a neighbor tribe from whom no good thing 
 comes, but only competition, may materially better 
 the lot of the whole tribe. Hence the gory cradle, 
 the bellwn omnium contra omnes, in which our 
 race was reared; hence the fickleness of human 
 ties, the ease with which the foe of yesterday be- 
 comes the ally of today, the friend of today the 
 enemy of tomorrow; hence the fact that we, the 
 lineal representatives of the successful enactors of 
 one scene of slaughter after another, must, what- 
 
 -James, Wm. Principles of Psychology. v. 2, p. 410.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 505 
 
 6ver more pacific virtues we may also possess, still 
 carry about with us, ready at any moment to 
 burst into flame, the smouldering and sinister 
 traits of character by means of which they live 
 through so many massacres, harming others, but 
 themselves unharmed." 
 
 This view must be modified by the facts above 
 supplied by Dewey, who is the more modern 
 writer. Yet there is considerable truth still in 
 what James says of the derivation of our combat- 
 ive qualities. But these don't necessarily have as 
 valuable a function today, when expressed in a 
 crude manner as they had in the past ; nor is their 
 value in selecting the fittest for survival so great. 
 These elements in our nature are as responsible, 
 perhaps, as economic causes for turning civiliza- 
 tion into an armed camp. 
 
 SECTION 3 
 
 Juliette, "Why slaves, 'tis in our power to hang ye." 
 Master "Very likely, 'tis in our powers then to be 
 hanged, and scorn ye."* 
 
 The advice of Lord Bacon was : 
 
 "Nothing conduces more to the well representing a 
 man's self, and securing his own right, than not to dis- 
 arm himself by too much sweetness and good nature. 
 
 The virtue of soul that corresponds to the pug- 
 nacious instinct is indomitability. 3 
 
 Self-respect, that commendable element in 
 
 'See Gould. Brave Citizens. p. 35, p. 40. 
 
 **Kirkpatrick, E. A. "The Individual in the Making," p. 204. 
 
 "Beaumopt and Fletcher's. Sea Voyag-e quoted by Emerson.
 
 506 
 
 Pride, is necessary not only to keep up the quality 
 of one's conduct but to gain a hearing in this 
 rough world. With grace and modesty, bearing 
 in mind always the need of tempering down (by 
 example at least) the blatant sensationalism which 
 today surrounds us, we yet must remember that 
 if we remain in much retirement, our claims and 
 our projects will be passed by and lost to the 
 world. "If you don't blow your own horn, no- 
 body else will." No one understood better the 
 need of self-advertisement than some of the Jew- 
 ish prophets who affected the various eccentrici- 
 ties described in the Old Testament, e. g., making 
 a hole thru the city wall instead of passing out 
 thru the regular gate, evidently for the purpose 
 of gaining an audience. Confidence, even assur- 
 ance, is necessary to worldly success. 
 
 That indomitability is needed in life, is a tru- 
 ism; what we chiefly need to understand is, how 
 this quality may be cultivated. 
 
 "Whatever increases the child's facility in 
 movement, imagining, or remembering, prepares 
 the way for his voluntary control of these proc- 
 esses and increases his confidence in himself and 
 adds to his will power. . . Experience in choosing 
 and directing action in accordance with choices 
 is needed to develop freedom of voluntary control. 
 
 "Will power is gained, not merely by being in- 
 duced in some way to make an effort, but by being 
 directed in such a way as to succeed. In other 
 words, 'will' may to a certain extent be developed
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 507 
 
 more by doing easy things than by doing things 
 which because of fatigue, lack of interest or want 
 of knowledge, are difficult to do. The amount and 
 degree of success. Bather than the frequency and 
 intensity of effort, make for progress in the de- 
 velopment of volition. . . . 
 
 By courage, we mean boldness, physically** and 
 particularly moral determination and calm set- 
 tling down to the solving of difficulties instead of 
 whining and complaining about them. In the 
 stress of sudden calamities, such as no one can 
 always foresee and provide against, one carries 
 one's safety in one's own breast. 
 
 If we ask, what is Freedom ? You'll answer by 
 describing its opposite state saying, e. g., that 
 a man's not free whom the walls of the town jail 
 restrain, whilst he batters against them in a vain 
 effort to escape ; then after he's given up the as- 
 sault, and sunk upon his couch jn sad despair, his 
 condition would be unaltered if, unbeknownst to 
 him, you replaced those walls of stone with paper 
 walls, having only the appearance of strength. Or 
 would he be in better case, if, knowing that the 
 walls were torn away, he now found himself 
 grown too feeble to move, or found that the shame 
 of facing friends whom he'd disgraced had be- 
 numbed his "will-power?" In short, isn't it plain 
 that nothing more is necessary, to make man a 
 prisoner than himself alone even his thots? 
 
 = **Vid in Los Angeles Examiner. May 26, 1913, the account of a 
 one Isaac Basset, 75 years old, who to save his life amputated his 
 own foot.
 
 508 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 But can his thots equally under all circum- 
 stances give him freedom? Here are we (at this 
 writing) on a ship in the middle of the China 
 Sea; we couldn't induce the captain to set us 
 ashore, and if we tried to swim ashore we'd be 
 drowned. Tho on so small a vessel the range of 
 our movements is as small as that of an inmate 
 of Sing Sing, yet who'd call us "prisoner?" We 
 even are chained to this desk and seat for another 
 hour, by our will to finish our stint of so many 
 pages to be written, yet we regard ourselves as 
 free as that young police-officer in the service of 
 the Nizam, who told us how inefficient had proven 
 the European prison system in the checking of 
 crime in Hyderabad, (thru which dominions, at 
 the time, we were traveling) . He told us the na- 
 tives truly looked forward to the next term of in- 
 carceration as a relief from all responsibility; 
 how patiently thoy accepted the prison duties 
 forced upon them; and what real pleasure they 
 took in being able to squat for long hours upon 
 the floors of their barren cells, chattering, or 
 dreaming away the exquisite leisure of these re- 
 current vacations. 
 
 The only chains in which such men can be made 
 to languish are those of superstition; and even 
 there their philosophy largely has freed them. 
 It's pitiful, really, l^ow people can break away 
 from certain bonds but go no further. 
 
 "We boast our emancipation from many super- 
 stitions ; but if we have broken any idols, it is
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 509 
 
 through a transfer of the idolatry. What have 
 I gained, that I no longer immolate a bull to 
 Jove, or to Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate; that 
 I do not tremble before the Eumenides, or the 
 Catholic Purgatory, or the Calvinistic Judgment- 
 day, if I quake at opinion, the public opinion, as 
 we call it ; or at the threat of assault, or contume- 
 ly, or bad neighbors, or poverty, or mutilation, or 
 at the rumor of revolution, or of murder? If I 
 quake, what matters it what I quake at? . . ." : 
 
 One must, in short, find the remedy for evils 
 ultimately within one's self, and the attack on 
 outer conditions must be when and because they 
 interfere with betterment of inner conditions. 
 
 "This above all: to thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man."** 
 
 It's the privilege of the pure egoist, alone 
 among mortals, to be quite trusting and happy 
 under all circumstances. As soon as a man be- 
 gins to regard as important something beside him- 
 self, he ceases to be adequate unto all things. He 
 may resign himself to poverty ; but can he endow 
 his wife with an equal resignation? He hopes 
 to teach his children to seek happiness within 
 themselves even as he their father, can do; but 
 whilst they're now mere infants, how shall he 
 give them the fortitude to laugh at the merry jest 
 of their little playmates, who call their father a 
 "jailbird?" This fact is unfortunate; neverthe- 
 
 T Emerson. 
 
 * ^Shakespeare Hamlet,
 
 510 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 less, each of us can do his share to put the thought 
 of his community and generation upon a less sor- 
 did basis. 
 
 "In man . . . the test of an influence is not . . . 
 clear ... the great variety in human tempera- 
 ments requires variations in stimuli for the at- 
 tainment of the same result." 8 
 
 "If a man does not keep pace with his com- 
 panions, perhaps it is because he hears a different 
 drummer." 
 
 "The conservative sees danger only in the ad- 
 vocacy of the Red Flag and the disrespect for the 
 law. Both are equally blind to the fact that any 
 mode of creative effort which portrays life boldly, 
 earnestly and unafraid, may become more dan- 
 gerous to the present fabric of society than the 
 loudest harangue of the soap-box speaker. Take, 
 for instance, the sentence of Mrs. Alving in 
 "Ghosts." "I began to look into the seams of your 
 doctrine. I only wished to pick at a single knot, 
 but when I had got that undone, the whole thing 
 ravelled out. And then I understood that it was 
 all machine-sewn." Is there anything in revolu- 
 tionary thought more powerful than this, and does 
 it not turn the light on the whole structure of 
 society, on every phase of it? 
 
 "In other words, make men and women con- 
 scious of the machine-sewn fabric of society which 
 ravels out the moment you pick at one knot, and 
 
 "Swift. "Youth ami the Race," p. 327. 
 "Thoreau, H. P,
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 511 
 
 you will rob society of all its glare and pretense, 
 of all its sham and hypocrisy ; and that means the 
 beginning of the end of such a society. 
 
 "Therein lies the revolutionary and social value 
 of the Modern Drama, not only for the workers, 
 but for those who need enlightenment as much 
 as the workers, the professional middle-class, men 
 and women who are only now beginning to buck 
 up against, life and who by training and habit are 
 utterly unfitted for the shock. 
 
 "In countries where political oppression affects 
 all classes, the aristocrat no less than the peasant, 
 the intellectual no less than the ignorant, feel the 
 paralyzing effect of despotism. That is why the 
 intellectuals there have made common cause with 
 the people, have become their teachers, comrades 
 and spokesmen ; but in America political pressure 
 had so far affected only the "common" people. 
 They are thrown into prison ; they are clubbed, 
 mobbed, tarred and deported. Therefore another 
 medium is needed to arouse the intellectuals of 
 this country, to make them realize their relation 
 to the people, to the social unrest and to the bru- 
 talities and abuses going on day after day in this 
 wide land." 10 
 
 The principle of non-resistance to evil hardly 
 can be carried to the extreme advocated by Tol- 
 stoi. We take more the attitude expressed by Gid- 
 dings in chapter 20 of his "Democracy and Em- 
 pire." He finds complimentary phases of the 
 
 10 Goldman, Emma. The Modern Drama.
 
 512 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 truth to have been expressed by Tolstoi and by 
 Neitsche in this way, that Neitsche rightly fore- 
 saw that vigor of type is the goal of evolution, 
 but couldn't see that vigor may be expressed in 
 "differentiated" (i. e., intellectual, sympathetic, 
 etc.,) forms as well as in sheer brutality, while 
 Tolstoi put his emphasis upon the form in which 
 acts should be manifested, but forgot that vigor 
 which must be the underlying foundation, 
 
 "It is only men who have energy to spare who 
 are normally altruistic. On the physiological 
 side, altruism is a mode of expenditure of any 
 surplus energy that has been left over from suc- 
 cessful individual struggle. The meek shall in- 
 herit the earth, not because they are meek, but 
 because, taking one generation after another, it 
 is only the mighty that are or can be meek, and 
 because the mighty if normally evolved are 
 also by differentiation meek." 11 
 
 SECTION 4 
 
 In our school, Boy Land, we've most persistent- 
 ly argued against the children's proposals, or 
 tried to devise substitutes which would appeal to 
 them equally well, chiefly when they were least 
 spontaneous, when they absorbed the cheap clap- 
 trap of the press about institutions, or clamored 
 to force all their companions to adopt some fea- 
 
 11 F. H. Giddings. Democracy and Empire. p. 351. Giddings as- 
 sumption, however, that the higher forms of life necessarily represent 
 more expenditure of energy than the lower, seems to us purely 
 speculative.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 513 
 
 ture of the outside world which was autocratic in 
 its nature. Rightly or wrongly we thus en- 
 deavored to draft away their enthusiasm for boy- 
 scouting. First we inaugurated the "June En- 
 gineers," who learned to run surveys in the hills, 
 blaze and repair trails, and build rustic bridges. 
 When this plan was observed to lack elements 
 of pleasurable rivalry and excitement, we got the 
 boys to divide themselves into three societies, 
 each with certain special "chores" to do but each 
 of which also was assisted in building its own 
 small chemical fire engine ; when we had fire-drill 
 these rival companies dashed to it with huge zest. 
 Our objection to the scout idea was the anti-radi- 
 cal purposes for which the boys sometimes were 
 employed. For instance, in the recent arrests of 
 suffragists in Boston "you read that the district 
 and military police were assisted by Boy Scouts. 
 It would be well to let Boy Scouts keep out of the 
 enterprises in which women are arrested. In 
 America, where women are classed with non-vot- 
 ing idiots, Indians and children, little boys learn 
 contempt for women easily enough. To permit 
 them as children to assist in arresting the 
 mothers of other boys, and thus develop early 
 their contempt for women is rank stupidity and 
 brutalizes them unnecessarily." 12 
 
 Nor, for that matter are we converts to the 
 Rooseveltian hypothesis that 'boys should settle 
 by physical combat their little differences of 
 
 1= Boston American, February 11, 1919.
 
 514 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 opinion ; it was not in accord with any doctrine 
 of ours but in childish response (comportably to 
 their ages) to instinctive resentment, that our 
 girls and boys three months ago sailed into that 
 delegation sent to the school from a Sunday school 
 picnic to express the views of their elders about 
 "Prince Hopkins," and certain of his unpopular 
 policies. So long as it remains purely a sport, 
 boxing, tho, has always had encouragement at the 
 
 BOXING, BOY LAND. 
 
 school, for the very reason that thus you are able 
 to drain off into a sportive channel an instinct 
 which else might result in "bad blood." If only 
 national struggles might be settled with padded 
 instead of mailed fists! 
 
 Little quarrelling have we had at Boy Land 
 because the children have had few unconscious 
 complexes to project upon others, thanks to the 
 lack of repression in our "disciplinary" regime. 
 
 "All the old abuses in society, the great and 
 universal and the petty and particular, all unjust
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 515 
 
 accumulations of property and power, are 
 avenged in the same manner. Fear is an instruc- 
 tor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolu- 
 tions. One thing he always teaches, that there is 
 rottenness where he appears. He is a carrion 
 crow, and tho you see not well what he hovers for, 
 there is death somewhere." 13 
 
 As a result of the official inculcation of the prin- 
 ciple of violence, during the past few years, com- 
 bined with forcible suppression of discussion, and 
 the imprisonment of their older and more conser- 
 vative leaders, many radicals in all countries are 
 coming to believe that violence is justifiable in 
 protest. Men like Scott Nearing who became 
 popular when they were prosecuted by the gov- 
 ernment for their pacifist stand, already are re- 
 garded by a growing "left-wing" element as too 
 "centrist." This change of attitude bodes no 
 good. The laboring-man is no expert in the use 
 of violence, and in the long run never benefits him- 
 self by resorting to it. We recommend everyone 
 to read Robert Hunter's Violence in the Labor 
 Movement, to see how invariably the cause of the 
 masses has been betrayed by leaders who pro- 
 voked them to violence. Such leaders, as was 
 the case in the strike at Lawrence, have been sup- 
 plied by "detective" agencies in the pay of the 
 mill-owners to discredit the workers. 
 
 In an account of the Russian revolution, 14 oc- 
 
 "Emerson, R. W., on "compensation" in his "Critical Essays," v. 1, 
 pp. 83-4. 
 
 1( As quoted by the Melting Pot, April, 1919, from the New Republic.
 
 516 PHILOSOI^IY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 curs the incidental mention that "those servants 
 of the autocracy who fomented disorder in Petro- 
 grad in March, 1917, believed that by creating 
 and suppressing an artificial premature revolt 
 they could forestall and perhaps altogether pre- 
 vent the more serious revolt against themselves 
 which they had good reason to expect in the fu- 
 ture. The autocracy arrested the whole Labor 
 Group of the Central War Industries Committee 
 because that group of patriotic Socialists had 
 shown themselves capable of preventing trouble 
 with the workmen." 
 
 What disaster from without and tyranny with- 
 in the Bolshevik regime is courting by not stop- 
 ping short of opposing violence with violence! 
 
 At the present time we witness the mightiest 
 effort in history of the masses of the world to 
 break the economic harnesses in which they are 
 made to toil. But everywhere they are letting 
 passion run away with judgment, and are resort- 
 ing to violent means. Half a century of propa- 
 ganda and pacific means, not merely the recent 
 events, had put ideals of a better world into the 
 minds of all the peoples ; these ideals in a decade 
 more would have forced, by similar slow but cer- 
 tain processes, their mature fruition. But now 
 the events of the past five years have so filled all 
 minds with the worship of force, that the impa- 
 tient peoples (we say "impatient" with under- 
 standing sympathy, but with despairing pity) 
 have gone back to the old, old, never-yet success-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF IJELPFULNESS 517 
 
 ful means of abolishing capitalism permanently, 
 namely the resort to armed insurgency. 
 
 More would be gained if instead of lending 
 themselves to increasing violence against other 
 groups the partizans of progressive movements 
 would make sure of the utmost solidarity within 
 their own ranks, and of the inclusion of all pos- 
 sible co-workers. The writer was never more in- 
 censed than a year ago last winter when at a meet- 
 ing of all "radical" and labor elements he found 
 himself involved in parliamentary duel with a 
 "labor" speaker who wished to exclude Asiatics 
 from admission to the privileges of this country. 
 In his splendid pamphlet on Race Prejudice, 1 " 1 
 James Morton warns us that "race prejudice is 
 unfortunately not confined to the slums and to 
 the 'privileged classes,' where so abnormal a 
 mental trait is to be expected. Even the trades 
 unions, representing many of the most intelligent 
 workingmen and workingwomen, are ignorant 
 and base enough to draw the color line. When a 
 great strike was won in California by the com- 
 bined energy and loyalty of Americans, Mexican.* 
 and Japanese, all working together, Samuel Gom- 
 pers, head of the Federation of Labor, exhibited 
 his own unfitness to hold any honorable position 
 calling for an intelligent and broadminded man, 
 by refusing to recognize the charter of the local 
 Union, unless they would let themselves be bull- 
 dozed into barring out their Japanese brothers, 
 
 ''Morton, James The Curse of Race Prejudice pp. 43-44.
 
 518 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 
 
 who had stood by them so nobly in the time of 
 stress. The dastardliness of this eminent leader 
 may be suffered to speak for itself. Numbers of 
 trades unions, even in the North, dishonor them- 
 selves by adopting by-laws, which prohibit any 
 Negro from becoming a member. And then they 
 complain that Negroes are scabs and strikebreak- 
 ers! If the Negro has not yet developed a full 
 sense of the solidarity and brotherhood of labor, 
 the blame must rest on the shoulders of those who 
 would deny him the right to earn an honorable 
 living by the side of his white brothers. 
 
 "The shortsightedness and folly of the color dis- 
 crimination of the trades unions is even more con- 
 spicuous than the meanness and inhumanity of 
 such a policy. The Negro cannot starve, and must 
 not be expected to submit tamely to so gross an 
 injustice. If the white workingman refuses him 
 as a helper, he must have him as a rival. The 
 Negro cannot help himself. He must follow the 
 law of self-preservation ; and the narrow race 
 prejudice of the trades unions is responsible, if he 
 is forced by their unreasoning and heartless os- 
 tracism to become the tool of the Baers and Par- 
 rys, who rejoice in nothing so intensely as in divi- 
 ^'ons in the ranks of labor. In a recent book, Pro- 
 fessor Graham Brooks, who is anything but a 
 fanatic, and is everywhere recognized as a most 
 reliable observer remarks : 
 
 "I asked one of the largest employers of labor 
 in the South if he feared the coming of the trade
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HELPFULNESS 519 
 
 union. 'No,' he said, 'it is one good result of 
 race prejudice, that the negro will enable us in 
 the long run to weaken the trade union so that it 
 cannot harm us. We can keep wages down with 
 the negro, and we can prevent too much organi- 
 zation.' 
 
 "And the average trades unionist is idiot enough 
 to play right into the hands of such 'employers 
 of labor/ whose great aim is to 'keep wages 
 down,' and to prevent organization! Dixie, the 
 prominent organ of the cotton manufacturers, 
 some time ago, made the same brag, declaring that 
 so long as the white and colored workingmen 
 could be kept apart, by fostering race prejudice, 
 the existence of the Negro in the South was a 
 great blessing to employers, and that he must 
 always be kept there, as a means of preventing 
 the rise of trades unionism in that section. That 
 trades unionists, in the very teeth of these un- 
 blushing avowals, should allow themselves to be 
 made catspaws by the worst enemies of organized 
 labor, must be looked upon as one of the most 
 marked evidences of mental deterioration under 
 the bane of fetichistic superstition, which history 
 has to record. A man who is fool enough to com- 
 mit industrial suicide to spite his brother of a 
 darker skin, has only himself to thank, if he fails 
 to awaken sympathy."