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The Mind in the Making The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform By: James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936) |
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The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform By JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON Author of "PETRARCH, THE FIRST MODERN SCHOLAR"
"MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN TIMES"
"THE NEW HISTORY", ETC.
CONTENTS
I PREFACE 1. ON THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME 2. THREE DISAPPOINTED METHODS OF REFORM II 3. ON VARIOUS KINDS OF THINKING 4. RATIONALIZING 5. HOW CREATIVE THOUGHT TRANSFORMS THE WORLD III 6. OUR ANIMAL HERITAGE. THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATION 7. OUR SAVAGE MIND IV 8. BEGINNING OF CRITICAL THINKING 9. INFLUENCE OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE V 10. ORIGIN OF MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION 11. OUR MEDIAEVAL INTELLECTUAL INHERITANCE
VI 12. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 13. HOW SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE HAS THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE VII 14. "THE SICKNESS OF AN ACQUISITIVE SOCIETY" 15. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAFETY AND SANITY VIII 16. SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF REPRESSION 17. WHAT OF IT? APPENDIX
I.
PREFACE This is an essay not a treatise on the most important of all matters
of human concern. Although it has cost its author a great deal more
thought and labor than will be apparent, it falls, in his estimation,
far below the demands of its implacably urgent theme. Each page could
readily be expanded into a volume. It suggests but the beginning of
the beginning now being made to raise men's thinking onto a plain
which may perhaps enable them to fend off or reduce some of the
dangers which lurk on every hand. J. H. R. NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH, NEW YORK CITY, August, 1921.
THE MIND IN THE MAKING
1. ON THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME
If some magical transformation could be produced in men's ways of
looking at themselves and their fellows, no inconsiderable part of the
evils which now afflict society would vanish away or remedy themselves
automatically. If the majority of influential persons held the opinions
and occupied the point of view that a few rather uninfluential people
now do, there would, for instance, be no likelihood of another great
war; the whole problem of "labor and capital" would be transformed and
attenuated; national arrogance, race animosity, political corruption,
and inefficiency would all be reduced below the danger point. As an old
Stoic proverb has it, men are tormented by the opinions they have of
things, rather than by the things themselves. This is eminently true of
many of our worst problems to day. We have available knowledge and
ingenuity and material resources to make a far fairer world than that
in which we find ourselves, but various obstacles prevent our
intelligently availing ourselves of them. The object of this book is to
substantiate this proposition, to exhibit with entire frankness the
tremendous difficulties that stand in the way of such a beneficent change
of mind, and to point out as clearly as may be some of the measures to be
taken in order to overcome them. When we contemplate the shocking derangement of human affairs which
now prevails in most civilized countries, including our own, even the
best minds are puzzled and uncertain in their attempts to grasp the
situation. The world seems to demand a moral and economic regeneration
which it is dangerous to postpone, but as yet impossible to imagine,
let alone direct. The preliminary intellectual regeneration which
would put our leaders in a position to determine and control the
course of affairs has not taken place. We have unprecedented conditions
to deal with and novel adjustments to make there can be no doubt of that.
We also have a great stock of scientific knowledge unknown to our
grandfathers with which to operate. So novel are the conditions, so
copious the knowledge, that we must undertake the arduous task of
reconsidering a great part of the opinions about man and his relations
to his fellow men which have been handed down to us by previous
generations who lived in far other conditions and possessed far less
information about the world and themselves... Continue reading book >>
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