The Mind in the Making The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform   By: James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936)

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.