Constructive Psychology THE BUILDING OFCHAMCTER BYPBRSONALEFFORT THE CANONOFPROPORTION Br.J.B.Bugk Class Gopighl N" COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. CONSTRUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGY CONSTRUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGY OR THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER BY PERSONAL EFFORT BY J. D. BUCK AUTHOR OF "MYSTIC MASONRY" AND "A STUDY OF MAN' SUPPLEMENTAL HARMONIC SERIES VOLUME III CHICAGO INDO-AMERICAN BOOK CO. 1908 UB3ARY of oeRGSESS^ Two Copies Receives AUG 31 1908 ¥% GLASS (X KX&Nu. 1_l -i O <4 COPY S« Copyright by J. 1908 D. Buck l'ublished 190S WORKS OF J. D. BUCK A Study of Man - - - $J.50 Mystic Masonry - - - i*5Q The Genius of Freemasonry - J*00 Constructive Psychology - - f. 00 CONTENTS Page introduction 9 The Meaning of Life - - - 21 The Eoad to Knowledge - - 37 The Growth of the Soul 62 The Secret of Power 75 Constructive Psychology - - 99 Education 135 Egomania,, and the Superman - - 171 INTRODUCTION The present is a time of immense activity and great nnrest. Human nature seems stirred to its very depths, as though an all- potent ferment had been added to the human mass, leaving not an atom nor a monad undisturbed. Constructive and destructive forces and tendencies seem, to the casual observer, engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle for supremacy, and every foot of ground seems contested with the energy of despair or the determination of triumph. Political parties face each other , without concession or compromise, in a prize-fight for spoils and supremacy. The champions who have won first place are surrounded by others clamoring for their places, and ready to claim the belt and to endeavor to hold it against all challengers. 10 Constructive Psychology The seething and noisy human mass rush to opposing standards and yell themselves hoarse, forgetting in the frenzy of conta- gious enthusiasm how they have been grouped and whipped into line by their trainers and middlemen who held them like sheep with the dogs of party strife and political expediency, and the epidemic at Chicago is only equalled by the cyclone at Denver. Back of these political champions stand the captains of industry, and the autocrats of wealth, with one eye on their millions grabbed from natural resources and the impotency or helplessness of the hungry toiling masses, and watching the throw of a card or the trend of events, in order to grab again from the human hopper in the mills of the gods of chance. Beneath all this surface turmoil there may be distinctly heard an undertone, a rumble as of distant thunder, with here and there a flash from a distant cloud. It is the cry, the groan, the unrest of the toil- Introduction 11 ing masses, resentful at the inequality and injustice that everywhere oppress them. They are determined to die rather than submit. They are not counted in the race, but the champions on either side undertake to con- ciliate, and in so doing yield just so much as may serve to keep them quiet and expect- ant of better conditions, and enable them to choose the least of two evils, well know- ing that justice is not considered, but only expediency, in order that the few may still dominate the many, and wealth and power and privilege still hold place. From time immemorial this has been the history of statecraft, priestcraft, politics. But never before in the history of man has enlightenment, education and intelligence, with the resulting spirit of Liberty and the demand for common Justice, been so gener- ally diffused among the toiling masses as in the United States today. The masses have always held the balance of power, but they did not realize it. If 12 Constructive Psychology they undertook to co-operate and use their power, statecraft, princecraft or priest- craft contrived to throw an apple of dis- cord into their midst, dividing them into hostile factions or fanatical partisans, and while they were destroying each other the autocrat retired to smoke his pipe of peace in safety. Socialism, however defined, means today that the masses are drawing nearer togeth- er, waking from the lethargy and dumb sleep of ages, and beginning to hold togeth- er and to sense the principle and the neces- sity of co-operation and solidarity. They are getting ready to make common cause against all their oppressors. They need only the nucleus in order to crystallize the idea, or a Peter the Hermit to rouse them to enthusiasm or fanaticism that will sweep away all opposition. To call these natural instincts and this innate sense of common justice "Anarchy" only helps their cause. The effort to label the demand for a square deal and fair play Introduction 13 ' ' Indecent, ' ' as is done in the cowardly and contemptible "Penrose Bill," sneaked in under cover of an " appropriation" near the close of the last Congress, can have but one effect, viz.: of deepening the sense of injustice and multiplying resentment on every hand, and only hastening the day of deliverance or retribution. The politicians doubtless think they "turned a clever trick." If there were statesmen in the last Congress, and cer- tainly there were some, they well knew that Nemesis is tacked on to the Penrose Bill, as the Bill itself was tacked on to an " ap- propriation. " They dare not do openly what they seek to do by fraud and trickery, and the head of the Postoffice Department will scarcely avoid responsibility by com- mitting the execution of the "Law" to the passion, caprice or partisanship of the local postmaster. They all fail to take into ac- count the increased intelligence of the masses, as a whole. Passing from these surface indications 14 Constructive Psychology and open public issues to the status of the individual, the units that compose the mass, Constructive Psychology may do for the individual what Socialism in its strictest constructive sense and most scientific and philosophical form may do for the masses. It will enable them to apprehend and utilize their inherent faculties, capacities and powers and so to make the best of their opportunities as intelligent, rational and free men and women. The evolution of the individual and the constructive solidarity of society are insep- arable. It is important, above all things, to find the lines of least resistance, greatest prog- ress and permanent results. No new theory is herein proposed. A different grouping of facts, the pointing out of things already familiar, with their natural sequence and co-ordinate relations, is all that is in any sense new, or herein attempted. What co-operation and fraternal consid- Introduction 15 eration will do for any group of individ- uals in securing the highest good to all con- cerned, Constructive Psychology will do for each individual through the recognition of his own resources and by enabling him to utilize them so as to secure the highest and best results, both for himself and for any community of which he is a part. In other words, Constructive Sociology and Constructive Psychology are one. The building of individual character and the upbuilding of society in the highest and best sense are inseparable. These basic principles are not abstruse and difficult to understand, though they go to the foundation of things and compass all life. Like the laws of physical health, they are few and simple ; or, like the principles of mathematics, concise and definite. True, they are hedged about by the spec- ulations and the guesswork of ages, and the ground pre-empted by "squatter sover- eigns" of every age, nation, kindred and tongue, the dogmatists in religions having 16 Constructive Psychology the largest paw and the strongest grip, while superstition and fear of the unseen and unknown serve as a bugaboo to pre- vent the children of men from peacefully claiming and using their Natural and Divine heritage. If anyone attempts to do this, he is met at the border of the domain of thought with a sign of warning, or a patent of pre-emp- tion; and if he steps over the fence he is served with a writ of ejectment, with the air full of muttered warnings and maledic- tions. Strenuous indeed must be the struggle of the soul for liberty and enlightenment, when the intellectual and spiritual domain, like the broad acres of the earth, are oivned by someone else. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." The war between radicalism and conserv- atism is like that between the two great contending political parties in America to- Introduction 17 day. The guns of each party are turned against the other, while Truth and Justice sit enthroned serenely above them and above the din of battle. Each of these parties or factions claims too much, and denies too much. Eepose dwells on the mountain tops above the mists and miasmas of the dark valleys. Here the soul, at peace with it- self, may commune with the silence and find Divinity smiling through the starry hosts. The complexity of human nature and the diversity of human interests and pursuits are indeed perplexing and often bewilder- ing. Civilization endowed with intelligence, like the present, carries with it the records of the past, the lessons of history and a very labyrinth of conjecture, theory and experiment. Meantime, ' ' things settled by long use, if not absolutely good, at least fit well to- gether.' ' 18 Constructive Psychology But today it is the custom to challenge all these things, to overturn and attempt to rebuild. In every department of knowl- edge these signs are manifest. Constructive Psychology turns the thoughtful and intelligent individual back upon himself and undertakes to make ex- ceeding plain those few simple principles by which he may adjust himself by per- sonal effort and establish harmonious rela- tions to God to Nature and to his fellow- men. He will find no necessity for consulting libraries, philosophies, authorities, or the- ologies, helpful as these may be at certain times or under certain circumstances. He will appeal solely to his own intelligence, his own conscience and his own experience. This is the only source for him of actual knowledge. He knows only that which he has learned by definite, personal experi- ence. He is not to be indoctrinated, converted, or exploited. He is to undergo continual Introduction 19 transformation. He himself must become ' 'the builder of the temple/ ' thrown upon his own resources, and by personal effort must create his own heaven or his own hell, with the distinct understanding and unal- terable decree, that he must live in the house he builds and keep it in constant re- pair by eternal vigilance and unremitting personal effort. Eternal vigilance is indeed the price of liberty. Every human being is a slave till he has mastered himself. When he has achieved this conquest, he is for the first time Freeborn. Henceforth no power in the three worlds can ever enslave him with- out his assent. Such building of character means work. It has to have a beginning, and the only possible initiative is when the individual determines to begin now! With his first real step in advance, the " Demons of the Threshold' ' — superstition and fear — re- cede, and at last die. There will always be those who will deny 20 Constructive Psychology man's right to this God-given privilege, this natural heritage, just as there will al- ways be those ready to degrade the sacred name of Liberty to license. Every real seeker will hold to the middle of the road undisturbed by the warnings or the menace from either side, though he will be just to all. THE MEANING OF LIFE The most real thing in life with the great majority of individuals still is the "strug- gle for existence in the midst of a hostile, environment. ' ' To "make both ends meet"; to maintain a bare existence; to "keep the wolf from the door," this is the one great problem with the great majority of mankind. It absorbs all their energies, takes all their time, fills them with anxiety and forebod- ing, and in a very large number of cases poverty, necessity, failure and despair are the final result. A large proportion of the so-called mid- dle class nowadays have passed beyond this stage of the struggle for existence, and if they have not secured a competency, they are quite satisfied that they will "get on" and at least hold their own. 21 22 Constructive Psychology These are not fully aware to what extent their success has contributed to the anxieties and failures of the "submerged increment. ' ' Competition and strife by which a fair degree of success has been achieved, now sometimes assumes another form, that of extravagant display and luxury, and this often outruns their actual resources and leads to bankruptcy or crime, whereupon disaster, disgrace, a prison sentence or sui- cide results. For these the meaning of life is summed up in one word — Failure! Kegret, repent- ance or remorse can now change nothing; they are useless. Their aims and ideals have had reference solely to outward things, to the conditions of life, and not to life itself. Wliile the submerged increment have had neither time nor opportunity for self-im- provement, the more favored often have had no real desire for it, have used their energies in another direction, and in the The Meaning of Life 23 end are no better satisfied than the first class. Even where the favored few escape bank- ruptcy, failure and crime, their success often leads to luxury and dissipation, dis- ease and premature death. This is becom- ing the rule with the successful ' * four hun- dreds Scarcely one of these has learned the real meaning of life beyond the handwriting on the wall — Failure! One who, like the physician, follows them from maturity to old age, knows how really purposeless is their lives, so far as any real values are concerned, and what utter wrecks they at last become. Eeal value to themselves is the point that is so often overlooked. They do not seem to care what kind of men and women they are, so long as they can live in luxury and enjoy the pleasures of sense, be counted in the "four hundred' ' and keep up the pace. Any idea of rewards and punishments 24 Constructive Psychology hereafter no longer appeals to them, and needs not be herein considered. It is the record made in the present life that is being considered, and real values (as assets and resources to the individual himself) that are being measured. These real values are everywhere appre- ciated when they are once known, but the great majority do not realize that they are directly the result of personal effort, no less than is the amassing of a fortune or success in other lines of effort and enter- prise. Now the first word in the real meaning of life is Opportunity. Every young man and young woman starting out in life faces a great oppor- tunity. That the great majority are handicapped or restricted, is true, in a certain sense, but this restriction is rather external than in- ternal, extrinsic rather than intrinsic. It all depends upon themselves how they face and utilize such opportunities as they The Meaning of Life 25 have, and it is this, more than the extent and range of opportunity, that determines results. If they face the right way, and utilize such opportunities as come, they will gen- erally find these continually increasing. A great majority of successful men and women in the world have thus, like Napo- leon, "created opportunity' ' and thus con- tinually increased their resources, often beginning in poverty and obscurity. Just here is the grand opportunity of the favored few, viz. : to add to the opportuni- ties of those less favored by fortune than themselves. Many are realizing this, and going to work in earnest about it. In this way they are increasing their own resources for happiness and real, lasting success in life as they could not possibly do in any other way. They gain enthusi- asm and zest in life from the consciousness of being useful to mankind, such as the greedy and self-indulgent never dreamed of. All that any intelligent, fair-minded 26 Constructive Psychology young man or woman has a right to de- mand of society is a fair opportunity to try for success. The society or community that does not do its best and its utmost to furnish such opportunity is not only derelict in the plainest duty, but is sure to pay the penalty in pauperage, increase of crime, and reac- tion against itself in every form. The aggregate wealth, peace, prosperity and happiness of any community do not depend on an equal division of anything, as anarchists and imbeciles interpret or misinterpret so-called Socialism. They depend on the removal first, of any excuse for idleness, injustice and crime. In other words, they depend on securing the best opportunity for all. Special privileges, beyond the mere inci- dents of the day's journey, belong to no one; and those who demand them, or are continually trying to secure them at any cost, are not to be envied. They know perfectly well, if possessed of The Meaning of Life 27 ordinary intelligence, that they possess or are seeking that which does not belong to them, that which they have never earned and to which they have no right whatever. If from the incidents of birth or blind fortune they find themselves endowed with special gifts, and make no effort to realize their increased personal responsibility thereby ; if they accept the gifts of fortune without its accompanying responsibility, they become conceited, egotistic, and degen- erate. They invariably fall as much below the common level as they imagine them- selves to be above it. It is these shallow and vain egotists who, having little sense of justice and seldom any noble motive or high ideal in life, often drift into profligacy, dissipation and self- indulgence and pay the penalty in paresis or insanity. They have demonstrated the fact of injustice in the bestowals of blind fortune, and proved how little the gift was deserved. The Law of Use lies back of all these con- 28 Constructive Psychology ditions. We deserve only that which we use wisely and justly. This is the ' ' parable of the talents, ' ' and it falls under a law as exact and uncompro- mising as that of gravitation. There is no possible way of escaping it. True, one may deceive the community, and fool every- one for a time except himself. The real possessions of every man and woman are intrinsic, not extrinsic, and the account is at last balanced to the uttermost farthing. We have only to reflect that all our earthly possessions and even the physical body are left behind us in the casket, in order to realize that none of these things are really and intrinsically ours. This does not imply the "wordlessness" of any of these things, but it does show the real meaning of opportunity, and the law of use. We cannot rightly utilize or increase our real possessions, resources, and opportuni- The Meaning of Life 29 ties, without thereby adding to the general fund of mankind. What we add to the general fund is the only measure of our worth to ourselves. Freedom to act, individual liberty, is thus safeguarded by inexorable law. Individ- uals are interdependent, and personal lib- erty is the flower and fruit of Personal Be- sponsibility. The two are inseparable. It is thus that our standard of values is established. The real evolution of every individual is only another name for the building of char- acter by personal effort. / The most unhappy person one ever meets is the man or woman who is habitually dis- satisfied with the world and with himself or herself. / Even the conceited coxcomb is preferable as a companion, shallow and childish as may be all his boasted possessions. Self- conceit and shallow self-complacency, how- ever, are not real content and self-satisfac- tion. 30 Constructive Psychology Self-conceit is complacent over an imag- ined result. Self-satisfaction, in its best sense, repre- sents the zest of the soul over the pleasant and profitable journey that is being pur- sued. Self-conceit is like a sloppy rest-house at the end of a day's journey. Self-satisfaction is real joy over the mile- posts passed and enjoyment of the journey of today, and the repose and anticipation of that of tomorrow, which come at the close of every day's journey. The great pessimist, Schopenhauer, de- clared ennui to be the greatest curse in life. Real zest and self-satisfaction must be one of the greatest gifts or blessings. Certain- ly the father of a family must derive a great deal of satisfaction in being able to build his home after designs that satisfy his sense of use and comfort and his idea of beauty. The number of persons who can do this is but a small proportion of any community The Meaning of Life 31 even where the ambition is modest and the tastes simple and reasonable. In the building of character, however, by- personal effort under noble aims and high ideals, no one is restricted or handicapped, provided he has the aims and ideals. The essential endowments, the primary facul- ties, capacities and powers are the same with all men and women ; only the aims and ideals differ. One builds a cesspool, a hog pen or a madhouse, out of the materials from which another constructs "love and a cottage' ' or "a thing of beauty and a joy forever.' ' "We shape ourselves, the joys, the fears, Of which the coming life is made, And fill our future atmospheres With sunshine or with shade.' ' Probably few persons deliberately design to build from low ideals. The great majority have no designs at all on the trestleboard of life. They just drift aimlessly, not realizing what a dis- jointed, unsightly and useless habitation 32 Constructive Psychology they are putting together, till old age is upon them or death stares them in the face, and they also read the writing on the wall — Failure — in their own handwriting, j It may thus clearly be seen how Life means a Great Opportunity and with what infinite possibilities every Individual In- telligence is endowed by God or Nature, handicapped in the building of character by personal effort only by his own igno- rance or indifference. No one, neither God, devil, angel nor man, can do the work for us, nor in spite of us. In every case we do it ourselves, or allow it to do itself, while in each and every case we must accept the results and bear the consequences. This is the responsibility attached to In- dividual Intelligence, the meaning of Soul, or Selfhood ; the price we must pay for the opportunity to become real Men and Women — factors in the world's work, cen- ters of power in the upward evolution of mankind, with the reward of real zest in The Meaning of Life 33 life and enthusiasm throughout the jour- ney. Can anyone imagine greater endowment or opportunity, a richer reward, or a more inspiring prospect? We have only to contrast it with the average life of man or woman, with the wrecks and failures seen on every hand, with the aimless lives and the paresis, de- spair and suicide that brood like demons or avenging angels over the Failures. The hope of the world lies solely in the early education of children along these lines; in laying in youth the foundation upon which the constructive work of a life- time may proceed with no failures along the route or at the end. Life thus means, first and foremost, a Great Opportunity; and success or failure is determined by the way we utilize our capacities and possibilities. We may do this in such a way as contin- ually to increase our resources, ennoble our ideals, increase our zest in life and con- 34 Constructive Psychology struct a character rounded, complete and noble, appreciated by men, approved by divinity and giving contentment and satis- faction to ourselves. Can any one imagine a nobler or more real meaning for Life? Such a life achieved does not engender egotism nor pride of intellect, but it does bring a sense of power and selfhood; and ability to ' l do things, ' ' and to do them well, with zest in the doing of them. Too many lives are aimless, colorless, virtually useless. The great opportunity has been unappreciated, squandered or misused. The strong and noble man or woman is the one who can do the right thing at the right time and place, and in the right way. When the thing is done everyone whose opinion is really worth anything approves and applauds it. It seems as though the actor had been "lying around loose" and "just hap- pened' ' to see or think of the opportunity; The Meaning of Life 35 when the truth is, he or she had really been training and rehearsing for it for a life- time. The power to do it was there, whether the opportunity ever came or not. It is this conscious power, this all-round individual development, this kingship of the soul, that engenders real self-respect and rewards all personal effort for self- improvement. Life means the opportunity by personal effort to build such a character, and the real possessor of it will find nothing "in the three worlds" to envy. He will be filled with gratitude, and never debased by pride or self-conceit. The aim and object are not to gain power over our fellowmen and be able to sway and mould them to our wills. Just here lies a great gulf. The irre- sponsible and conscienceless hypnotist may do and often does just that. The man with kingly power will do his best to increase the opportunity of others 36 Constructive Psychology to help themselves, and in doing this will efface himself completely. He would rath- er remain entirely unknown in the trans- action, rather the one helped should imag- ine he had done it all himself, and so to realize that he can do it again. Where conscious power is real the ap- plause of men is not the cause nor source of satisfaction. Self -content and real self- satisfaction arise from the knowledge that the lines upon which we are traveling lead forever upward into the light and point toward the radiant splendor of eternal day. THE ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE Using the word ' ' Knowledge ' ' as apply- ing to literature, learning, science, philos- ophy — in a word, to books — knowledge is one thing. Used in the sense of measuring the practical and actual resources of the individual at any given time knowledge is a different thing entirely. The multiplicity of knowledge in the first sense, nowadays, the endless disputes over the so-called philosophies, the diversity along the line of speculation, theory and hypothesis, have discouraged and finally disgusted the great majority of the think- ing world, who declare that they will have none of it. Their demand is "Give us something practical. ' ' This result is not only natural, but it has evidently had a very practical effect upon the philosophers and metaphysicians them- 37 38 Constructive Psychology selves. They realize, as never before, that to study philosophies and theories, as such, is one thing, and to add to the resources of every intelligent individual, to help him to gain possession of his own faculties, capac- ities and powers and enable him to utilize them to the best possible advantage, is an- other thing entirely. The result seems to be the apotheosis of Common Sense. The mental realm has been explored, and the diversified and in- genious mind of man has run riot since his- tory began. Philosophical systems have been created as children put together blocks in building toy houses. And if each builder of a philosophical house could guard it long enough from the hand or foot of his nearest neighbor it has been face- tiously labeled "This is the house that Jack built." Haeckel's "Monism" and "Law of Sub- stance" may serve as an illustration. The label is often remembered long after the house has been knocked to pieces. Fortu- Road to Knowledge 39 nately, the innocent blocks show no sign of ever having been so utilized, and can again be used indefinitely. Occasionally some new builder, either with courtesy or sar- casm, will admit that ' ' This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built," and is quite likely to add, "This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. " Coming now to knowledge as applied to resources and utilities, or practical com- mon sense, the idea prevails that it is very largely, if not altogether, empirical, a sort of go-as-you-please, hit or miss affair, with results very largely fortuitous. But even here common sense gets in its work and custom belies theory. In the arts and crafts, in applied science everywhere, education and a course of exact and specific training are demanded, and their results are appreciated, applaud- ed and utilized, and, what seems most satis- factory of all, generally in demand and paid for. 40 Constructive Psychology Technical schools are more and more de- manded and their students seem to increase in proportion to the decrease of students in the study of metaphysics and philoso- phy. I cannot speak from statistics, but I imagine from current events that the "Tech" graduate has ten or twenty chances to one as against the ordinary uni- versity graduate in entering at once into remunerative employment and a prosper- ous business career. Knowledge for its own sake — I mean real knowledge, built upon common sense and available as resources of individual life, and success in the highest and best sense — seems likely to be lost sight of. There is a marked disposition to bunch this real knowledge with the philosophies, or to treat it with good natured contempt as only another "house that Jack built.' ' A little reflection will show the folly and the real lack of common sense in all such conclusions. What one can do as a man, one 's re- Road to Knoivledge 41 sources for business, for success in a social sense as a man amongst men, is, indeed, an urgent and ever-pressing problem. But it is by no means the only problem that every individual has to face. It depends strictly, in the long run and in the last analysis, on the other and deeper problem — what the individual is as a man. His resources are not simply what he has acquired. These are not his real and last- ing possessions. Only in so far as increase of knowledge builds character can it be re- garded as one's real and lasting possession, one's asset in the sum of resources in hu- man life. "We have been so long accustomed to com- mon sense separate from ethics or morals, assigning the former to business or prac- tical worldly affairs and the latter to relig- ion or the other world, that just here com- mon sense seems the most uncommon kind. It is no more true nor practically appar- ent that "a chain is no stronger than its weakest link ,, than that the character of 42 Constructive Psychology a man and his practical resources and " staying qualities " in business and in every walk of life are no stronger nor more enduring than his greatest weakness or his smallest vices. If proof of this principle were required we have only to turn to the daily chronicle in the newspapers of the day and find it in the absconding president or clerk of some bank where ability in many directions was unable longer to conceal the weakness in one direction, with suicide, im- prisonment or lasting disgrace and sorrow as the result. Nor is the lesson by any means confined to finance, nor the suffering, loss and dis- grace to the single sinner. Even from the pathological point of view this defective knowledge may be counted as disease, no less than criminal or immoral. The hard- headed, common-sense way of looking at these defects in knowledge and lapses in character is that they do not pay; and this fact may and ought to be learned without such sad and sorrowful experience. Road to Knowledge 43 The road to real Knowledge then, the process that puts the individual in full pos- session of his resources as a man and builds character, should result from the application of common sense not only to the daily experiences of life, but as a test of real Knowledge. The theologians, the philosophers and the metaphysicians are rapidly preparing to sidestep and admit just this, and in so doing they are just now holding memorial services over many a philosophical "house that Jack built. ' ' They have labeled the new departure "Pragmatism." All this has come about through the turn- ing of attention from philosophy and meta- physics as such and admitting the trans- cendent utility and importance of common sense and combined experiences. They sweep aside the pantheon of the gods as ruthlessly as they do the dialectics of the philosophers. They have come back to the study of 44 Constructive Psychology man, to common sense, and to what actually and practically pays. In short, they have returned to the law of use. This "new knowledge' ' is indeed very old, and the high-sounding title, "Pragma- tism," will do as a bugaboo for the present, till some freshman among iconoclasts kicks over this latest "house that Jack built' ' and our modern philosophers add their own label to those of their predecessors. Here follow a few brief extracts from Prof. William James' recent lectures on Pragmatism : "Pragmatism is uncomfortable away from facts. Eationalism is comfortable only in the presence of abstraction." 1 ' The pragmatist clings to facts and con- creteness, observes truth at its work in par- ticular cases, and generalizes. Truth for him becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite working values in experience." The pragmatic method means: "The attitude of looking away from first things, principles, categories, supposed necessities, Road to Knowledge 45 and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts." Away go the card-houses and the cate- gories. Even the labels are badly blurred, and this " house that Jack built,' ' to which Prof. William James is quite willing to attach his illustrious name, seems now to stand on the Road to Real Knowledge. In other words, the criterion of truth, and the test of Knowledge, are its immediate and practical utility in the life of, not only the average individual, but of every man. The question now is not "What is Knowledge or Philosophy !" but what is man? And only as, or in so far as this question is actually answered, can we de- termine what is the highest and best that man can do. The human mind is as prone to build theories, systems and philosophies as is the human hand to construct appliances and utilities. Libraries full of the former are scarcely more valuable than rubbish heaps of the latter. Historically, and for the 46 Constructive Psychology antiquarian, both aggregates have indeed a certain value. One thing is quite certain, and that is, if the Pragmatist is neither self -deceived nor deceiving us, the Eoad to Real Knowledge now surveyed and under construction, is a straight cut air line to be speedily opened for business, equipped with common sense and guaranteed to pay enormous dividends. One cannot help wondering if it is really all a bluff. It is quite unnecessary to describe here the various methods devised by man for explaining the reason or meaning of things, the categories of principles recognized in nature and in life, the motives to action, the theories and ways and means devised for the betterment of man. All these things may be found in the histories of Philos- ophy. Many of the so-called philosophers have believed that they had solved the riddle, and that beyond the elaboration of their propositions and their application to de- Road to Knotvledge 47 tails, little more was to be desired beyond their own discoveries. In scarcely any case was the discovery really anything new to the world. In gen- eral, it was either a new statement of an old proposition that had become forgotten, or the old view with new surroundings and a somewhat different application. The new view was presented in a differ- ent light, and the enthusiasm and often the fanaticism of the advocate attracted an audience which caught something of the en- thusiasm, knowing little of the principles involved, and nothing whatever of its form- er history, trials, success or failure. The amount of real knowledge extending down to basic principles and grasping natural laws and orderly sequences has in most cases been very small. Knowledge of previous movements along any of these lines and the causes of former failures have rarely been clearly apprehended and borne in mind. All this applies to modern socialistic 48 Constructive Psychology movements, community experiments and organizations of whatever name or nature designed for the betterment of individual or group life. Under the stress of getting rid of "the struggle for existence in the midst of a hostile environment" people have formed themselves into groups for mutual advan- tage and protection. Some of these groups, like the Oneida Community, have been very successful in an economic way, while slowly disintegrating from lack of any deeper or broader knowledge of the duties and re- sponsibilities involved in individual growth and the method of higher evolution. Here is always a l c wheel within a wheel. ' ' Man as an Individual Intelligence involved in the process of individual evolution is, at the same time, a social unit involved in a group, the members of which act and react upon each other continually. Often the in- dividual has sought alone in a cave, or by fleeing to the desert, that solitude and in- trospection which he believed would insure Road to Knowledge 49 his own redemption, illumination or libera- tion. Very seldom has man perceived that the individual and the social evolution are in- separable and must be worked out together, that no complete and all around develop- ment, no real and permanent higher evolu- tion could be attained save by experience and adjustment along both lines and the adjustment of one group of experiences with the other. The tendency and habit of philosophers to found schools, of religious mystics or en- thusiasts to form sects, as of socialists and political economists to form groups or com- munities, are worldwide and as old as civili- zation itself. The leaders and founders of these groups have seldom been able to eliminate the personal equation. Enthusiasts by nature, emotional to a large degree, they have generally been ego- tists and often fanatics. By their utterances, often oracular, they have been able to appeal to the same ele- 50 Constructive Psychology ments and arouse the same passions in their auditors, reserving for themselves the special mission and office of Leader, prophet or oracle. " Peter the Hermit' ' may serve as an illustration in the past with the Crusades as an object lesson, and Dowie and Mrs. Eddy in modern times, the one combining narrow religious concepts, unbounded ego- tism and blatant self-assertion, with greed for wealth, and promise of Eutopia for his dupes ; the other, combining personal greed and self -laudation with autohypnotism and contradictory and absurd assertions, prom- ising health and business success to her followers. Such things have been possible in all ages down to the present time, for the rea- son that the followers of these " divine healers,' ' " Leaders/ ' and "Official heads" are entirely ignorant, as a rule, of previous similar exploitations differing often only in name, that have ended in disappoint- ment, often in discouragement and dis- Road to Knowledge 51 grace, and sometimes in despair and sui- cide. The sycophancy and self-effacement of the blind followers of these self-styled prophets are often pitiable, and when the denouement comes, as it always must soon or late, they are like one waking suddenly from a dream to the sober and common- place realities of life. The reaction ren- ders them suspicious of all pretenders and is apt to close the door of progress even along normal lines. They have simply swung from the attitude of credulity to that of incredulity, and are no nearer the simple truth than in the beginning. They have indeed had a sad and unfortunate ex- perience, and yet failed to learn to distin- guish between truth and falsehood. A counterfeit always presupposes that there is a genuine coin, else there is nothing to be counterfeited. The power to discriminate between the true and the false is the first step on the road to real knowledge. This means that 52 Constructive Psychology credulity and incredulity are equally tabooed. One must learn first to discrimi- nate and then be able to reject or accept according to underlying principles and laws of evidence alone. That one can learn to do this and seldom make mistakes is not conceivable to the average mind, for the simple reason that credulity or incredulity bias either for or against certain results or conclusions, stands in the place of desire for and love of the simple truth. The genuine truth- seeker cares not a rap for results except to know that they are beneficent and true. Satisfied of this he immediately adjusts his thought and his life to the truth discovered. Nothing can transcend in importance this attitude of mind toward the truth. In al- most every case it determines results quite as much as facts and evidence. It is really an attitude of the soul, its alignment with truth. With a mind so gauged there is, moreover, an affinity with truth, that dis- Road to Knowledge 53 cerns, attracts and holds it largely inde- pendent of time, place or circumstance. Ulterior motives and objects, the desire for wealth, fame or power, no longer bias the judgment or becloud the reason. Ideals of heaven or happiness precon- ceived in ignorance of what is really true, or permanently best, do not obscure nor cloud the search for what is true. "I know not where His islands lift ' i Their f ronded palms in air, "I only know / cannot drift " Beyond His love and care." This is not only the triumph of Faith. It is the sure road to real Knowledge, and only the illuminated soul possesses it. Only this illumination reveals the Truth. There can be no revelation, no true dis- cernment, without it. Man really faces every truth in the uni- verse. One by one they are revealed to him through an affinity with his own soul, 54 Constructive Psychology by an attraction like that which draws the needle to the pole. He becomes the Truth. Here, and here alone, lies the "clue to the labyrinth of life. ' ' It is not a i ' gift of the gods," nor a revelation from without, but a growth of the soul, an evolution from within. Knowledge of what is taking place in the world about us, of the laws of movement, proportion and harmony, changes chaos into cosmos and removes man from the position of a victim to circumstance to that of a master of destiny. Only by knowledge of and conformity to law can he work intel- ligently toward preconceived and desired results. He no longer stubbornly resists. He seems to acquiesce, or to be indifferent. He really waits, and thus discerns the lines of least resistance. When the time comes to act, it seems like magic, and people call him a genius. This requires intelligent observation, dis- criminating judgment, a very large degree of self-control, patience and courage. It Road to Knowledge 55 is the death of fear, the triumph of a faith that is sublime, and a Will that is — as Schopenhauer apprehended it — "Su- preme." Eeal knowledge is not, therefore, an acquisition from without, like gold and lands and worldly possessions. It is, however, accumulated experience, digested, assimilated, and thus a perma- nent possession of the soul. In this sense it becomes understanding. Its crown is Wisdom and its insignia Power. It is relatively independent of time, place or circumstance, because the battle is with- in the soul of man. Many good and sincere people fail in the quest, less from insincerity than from im- patience. They seek a short cut, to "climb up some other way, ' ' a magical formulary, an occult mystery, for a consideration/ special instruction. They seek wisdom, or salvation, or health, or happiness, or power, in "twelve easy lessons" — holiness and divine favor, 56 Constructive Psychology for so many prayers, penances or genuflec- tions ; riches or ease by trusting some ego- tist or grafter to "invest" or take charge of their hard-earned dollars. All these are children on the road to knowledge. They are indeed gathering ex- perience, but they pay dearly for it. They far more often become discouraged, embittered or despairing than wise. The grafters call them "suckers" and contemptuously declare that the crop never fails. The blossom and the fruit are peren- nial. Here and there are those who discern the real truth and go to work in earnest. They drop Time out of their categories. They set their heads and hearts and square their lives in a definite direction. They see everything now at a different angle and in a clearer light. They perceive that real knowledge is a growth and not an acquisi- tion. They are forever free from exploita- tion by monk, grafter or fanatic. Nothing can turn them from this atti- Road to Knowledge 57 tude of the soul. The needle may oscillate, but it settles and invariably points to the pole, because the magnetism of truth aligns every atom. It turns by instinct and needs no reminder, because the monitor is auto- matic and forever at its post. Both credu- lity and incredulity have vanished in them forever. They frequently wait. They often say they "do not Imoiv." The ob- scure and the irrelevant fail to interest them. There are gaps and missing links left in their investigations. They waste no time in seeking to fill them, but they are quick to discern and appropriate when the miss- ing link appears. They are quick to dis- cern that "what is true is True, and what is false is False.' ' All of this puts the quest for real knowl- edge on the lines of least resistance. It is only the beginning, the "outfit" for the journey. What the result or the end may be we need neither know nor care. The quest becomes so satisfying, the 58 Constructive Psychology journey so delightful, the daily conquest so uplifting, that one can never become im- patient that it should end. One can scarce- ly imagine anything ' ' better. ' ' This opening of the avenues of real knowledge, this alignment of the soul with Truth, is also that " Diapason of Nature that closes full in man." It is also reconciliation with Law and harmony, or at-one-ment with God. Hence Jesus said: "I and my Father are one" It is precisely the reverse of vicarious. It is at-one-ment, not l i atonement. ' ' Sin, pain and suffering mean the discov- ery of the lines of greatest resistance and show how things desirable cannot be done or attained. They are sign-posts of dan- gers to be avoided and pitfalls to be shunned. They become beacon lights for the mari- ner on the ocean of truth, and the pilot at the helm wastes no time in regretting or deploring them. He just sails around them and goes on his ivay. He never wan- Road to Knowledge 59 tonly sails among rocks and shoals just to gain ' ' experience. ' ' He will find plenty of these as "object lessons" if he holds steady to his course and true to his goal. They serve as contrasts to bring the truth into still clearer light. He may utilize them without seeking them. He must recognize evil in order to apprehend and appreciate the good, the true and the beautiful. A landscape without shadows would be- come a monotonous and tiresome glare of light. What we call "good" and "evil" are less opposite extremes than contrasted degrees and varying utilities. One who perceives this clearly and in its true light will never deliberately "do evil that good may come." He will rather ac- cept the inevitable and turn circumstance into opportunity. The human organism practices this sub- tle alchemy every moment of our lives by turning waste products and ptomaines into compounds for the maintenance of life, like 60 Constructive Psychology the bile, for example. Even our slaughter houses have caught this philosophy of util- ity and are said to utilize everything but the " squeal of the swine and the bellow of kine. ' ' Thus the greed for gain runs fast- er than love of truth. As already said, the clear recognition of these principles that lie at the very founda- tion of the quest for real knowledge marks the beginning and equips the seeker of Truth for his journey. One should not accept them as dogmas based upon any authority. They are not new to the world. If they do not appeal directly to individual intelligence and com- mon experience, if one cannot test by them all his past experience, and in their light sum up results in his own life, he had bet- ter compromise with his conscience, trust it to another's keeping, pay his tithes of mint, anise and cumin, neglect none of the prescribed genuflections and trust to mir- acle or another world for any real progress in knowledge. Road to Knowledge 61 The constructive principle in human evo- lution depends strictly and solely on intel- ligent personal effort, like learning to walk and every other human attribute or func- tion. The progressive evolution of man as a whole, as one Individual Intelligence, de- pends upon the same principle manifest in each and every individual function. Not only is the whole equal to the sum of all its parts, but one basic principle underlies each part and the whole. How otherwise could harmony (health or holiness) be possible to man? THE GBOWTH OF THE SOUL The resources of man are twofold. These are, first, his own faculties, capaci- ties and powers, the endowment of the Indi- vidual Intelligence, and, second, his en- vironment. Individuals differ from one another in the degree of development, associate rela- tions and i i dominant chord ' 9 of this natural endowment. One has a weak will and strong passions, and is likely to become dis- sipated unless he learns to use the will and control his passions. This means self-con- trol. Another has a strong will, but his sense of justice, of duty, of personal re- sponsibility are weak and undeveloped, and he is likely to be a headstrong tyrant, or an unreasoning, selfish brute, unless the ele- ment of human kindness is cultivated. There are as many of these combinations 62 Growth of the Soul 63 (personalities) as there are people in the world, for there are no two exactly alike. If there were selfhood (individuality) would be impossible. The whole of the present life is, for the great majority of persons, a training school for the growth of the soul or the realiza- tion of selfhood. In this sense the great majority of persons never go to school at all. They play "truant" all their lives, picking morals or immorals up from the streets, the slums, the gutters, with an occa- sional " sermon" or Fourth of July oration mixed in. They follow unreasoning impulse or blind passion, are governed by their "likes" and "dislikes," or yield to the necessity of work or to the despotism of the law. Beyond these internal resources of the individual intelligence there are the environment, the incidents of birth, asso- ciations and the circumstances and condi- tions which may serve as temptations, ad- vantages or opportunities. 64 Constructive Psychology Constructive Psychology recognizes all these resources, conditions and variations, and undertakes to make clear the co-ordi- nate meaning, purpose and possibilities thus latent in man. Amidst the noise, con- fusion and harsh discords, made by the "warring members' ' and the clamorous passions within the soul of man, Construc- tive Psychology points out the way of re- ducing these to harmony and converting noise into music, under the guidance of a Master, the real self, and * ' inviting his own soul" to such a symphony as he never be- fore dreamed of. Constructive Psychology makes it clear that this latent harmony, this joy in living, is the Law of man 's being, the design on his trestleboard, placed there, latent, in the very foundation of life. Organization, function and development are the instru- ments and notes of man's symphony. He has only to still the noise and confusion in order to hear the music. Why do men and women listen, still and Growth of the Soul 65 breathless almost, to a symphony of Bee- thoven ? Because every chord and cadence vibrates with resonance through their whole being. Man discovered consonance and har- mony. It was created by the Creator of men and of worlds and this absorbing en- joyment of music and forgetfulness of all noise and confusion, this forgetting of self, are a foretaste of the spiritual life of the soul, from which one returns dazed and reluctant to the common and meaner things of life. And what is all this but an object lesson in the kindergarten of the soul, revealing its own possibilities for harmony and satis- faction ? The memory of such a symphony, particularly if enjoyed in company with a loved one whose hand in silence clasped your own, and whose heart like yours kept beat with the harmony, may last for days or even for a lifetime. Constructive Psychology teaches man how to involve more and more of that har- 66 Constructive Psychology mony which is designedly the dominant chord of the Individual Intelligence. Evo- lution furnishes the variations which are virtually limitless, but the soul never quite loses the theme nor need forget the combination. Constructive Psychology means con- tinual self -adjustment, continual expansion of harmonic composition, greater and greater range of experience, increasing power of expression and apprehension, till it increases and expands the cradle song of Mother Nature, the lullaby of the Soul, into the symphony of Creation, the anthem of the starry hosts. Let the monists deny and the egomaniacs rave, for they have not yet even heard the cradle song of the soul, and we may allow them undisturbed the complacency with which they pity our love of harmony. What would the world be with all its noise if man had never discovered music? Just what the soul would be if harmony with itself and consonance with both God and Growth of the Soul 67 Nature did not lie at the foundation and in the background of man's being. Man is not a conglomerate of fortuitous elements and functions. He is a co-ordi- nate whole, even when out of tune. The monist and the materialist seem never to have heard one harmonious strain, but only the tuning of the instruments ; and they dis- like " noise' ' and refuse to wait till the con- ductor takes his place and raises his baton, first for silence, and then — a new revela- tion! With eyes fixed on the mollusk and the mammal, digging among fossils for the "missing link," the monist presumes to de- termine the nature and read the destiny of man. Ask him to face about and take one look at the stars and he pauses with pity in his eyes and a superior " scientific' ' smile on his face, and then — resumes his digging among the "progenitors of the human race." How he would roar "I told you so," if only once in his dreams he could see and 68 Constructive Psychology hear an ape that could talk Latin or even Chocktaw! And yet, all the time at the other extreme of the line of ascent, there stand a host forever beckoning him to ' ' come up higher and take a new survey of the growth of the soul, and tie his chariot to a star. ' ' Growth, differentiation, adjustment, de- velopment, completion — here are the de- signs, the methods and conscious recogni- tion, and personal effort the way. Time is but man's recognition, his aware- ness of the passing of events, the succession of phenomena, the incidents that succeed each other in his consciousness. These are relatively " short or long" (time), " large or small' ' (space). These lie at the foun- dation of man's perception of events or things, his power to apprehend size and velocity, and relate him to what we call "matter and force," which condition his consciousness on the physical plane. The growth of the soul is relatively inde- pendent of space and time and may become Growth of the Soul 69 independent of physical conditions and cir- cumstances. The purpose to be accomplished is with- in the conscious realm, within the soul. If one ' * sets his house in order, ' ' that is, determines to accomplish a given result, not in the world outside, but within, and holds that determination like a dominant chord in music, one after another the indif- ferent functions and faculties and the war- ring and discordant passions and powers will come in tune and wheel into line. The question is, can and will he hold the deter- mination, or will he "forget," vascillate, backslide and then resume, or give it up 1 No one can determine this but himself. It all depends on how strongly he desires and determines. As a rule man "plays fast and loose," makes excuses, com- promises with his conscience, till a really dominating passion or a great temptation comes in and then he blames "society," or circumstances, or lack of opportunity, and 70 Constructive Psychology so compromises with his conscience, and is sorry for himself and his Failure. Everything that we know of physiology teaches that proper use and perfect de- velopment are interdependent. There is not one law of development for the health of the body and a contradictory one for the growth of the soul. If there were health and evolution would be inconceivable, for man would be hopelessly at crosspurposes with himself. That the average individual continually works at crosspurposes with himself is true. His is the labor of Cissiphus. The stone that he rolls up hill all day falls at night to the place of beginning — nay, it rolls harder and falls easier and swifter every day, till at last he cries "What's the use!" The right determination, the steadfast will, can hold the stone for every inch gained and will "reach the summit if it takes a thousand years.' ' When, lo! a Growth of the Soul 71 miracle happens, the summit is close at hand, and one knows that it is sure. The building of character by intelligent design, steadfast determination and per- sonal effort, is the prerogative and power of man alone, so far as this world is con- cerned, and nothing on earth can defeat him who Wills! He must be equally ready to wait, or to act, but never lose his deter- mination for a moment. Many persons will declare this character building, this growth of the soul, to be ' l too much trouble.' ' They have not yet per- ceived nor sensed the Great Reward. They have not yet caught one glimpse of the real palace of the soul in the " Kingdom of Heaven' ' within. They have not yet caught one strain of the real Song of Life, the harmony of na- ture, the real joy of the soul, nor realized the fetters that bind nor the shambles that hold them. They may, if they Will, rise above time and place and circumstance, and sit as Masters at their own table, crowned 72 Constructive Psychology with plenty, self-poised, masterful, full- grown Men and Women. All else they can renounce, but this is Being, and belongs to God, and the more they would give it for the benefit of man the larger it becomes and the more God claims it for his own. This is indeed the complete antithesis, the reversal of Nietzsche's " Splendid Blonde Beast." It is superman. His name is Christ os. What a man can do for himself, for so- ciety, for his fellowman, depends, at any moment of his life, on what he is; and what he is depends on how he has utilized his capacities and opportunities and mastered his latent powers and possibilities. It is thus that man's value to society de- pends upon and is solely determined by his value in, and to, and of himself. The well-being of society is solely deter- mined by the evolution and status of each individual. The Monist and the Material- ist, who prate about the Superman, the Growth of the Soul 73 ' ' Splendid Blonde Beast ' ' that is to repre- sent the highest evolution and gain his supremacy by trampling others down, lacks even the finer instincts of the beast, and stands as a complete inversion of the whole theory of evolution. Such inversion could devolve the beasts into devils, but never evolve them into men. As Christos, the real superman stands above the ordinary plane, the middle ground of human evolution, pointing up- ward, so stands Satan at the other extreme pointing downward. These are for us ideals; one representing Divinity as the crown and glory of Human- ity; the other forever representing the apotheosis of selfishness and greed and all manner of uncharity. Every man has to choose soon or late, for no man can face both ways. The building of character by personal effort, the growth of the soul and the evo- lution of man, till he can step from the 74 Constructive Psychology human to the divine and spiritual plane, as before he passed from the subhuman or animal plane to the human, are the same. They all depend upon personal effort and recognition of the law of assent. THE SECEET OF POWER We may now inquire what powers belong to man as the accompaniment of character- building under the Constructive Principle. From the foregoing suggestions it may readily be discerned that Evolution is a re- fining process. The tissues, organs and functions of man are a great refinement upon those of the animal. While the self-conscious individual intel- ligence which man is, constitutes a definite type, and the range of faculties, capacities and powers in the human being transcends that of the brute, giving rise to self-con- scious identity; the fact is generally over- looked that a still higher plane and a more perfect type are involved in man, just as humanity is perceived to have been in- volved in the animal. 75 76 Constructive Psychology The higher evolution of man now de- pends upon his recognition, his awareness of, and striving toward that higher plane. The conditions are such that he must do this by free choice and rational volition. In all evolution below the human plane the impulse was deep-seated and seemingly automatic in Nature. The aim of this evo- lution seems to have been to prepare an organism, a vehicle, a habitat for the hu- man soul. Nature alone provided for the evolution of Life, for the upward trend, for the vehicle of the Individual Intelligence with- out consulting man. From that point on- ward and upward man was taken into coun- cil. The aim was selfhood, and co-opera- tion became the condition, the price for the realization of Self. A moment's reflection will reveal the fact that selfhood could not possibly be the outcome, the result, or the reward of an- other's work, whether of gods or men. The power to choose, to act, to know and Secret of Power 11 to become means individual initiative and personal effort. It is provided that this initiative and effort so essential to individual evolution may be made in such a manner as to assist in the general evolution of mankind. Man by his own intelligence, and guided by his intuitions and all his experiences, must find the lines of least resistance. Pain and sorrow mean the lines of great- est resistance and teach man what to avoid and how a given thing ought not to be done. Nature seems to insist on the well-being of humanity as a whole, and the reward for man's co-operation is his own higher evolu- tion and completer happiness. These guides, suggestions and admoni- tions are on every hand; and when man once realizes what real co-operation means and what is its great reward for the first time he really begins to live. That Divinity should thus take man into council, invite him to co-operate and re- ward him at every step for faithful service 78 Constructive Psychology seems the most amazing and glorious thing in the whole life of man. This is where the Divine Fatherhood is manifest. It is not arbitrary, despotic nor tyrannical; but suggestive, persuasive, monitorial, so as to develop in man the power still further to co-operate, and be- come himself an agent of power, capable of still higher initiative — a co-worker with both God and Nature. Man may fail " seven times, or seventy times seven,' ' and yet is urged by all his aspirations to try again. And so long as he is willing to try the door of assent is never closed. Even if he becomes discour- aged and despairing the wheels of Time may wait and the door of opportunity re- main wide open. It is only when he rebels, purposely turns his face toward the brute, refuses to harbor one ray of kindly sympathy and becomes an agent of destruction to his fellowman, deliberately and intentionally, like Nietz- sche's " Splendid Blonde Beast," that the Secret of Power 79 impulse of higher evolution in Nature is reversed and man begins the steep descent of devolution. This is the Law and the gospel, the mean- ing of evolution, and the world is full of object lessons to prove it true. The secret of power, therefore, lies in man's co-operation with God, with Nature and with his fellowmen in the upward march of evolution. Given the power to choose, man has to develop the power to discriminate, to measure values, to assent or dissent, to say "yes" or "no," to act, or to withhold action. Thus arises an experience which demon- strates the value of things, of ideas, of principles and of results. Thus is devel- oped the power of Will, of Judgment, of Eeason and a knowledge of relations and values. The net result of all this experience at any given time in two individuals may differ very widely. But the Law, the proc- ess, the principles involved, are always 80 Constructive Psychology the same. The individual's own standard of values, his estimate of what is just, right, true and desirable determines his character and measures his personal responsibility. In other words, it illumines his conscience. Freedom is not the repudiation of all re- straints, but the recognition of just and equitable restraints, and real evolution pro- vides that these restraints shall be self- imposed. The man must become a law to himself, and he can only do this by obedience to law. Hence it has been said: "The wicked obey the law through fear; the wise keep the law through knowledge^ U*\ Freedom, when well deserved and rightly used, promotes law and order, not confu- sion and disorder. There is no principle, nor power in Na- ture, nor in the life of man that permits the growth of power and its continued misuse. Without ultimately curbing that power it will inevitably destroy him who misuses it. Evolution never designs to produce a Secret of Power 81 race of devils or destroyers, like Nietzsche's " Splendid Blonde Beast." If such a race produces itself by inver- sion of the law it inevitably destroys itself. Otherwise the whole human race might be transformed into demons. Not only natural law but Divine Intelli- gence has made such a result impossible. But the human race has been given the power to destroy itself, or to redeem itself. He who conceives as possible a race of demons endowed with immortality has misinterpreted Nature and logically repu- diated divinity or the Divine Intelligence. This, however, is the logic of Atheism, and it is belied by all we know of Evolu- tion. It is only by cutting and trimming and entire misconception of evolution that Atheism can be affirmed. There is intelligence in man; and since man, by all conceptions, is a part of Na- ture, therefore, there is intelligence in Na- ture. 82 Constructive Psychology There is individual intelligence — Man. There is universal intelligence — God. Man's heredity is from both. The Atheist is not "wicked/' he is sim- ply superficial and ignorant. He should not be punished, but pitied. He punishes himself, like him who foolishly, ignorantly or wantonly courts disease. The power of man to perfect himself im- plies the power to destroy himself. This is the meaning of free choice, rational voli- tion and personal responsibility; and the power of initiative under the light of rea- son, seems given to man alone. Only the brute follows blindly the animal instincts. Whenever man recognizes within himself only the brute instincts he has "lost his reason'' (become insane), and devolution toward the brute has usurped the place of evolution toward the divine. The common judgment of mankind and all the courts of justice hold the insane as irresponsible. Where insanity arises from physical dis- ease it is a misfortune. Secret of Power 83 Whenever it arises from riotous pas- sions, selfishness and greed it is Nemesis — the fiat of both God and Nature — "Thus far shalt thou go, but no farther.' ' It means that the evolutionary impulse in Nature is governed by Justice, the "Balance." Pass one fraction below the zero point and ' ' destruction lies that way. ' ' Millions of human beings seem to hover around the brink of the "steep descent." Other mil- lions fluctuate to and fro. Others declare : "I will arise and go to the Father," that is, use personal effort toward self-perfection. The seekers of power are legion, but the motives in seeking and the use designed to be made of power when won are as various as the persons who seek to gain it. Self-indulgence and the applause of their fellowmen enter into nearly all of these ambitions. Only here and there one real- izes that self-mastery is the noblest of all achievements, and that the completeness of the individual in himself makes him a cen- 84 Constructive Psychology ter of power, independent of time, place, circumstance or any outward event or con- dition. ' ' Man is not man as yet, Nor shall I deem his object served, his end Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, While only here and there a star dispels The darkness, here and there a towering mind Overlooks its prostrate fellows, when the host Is out at once to the despair of night, When all mankind alike is perfected, Equal in full-blown power — then, not till then, I say, begins man's general infancy. Such men are even now upon the earth Serene amid the half-formed creatures 'round.' ' It will be an immense advance on the present evolution of the human race when Secret of Poiver 85 the average "teacher" and "preacher" realizes such an evolution to be the real meaning of life, the possible evolution of the individual and the crown and glory of human existence on this earth. Their scepticism and infidelity at this point retard the progress of mankind more than all the blatant infidelity and atheism of the Monist or the Materialist. They talk and preach about a "spiritual world, or state of existence," and yet can give no rational conception of the meaning of such words. Few of them have really got beyond the harps and wings and golden pavements of the childhood of the race. A few might admit (privately) that it would really seem monotonous and tiresome to bow half -bent before a throne and sing psalms to all eter- nity. Their "Revelations" reveal very little ;that finds an echo in the weary and hungry soul of man, and they still make a virtue of "believing" that which has no virtue 86 Constructive Psychology beyond the tyranny of superstition and a makeshift for ignorance, credulity and fear. So they turn their backs to the light of the higher evolution, to the mastership of man, to any method by which it might be achieved, and cling, "like grim death,' ' to the childish fables of antiquity. Man's struggle for self -completion finds here one of its greatest enemies, entrenched and bristling with ' i canons of orthodoxy, ' ' often belching their fires of anathema. The world has had to progress in the face of and in spite of all these things, and yet it has progressed. The refinement of the nature, functions, appetites and ideals of man, incident to the real work of Constructive Psychology here- in outlined, is not a mere matter of senti- ment — it is a matter of transfiguration, of transubstantiation. The vibrations of waves of light incident to sight and of ether incident to sound, as- sume a wider range and function in higher octaves, or planes of consonance. Secret of Power 87 Plato said: "We see by virtue of the light which is in the eye, commingling with the light of the sun." The possible range of perception in man is not limited to the so-called physical plane, though habitually it may not pass beyond that plane. Every student of music and kinetics con- ceives, if he goes beyond the mere surface knowledge of the subject, that there are almost endless vibrations both below and above those apprehensible to the human ear and the human eye. Helmholtz finds a gap of thirty-four oc- taves between the point where our appre- hension or perception of sound leaves off and our perception of colors begins. Take then the seven or eight octaves used in music and an equal number belonging to our perception of colors, adding the thirty- four intervening octaves mentioned by Helmholtz, with an unappreciated number both below and above this range, and we begin to get a vague perception of the "Diapason of Nature.' ' 88 Constructive Psychology So it may readily be conceived that it is quite possible for man by scientific culti- vation and a process of refinement very largely to increase the range of his percep- tion of light and color and sound. The Circassian women who generation after generation weave the beautiful Cir- cassian shawls, are said to be able to dis- tinguish more than fifteen hundred shades of color. Not only so, but occasionally a "sensitive" actually sees and hears things invisible and inaudible to others, and to himself ordinarily. The problem of refinement and increase in the range of man's perceptions is, there- fore, purely a question of fact, under scien- tific experiment, and natural, physiological and psychic law. " Mystics' ' and " Saints" in all ages, by fasting, prayer and meditation, have gained refined and wider range of perception, though knowing and learning nothing of the science of the method, or the meaning of the law. Secret of Power 89 Many drugs are known to produce clair- voyance and clairaudience ; some, at least, of the things seen and heard being demon- strably true. i ' Dominant ideas, ' ' the fright, or ecstasy, and the ravings of the insane have, in many instances, a basis in fact; and to these we may add the "multiple personalities" and obsessions now frequently recognized. The facts and suggestions along this line are not meager, but altogether redundant and bewildering from their multiplicity. Constructive Psychology undertakes to bring order out of all this confusion, har- mony out of all this discordance, law out of all this ' ' accident ' ' and empiricism. Instruction here, however, is not merely instruction in an art to be acquired. Those who really know the Law will never make that mistake. The refining process which is to make one Master of these finer forces and more subtle powers of Nature is not simply an 90 Constructive Psychology art; it is a transformation of man's whole being, a higher evolution, a regeneration. Suppose that by a certain process of training the politician, the speculator or the "grafter" could learn to read the thoughts and discover the plans and de- signs of his neighbor, or competitor; he would not only be more dangerous to so- ciety than he now is, but he would have entered on that path of devolution known to all ages, the "left hand path of black magic' ' that leads to destruction, typified and illustrated by ' ' Margrave ' ' in Bulwer 's "Strange Story.' ' That one may facilitate his own progress in Constructive Psychology is unquestion- able. That ' ' one who knows ' ' may greatly assist his progress by proper instruction is equally true. But step by step one must demonstrate his knowledge of the law of use, and prove by repeated trial that he is immune to all temptation of ever misusing the wider knowledge and greater power gained. Secret of Power 91 People still ridicule the idea and laugh at the term " black magic,' ' even in the face of telepathy, the annals of modern hypno- tism and cases of obsession. The civilization of Egypt, one of the highest and most beneficent ever achieved by man, turned downward to destruction and desolation from just that point of 4 'black magic' '; and clericalism alone in civilized countries perpetuates the abomi- nation today. Moreover, the real master who knows the law, if he consented to teach one he knew to be not worthy and well qualified, and who would misuse the power gained, would share in the responsibility of such abuse. He would share also in the devolution which would be the inevitable result. Such is the law of use, the absolute meas- ure of personal responsibility. It is well for every intelligent human be- ing to know the law — to know that he can evolve to higher and still higher planes through self-control and personal effort. 92 Constructive Psychology But he must also realize that added re- sponsibility goes with every increase of knowledge, however won, or he must pay the penalty. The law is fixed and irrevoca- ble. It is beneficent to mankind at large, but destructive to him who knowingly and deliberately misuses it. Hence the necessity of Living a Life in consonance with the Good Law and as the only possible guaranty of continued prog- ress along the lines of higher evolution. The measure of man's individual free- dom is the law of personal responsibility. The measure of man's individual prog- ress is the law of use. The measure of man's individual power is his beneficence to mankind at large. The measure of man's individual possi- bilities is his intelligent, conscientious, per- sonal effort. These are the exact theorems of Con- structive Psychology. It is not at all difficult thereupon to form a rational con- Secret of Power 93 ception of a spiritual world as a refinement of the physical. Suppose man's perception of vibration (his power to respond to sight waves and sound waves through awareness of their concordant and responsive repetition in his own nerves and brain) were not only great- ly deepened and refined, but that his per- ception as now of the lowest tone of a great organ (32 oscillations per second), began at the point now incident to the perception of the violet ray, and from that point ascended through the whole range of sound, light and color, as now from the lowest tone of the great organ : Then that whole new world of harmonics or overtones would simply be a replica of the physical plane, but many times intensi- fied. This would make conceivable a spiritual plane or world of spiritual (refined, ethe- realized) matter, as a whole, in consonance with the physical, yet a whole plane above it. Then all that would be required for 94 Constructive Psychology the Individual Intelligence to function on that plane, as he now does on the physical, would be that refined vibrations in his own being should correspond, or be consonant with those of that plane. There is abundant evidence to show that certain individuals do at times catch glimpses of this higher plane, but cannot command such experiences at will, because of their ignorance of the method of con- structive psychology, under law; and for the further reason, that the vibrations of the physical body are discordant in them- selves, and drown out the higher vibra- tions. The dominant chord is still in the body while man is on the physical plane, though there seem to be rifts in the clouds and interludes in the music. If by any known method the individual can refine his whole being, and then by his own trained will silence all the lusts of the flesh and concentrate his awareness on the spiritual plane, there is no reason why he Secret of Power 95 cannot perceive and function there as he now does here on the physical plane. Glimpses without number have been em- pirically gained. Constructive Psychology, possessed of a real Science of the Soul, pro- poses the self-mastery and self -refinement that shall endow man with the power to demonstrate his own independence and sur- vival of the change called death. It is no more remarkable that man should be able to control his perceptions — to see, or not to see — than that he should control his actions — act, or refuse to act. Empirical facts illustrate man's real pos- session of these latent powers.* *STRANGE LAND Full of Beautiful Scenes Where Deceased Kin Dwells Seen by Woman Thought Dead. [Enquirer, July 15.] Special Dispatch to The Enquirer. Waterbury, Conn., July 14. — Mrs. William McNulty, of New Britain, had been pronounced dead and all arrangements made for her funeral, when Dr. Mulligan had a premonition that all was not right. He went for his electrical apparatus, and, working for more than an hour, began to see signs of life. 96 Constructive Psychology The soldier on the battlefield often is un- conscious of the fact that he is seriously wounded till the battle is over or he falls from loss of blood. Enthusiasm, or the passion of strife, becomes the dominant chord of his being and silences all lower vibrations. An arm or a leg may have been shot away, or the individual found dead with his gun at his shoulder, or with his hand raised in salute or command, and still astride his horse. There is not a principle invoked in Con- structive Psychology that has not been empirically demonstrated as true a thou- sand times. There is not a faculty or capacity re- Suddenly the woman sat up, amazed at the sur- roundings, and exclaimed: "Oh, I have been in a strange land, a long ways off, where I saw the strangest and most beautiful objects, some old, some young. I saw my poor, dear mother, dead long ago, and a relative dead 30 years, and many others I used to know and love. The sensa- tion was the most beautiful I ever experienced. The place was indescribably attractive and alluring, and illuminated not by the sun, moon or stars, but by some magnificent light of intense softness, remarkably pene- trating and of wonderful brilliancy." Secret of Poiver 97 quired for functioning on the higher plane that has not again and again been empiri- cally proved to be latent in man, and to act at times spontaneously or under peculiar conditions independent of his will. Constructive Psychology simply reduces them to law and order, and utilizes by knowledge and personal effort the princi- ples of the Science of the Soul. In other words, Psychic Science may do for man, the Individual Intelligence, what physical science has done for the arts and crafts, for manufacture and all the com- forts and conveniences of modern life. The meaning of life, the beneficence of opportunity, the reward of personal effort and high ideals, the promise, the method, the potency, the power, and the great re- ward of man's higher evolution, may be discerned here as nowhere else. It ought to banish despair, put a stop to suicide, and cause the fortunate sons and daughters of man to pause, and realize their personal responsibility for them- 98 Constructive Psychology selves, and toward others. Here lies the greatest of all opportunities possible to man, toward which all who will may aspire and build. CONSTRUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGY The really scientific schools of today undertake to furnish the materials and endow the student with theoretical, techni- cal and practical knowledge along given lines. Art, skill, utility and practical work are the aim and more or less the result. The lines that separate theory from law are recognized and defined. The student so educated is capable and full of resources for practical work in life. He can plan, organize and execute. This is education in the broadest and most exact sense. It dratvs out the faculties, capaci- ties and powers of the individual, and by cultivation endows him with resources. Constructive Psychology is this same method applied directly to self-knowledge, self-control, self-power and self-develop- 99 100 Constructive Psychology ment. It is theoretical, technical and prac- tical knowledge of self. This is "Prag- matism," according to the latest nomen- clature. What is man ? What are his powers and resources? How can he possess and utilize themf If these questions can be definitely and correctly answered, and this knowledge utilized, it will lead to power and the growth of the Soul. Constructive Psychology is, therefore, the building of character by personal effort, under natural law, along lines of least re- sistance, greatest progress and utility, and secures the best and most lasting results. We deal here with facts, with self-evident propositions, and appeal to common sense, to the observation and common experience of mankind. Categories, theories, theolo- gies, philosophies, " authorities' ' and tra- ditions are largely laid aside. They may justify and confirm, but they cannot be relied upon as guides, because they are so Constructive Psychology 101 incomplete and contradictory. But the stu- dent well drilled in Constructive Psychol- ogy may review them with more or less profit. Man — for the purpose of this study — is an Individual Intelligence; God — the Uni- versal Intelligence; Nature — the field of manifestation, embodiment, outward dis- play. Man, God, and Nature intrinsically are One; that is, they cannot be essentially at cross-purposes. Otherwise, law, order, harmony and equi- librium would be inconceivable. Constructive Psychology aims to put man in harmony with both God and Nature in order to secure harmony in his own life, and the greatest power and highest evolu- tion to the individual. Man can become Master over Nature by knowing, conform- ing to, and utilizing Nature's laws and processes. The well-known facts of Physiology and the functions of the physical organism may 102 Constructive Psychology be appealed to, and by analogy they justify our conclusions in Psychology. Physiology begins with the physical body as a living organism, and as an empirical fact. Psychology begins with the Individual Intelligence, manifesting in and through the body, equally as an empirical fact. This Individual Intelligence has heretofore been considered incidental, more or less fortu- itous, rather a by-product of the physio- logical organism. We begin from the other side of the equation. When our problem is solved, these two terms, so far as the present life is concerned, may "backward and forward still spell the same." They are certainly very definitely related and interdependent, and our point of de- parture is very clear. As physiologists, we deal with the physical body. As psycholo- gists we deal with the Individual Intelli- gence. The functions and phenomena of life are Constructive Psychology 103 to the physical body what the functions and phenomena of Consciousness are to the Individual Intelligence. The primary en- dowment (that which is first and basic) of the organic body is Life. The primary endowment of the Individual Intelligence is Consciousness. In our study of man we are studying the principles, functions, phenomena, processes and laws of Individual, Conscious Life. Mind is the activity, the process, the phenomena, and the sum of our states of consciousness, the theater in which we act. The Individual Intelligence is aware of its states, conditions and changes in con- sciousness. This awareness may be latent, reminis- cent, or active. It is a fact related to the past and the present, but cannot directly anticipate the future. A single act of the Individual Intelli- gence in consciousness, whether of thought, feeling, or relation, constitutes a Percept. A single group of percepts, involving the 104 Constructive Psychology past awareness with the present, consti- tutes a Recept. Awareness of percepts and recepts, with intelligent discernment of their order, rela- tions and sequence, constitutes a Concept, and the trend discerned may forecast the future. This power of discrimination and dis- cernment involves Memory and constitutes Reason. Memory results from, and is the record of, previous experience. Eeason is thus, awareness of facts, inci- dents, experiences and results, in their orderly relation in time, and sequence of values as " cause' ' and "effect." Such reason gives rise to Judgment, or Knowl- edge. That which experiences, perceives, re- members, compares, combines, learns and knows, is the Individual Intelligence. We may compare Consciousness to a circle or a sphere that continually enlarges or expands through experience. Constructive Psychology 105 Then the Individual Intelligence is the point at the center of the circle or sphere. These are symbols. This one point, which the Individual In- telligence is, maintains its conscious iden- tity (awareness of self) in the midst of all experience, or changes in its states, changes and conditions of consciousness. It thus may be seen that consciousness is the primary endowment of Individual Intelligence. Consciousness changes, while the Individual Intelligence does not. Just as the body grows and develops under its life endowment, so the Individual Intelli- gence grows and develops in its endowment of consciousness. Consciousness is to man what space is to Nature. "The all-container," the ''thing- in-itself, ,? the noumenon, in the midst of all phenomena, is the Individual Intelligence. On account of its continued awareness of self, it is called the Ego. On account of its persistent, conscious 106 Constructive Psychology unity and self-identity, it is the Soul (Psyche). Life and consciousness, like space, are passive. An organism endowed with the potency of life, moves, acts, "lives." An Individual Intelligence endowed with consciousness, thinks, reasons, designs, re- members, hopes, fears and acts. In Constructive Psychology our view- point is changed from that of all other methods of study, and well-ascertained facts group themselves in different order. No new element is admitted, except as new facts are discovered, and the method of using these new facts is simply to allow them to fall into their natural order and sequence with those previously known. Our view of the whole problem of self-knowl- edge thus continually will be enlarged, but from first to last held strictly to the basis of awareness of the Individual Intelligence (self-consciousness) and personal expe- rience. This basis of self-conscious individual Constructive Psychology 107 experience is universal. Individuals differ as to the "content of consciousness, ' ' as to the range and variety of individual expe- rience; as to aims and indeals; as to mo- tives in life; as to tastes, tendencies, bias, capacities and powers ; as to resources and environment. But the essential elements, the primary endowment, the generic qualities, in all that goes to make man, the Genus Homo — these are everywhere the same. Here is unity of endowment as to essen- tial nature, and endless diversity and limit- less variation as to personal experience and acquired adjustment. The meaning and the evident l 'design' ' of this "Unity in diversity' ' is Selfhood; otherwise they are inconceivable. This selfhood is a fact'm nature and in the awareness of every human being. This fact is empirical and basic. It needs nei- ther argument nor demonstration. From the dawn of consciousness in the child and in all subsequent unfolding of experience, 108 Constructive Psychology awareness of self, conscious self -identity, the "self and the non-self," "I," "me," ' c mine, ' ' are the basis from which individ- ual life proceeds and unfolds. With all the diversity of life and of indi- vidual experience, here is the "eternal cell, ' ' the abiding Unity. Because we may not be able to give its essential anatomy, chemistry and kinetics ; dissect it, or show it under the microscope (or, as Ernest Haeckel rather childishly suggests, "ex- hibit it in a bottle," or by "lowering of temperature and increase of pressure . . . solidify it — to produce 'soul snow' "). Childish nonsense under the name of "Sci- ence" has never perhaps transcended this. We are aware of the existence of matter and of the physical universe only in terms of self-conscious experience, and our awareness of self-identity and persistent unity is in the same terms. Constructive Psychology, therefore, be- gins with these empirical facts in personal experience : Constructive Psychology 109 Man is a self-conscious Individual Intelli- gence. The physical body or living organism is the agency, vehicle or mechanism through which the Individual Intelligence contacts the world and acts on the physical plane in space and time, and, more or less, se- cures self-adjustment, growth, develop- ment, power, or evolution — in other words, experience. The laws and processes that determine, promote, retard or defeat this self -develop- ment of the Individual Intelligence, must be regarded as of the first interest and importance. These laws are natural, fundamental, inalienable, as are the general laws of organic evolution. Outwardly, we have "the struggle for existence, natural selection, and the sur- vival of the fittest." Inwardly, we have the struggle for self- adjustment, and self-perfection, through rational volition and personal effort. 110 Constructive Psychology These two processes are coincident and more or less inseparable from the begin- ning. That they should be essentially an- tagonistic is inconceivable in a universe governed by law. This would be like a builder constructing an edifice from bricks that had neither continuity nor perma- nency. The fact that individuals constituting humanity are continually changing is off- set by the fact that the evolution of these individuals is continually on the rise; and that this status of the masses in any given group, or at any time, may rise or fall, depending on the integrity and personal efforts of individuals. Constructive Psychology deals first and essentially with the individual. While it takes cognizance of all that nature and society have done or may do for man, it is especially concerned with what the indi- vidual can do for himself. The perfection of the individual is impossible and incon- ceivable from anything we know of man, Constructive Psychology 111 except through personal effort in conso- nance with natural and universal law. As already shown, the struggle for exist- ence concerns, first, the aggregate, and sec- ondly the individual. The struggle for self- perfection concerns, first, the individual, and afterward the aggregate, though both processes are more or less simultaneous and coincident. This is saying that humanity is composed of an aggregate of individuals, and that this implies both individual and corporate laws, relations, processes and results. Constructive Psychology is essentially the individual problem of self -development, self-mastery and self-perfection. No one will deny that what man does reacts upon himself, and so determines what he is. And as continual adjustment is a basic proposition in human evolution, it is equally true in the whole series of expe- riences constituting human life and indi- vidual experience, that what a man really 112 Constructive Psychology is, at any given time, will determine what lie does. " Cause and effect" are simply the rela- tion of groups of phenomena in nature, or of groups of events or experiences in life as occurring in Time. Movement, or the impulse to action, involves "past," "pres- ent" and "future" time. Experience (past) determines capacity (present) and forecasts the possibilities (future re- sources) of the individual. In all this ceaseless change — in atom, molecule and mass; in cell, organ and or- ganism — incident to life and consciousness, with readjustment continually taking place, the self-identity of the Individual Intelli- gence remains essentially the same. We realize change, growth, evolution or degeneracy, and yet we realize our self- identity. This cannot be accidental or for- tuitous. It is too plain, persistent and self- evident. It is, for many, the one reality. We cannot get rid of it if we try. We can think in no other terms than these. Constructive Psychology 113 All else originates in and proceeds from this awareness of self. We may destroy the body, but we have no evidence that we can obliterate this self- identity. Nor need it here be claimed that we cannot destroy it, for we are dealing only with the present life. All we need to know is that this Indi- vidual Intelligence manifests on the physi- cal plane in space and time through the agency of the human organism. Whether it exists independently of the organism, and can manifest on a sub- or supra-physical plane, is a question of fact, subject to dem- onstration only, and, I believe, a question still of individual experience or awareness. We have, then, the Self-conscious Indi- vidual Intelligence as the first factor in Constructive Psychology. We find, as a matter of fact, that this Individual Intelligence has the power of Initiative. It can do things. Internally, it thinks, feels, desires, remembers, imagines, loves, hates, etc., etc. Externally it acts 114 Constructive Psychology through the bodily organism to express these internal states and conditions. In all this initiative it uses, consciously or unconsciously, the organs of the physical body, or the body as a whole. That is to say, its awareness of the processes through which it acts, or is in turn acted upon, through repeated use has become automatic or subconscious in many directions. Consciousness is latent, diffused, generic, like the Life-principle in the body of man. Self -consciousness is that aspect or relation which the Individual Intelligence bears to this generic principle at any given time, or in the whole life series of experiences, initi- atives, awareness, or actions. Put in other terms : Consciousness is diffused and abstract. Self-consciousness is specific and con- crete. The higher the evolution of the individ- ual, the more clear and specific becomes this line of cleavage between the abstract Constructive Psychology 115 and the concrete, between the self and the non-self. The general law of evolution provides that differentiation and organization shall supplement and not antagonize each other. Were it otherwise, differentiation long ago would have modified man into something else than human, or out of existence. Thus the laws and processes by which God or Nature pushes upward the evolu- tion of the human race as a whole toward perfection are supplemented by the laws and processes by which the Individual Intelligence perfects itself through per- sonal effort. Differentiation is supple- mented by integration, and continual read- justment. The initiative, in the individual, is not, in its higher aspect, antagonistic to the gen- eral trend of evolution, but may altogether supplement and advance it. This is but a higher aspect of "the struggle for exist- ence and the survival of the fittest.' ' The general law of evolution seemingly pushes 116 Constructive Psychology the evolution of the race at the sacrifice of individuals. The individual 's efforts to perfect himself might seemingly ignore the welfare of the race. The materialism of Nietzsche and Haeckel discerns only this apparent antag- onism. Such views are altogether super- ficial and unscientific. The power of initiative is thus primarily and basic in the Individual Intelligence. This is an empirical fact, self-evident from all experience and observation. It is like saying that the being we call Man, does things. Passing by for the moment the mere im- pulses to action, those that lie rather on the automatic side of the individual equation, and considering the initiative in a more highly evolved individual, we find that his status in the scale of evolution depends upon and is determined by his rational volition. This means that he uses his organism, and his environment, his faculties, capaci- Constructive Psychology 117 ties, powers and opportunities in such a way as more nearly to insure a given result. He combines these elements according to order, sequence and co-operative expe- rience. The means and methods he employs are not at cross-purposes, to defeat what he desires to accomplish. In other words, he is more or less conforming to law, which law he has discovered by previous expe- rience. This power of initiative, exercised by the Individual Intelligence under rational voli- tion, is called the Will. Divested of rational volition, or domi- nated by blind, unreasoning desire, it is called Impulse, or Passion, according to degree. The ' i will-to-live ' ' bears the same rela- tion to vital energy, or the Life-principle, that consciousness bears to self-conscious- ness. Eational volition bears the same relation to mere impulse, or passion, that intelligent choice bears to blind animal instinct. 118 Constructive Psychology Eational volition is a higher evolution of the power of initiative in the individual. It adds discriminative judgment to the im- pulse to action, and anticipates results. The discussion of Free Will, fate, des- tiny, ' ' f oreordination, ' ' etc., has filled whole libraries, which today are useless, obsolete, and might as well be burned. The question is not whether the will of man, generically, is free. The fact is, that the will of the individual may become free, and he may exercise the power of initiative by intelligent choice and rational volition, through self-control and personal effort. Just so far as man learns to control him- self is he in line with nature's laws, and by self-mastery he may become master of these laws. The more highly evolved individuals of the race manifest self-control and free choice, and exercise rational volition. They are more highly evolved because they do this, and they do this because they are more highly evolved. It works both ways, ac- Constructive Psychology 119 cording to the law or sequence of " cause' ' and "effect." Every point in individual evolution gained by personal effort helps to secure the next step in advance. The evolutionary impulse is cumulative. Constructive Psychology is the building of character by personal effort, as already shown, and it is only another name for the normal, progressive, higher evolution of man under natural and psychical law. This is readily discerned by comparing the low- est types of individuals with the highest. The animal instincts and impulses recede, as the Individual Intelligence evolves. "Natural Selection" is first supplemented by psychical, and at last superseded by "Divine Selection." Or, in Platonic lan- guage, ' ' the animal becomes a man, and the man a god." These terms are relative, evolutionary, and are justified by facts and observation. If the materialist demands a sight of the "god," we may with equal justice demand the ' ' missing link. ' ' We are studying evo- 120 Constructive Psychology hitionary processes, the beginning and the end of which are equally concealed, but the trend of which is everywhere in evidence. With the foregoing elements that go to the building of character by personal effort, there dawns, unfolds and develops the sense of personal responsibility. This means, first, self-adjustment, and, second, adjustment of the individual to his fellow- men. Freedom to act, in whatsoever degree, involves personal responsibility for action, in just that degree. While this is a basic proposition in indi- vidual evolution, it is also recognized as a fact in society and in all human relations and associations. The laws of all civilized communities and nations are the logical, practical and inevi- table outgrowth of this basic principle in individual life and in race evolution. The sphere of individual liberty, the initiative, the free choice of the individual, is circumscribed by and strictly held to Constructive Psychology 121 account through this principle of personal responsibility. The individual declares : l i I will do as I please. ' ' Society replies : ' l We will hold you strictly responsible for what you do. ' ' Nature echoes : " So will I. ' 9 However this initiative of the individual may be disguised by indirection or con- cealed by fraud and cunning, the principle remains true. But we are dealing here with construct- ive psychology rather than constructive sociology, and while the two are funda- mentally inseparable, our viewpoint now is rather the individual. What we call Conscience is the recogni- tion by the individual of personal responsi- bility. Every rational and intelligent indi- vidual holds himself responsible to himself for his acts. Whatever may be his sense of justice, or his code of ethics, he condemns or approves his own acts, desires, motives, aims and impulses accordingly. The fact that no two individuals may rec- ognize the same standards of justice, equity 122 Constructive Psychology and right, is only another way of saying that no two individuals are the same. The fact that individuals are influenced by heredity, environment and association, changes the conditions as to freedom of action and degree of responsibility, but not the fact of that responsibility. Otherwise, the building of character by personal effort would be inconceivable, and individual evo- lution impossible. Man is not an irresponsible automaton, but a self-conscious individual intelligence, with rational volition and personal respon- sibility; and only as he uses his faculties, capacities and powers according to the laws of his being can he evolve to higher planes. If he acts contrary to these laws he suffers, " repents/ ' "reforms," and so gains knowledge of these laws, and discerns the lines of least resistance, greatest power and truest happiness through experience. He is enabled to do this through the ad- monitions of " Conscience,' ' which is the recognition of personal responsibility. We Constructive Psychology 123 call this "personal integrity, ' ' that which integrates or bnilds up the Individual In- telligence as a whole. There are few theologies or codes of eth- ics that clearly define and give sufficient importance to this principle of personal responsibility, while some of them under- take to ignore or annul it altogether. It is a basic law in human evolution and of the first importance in character-build- ing or constructive psychology. The effort to formulate and enforce a uniform standard of morals has always more or less failed, for the simple reason that the principles defined appealed with different degrees of force to persons of dif- ferent degrees of intelligence, recognizing in varying degrees their own personal re- sponsibility, though the principles defined might be good for the race as a whole. Only force or fraud has ever caused them to be accepted or adopted by any large num- ber of individuals at any given time. Here lies the struggle between individual 124 Constructive Psychology liberty, and creed, dogma, authority and despotism. It is only another phase of the struggle for existence of the race, and the personal effort of the individual for self- perfection. The perfected individual will discover no discrepancy or antagonism be- tween his own highest good and the well- being of humanity as a whole. Constructive Psychology is the process of arriving at this result through personal effort, actual experience and the higher evolution of the individual. Long before he reaches that point he will discover that his own advancement depends on what he can add to the uplift of the whole. The " humane " instincts and im- pulses will become " overshadowed " and inspired by the ' ' divine. ' ' Just as the race impulse to evolution was a vis a tergo, so the divine impulse will be a vis a frontce. Evolution of the human implies Involu- tion of the divine. The whole process and trend of evolu- tion from animal to man can be no more Constructive Psychology 125 clearly apprehended and defined than that upward and onward trend from man, as we know him, to something still higher and more than man. Constructive psychology is not merely the formulated philosophy of this higher evolution; it is also, and at the same time, the work of realizing it as an accomplished fact, or a fact in process of being realized. The definition now often made use of, that "scientific psychology is the study of the content of consciousness,' ' is theoreti- cal, and may be, to a certain extent, philo- sophical ; but in no sense is it constructive and complete. The acquirement of real knowledge here by actual experience and the building of character are inseparable. The explanations given of "multiple personality, ' ' and certain hypnotic phe- nomena, are either superficial, incomplete, or wholly false and misinterpreted in many cases. The reason for this lies in the fact that the Individual Intelligence is either ignored as a fact or altogether inadequately 126 Constructive Psychology recognized or apprehended as a fact in the life of man. Consciousness as a faculty of man can not be shown to possess, in any sense, the power of initiative; any more than can space, devoid of substance and energy. So also with the brain cells, nerves, etc. They act only as they are acted upon, and they both act and react automatically. They lack the initiative. The Individual Intelligence acts and is acted upon, but it may interpose the will and refuse to act, thus showing intelligent choice in place of mere automatism, or the parallelogram of forces alone, as in physics and kinetics. By thus recognizing the Individual Intel- ligence as an empirical fact we are not pri- marily postulating the "Soul," but con- structive psychology is the only process known to man that is likely to lead inevi- tably to a knowledge of the Soul as a fact of experience. Character-building under natural and Constructive Psychology 127 psychical law is soul-building. Man will become conscious of his soul precisely as he has become conscious of his body — through a long series of personal experiences, or acts of awareness, use and control. This is the only way in which man actually learns anything. Many persons in all ages have discerned these principles more or less clearly, and often have acted upon them empirically with exceeding good results. The real mys- tics of all ages have intuitively perceived them, or have been "overshadowed" by the light of the supra-physical plane and drawn upward as by the lift of wings. In a very large proportion of these cases, however, there has resulted only a one- sided development. They have often be- come unbalanced, or diseased, and some- times insane. They have conceived it nec- essary to " torture the body to save the SOul." To master the lower nature, and thus to command and utilize all the faculties, ca- 128 Constructive Psychology pacities and powers, is the only rational and constructive method of the higher evo- lution. It regards the health and develop- ment of the body as the vehicle of life, and of equal importance with the development of the soul. The two are inseparable, so far as evolutionary processes are concerned on the physical plane. In the growth and development of the physical body an impulse repeatedly sent along a given line, or involving a group of cells, develops the tissues involved and per- fects the function, thus giving rise to auton- omy. In like manner, the power to think, the ' l habit of thought, " " dominant ideas, ' ' concepts, ideals and aims, result from expe- rience, and so develop the power of the Individual Intelligence. The result in the latter case may be as automatic as in the former, for growth itself is always automatic. When, however, intelligent choice, ra- tional volition and a sense of personal responsibility are recognized, and deter- Constructive Psychology 129 mine the " dominant chord," man becomes for the first time master of himself, and automatic action proportionally disap- pears. Body, brain and the whole organ- ism come largely under the dominion of the will. The individual is no longer the slave of passion, of unreasoning impulse, or of habit. This dominant chord becomes syn- chronous with the harmony of nature and sets man free. His " harmonic' ' is no longer bound to the animal plane below him. It is in tune with the spiritual plane above him. It is thus that every principle in constructive psychology has its counter- part and analogy in physiology and organic life. The spiritual plane is but the enlarge- ment and refinement of the physical. This refining process may be established here, and may continue from youth to old age and " death." Constructive psychology and normal evolution are identical. Both aim at the perfection of man. 130 Constructive Psychology The diversified activities of human life, the range of thought, the content of con- sciousness, the speculations and work of the imagination, have covered such a wide area that amid the endless whirl of ideas, percepts and possibilities, it is not at all strange that confusion and bewilderment and even despair often have been the result. From this side of the equation it is im- possible to discern a definite meaning, or a single dominant chord, c£r a Constructive Principle. .-% But this is what our philosophers are striving and still hoping to>do. Scientific Psychology, ir£the latest defini- tion, is the study by scientific methods of the content of consciousness. It is still gathering facts and classifying them along the line of endless diversity above referred to. The other side of this life equation is the unity of man's essential being, man's awareness of his self-identity. It is here Constructive Psychology 131 that the underlying law of unity and per- manency may be discerned and applied, amid all diversity. We have only to compare the directness and simplicity of man's conscious, persist- ent self -identity, on the one hand, with the complex and endless diversity of his expe- rience and the " content of his conscious- ness,' ' on the other, in order to perceive whence must come man's power of control of the whole complex mechanism of life. He must control himself. He must estab- lish and maintain the "dominant chord." He must be the Master and not the slave of the diversities of impulse and feeling, de- sire and passion. He must put his house in order and deter- mine symmetry in place of confusion. He must be a builder in place of a wrecker, a scavenger or a prisoner in a castle that is tumbling down about his head. If there really exists a Constructive Principle in Nature and in individual life. 132 Constructive Psychology and yet it can be apprehended and utilized only by the most advanced intelligences, its practical use and beneficence may justly be questioned. In that case it might be a fine subject for speculation and dialectics by philosophers. Nature is everywhere democratic, not autocratic. Her laws are universal and she is no respecter of persons. If this constructive principle is basic and universal, then it not only applies to every phase or degree of intelligence, but must be apprehensible by individuals at every stage of evolution. And this is the fact. The trouble is, we have become confused in the diversities of conscious experience, and have failed to discern the unity of law in individual effort at self-control. Mould carefully into the consciousness and dawning experience of every child the principles of self-control and personal re- sponsibility, not as a religious dogma, by Constructive Psychology 133 the mere repetition of words, but as the principle back of all conduct, and unbal- anced minds, uncontrolled impulses and passions, and criminal habits would very largely disappear. Constructive Psychology is the building of individual character by personal effort in keeping with the higher evolution of man, and it can be apprehended by the child as readily as by the philosopher. Only the wise comprehend it. The child may not understand the phi- losophy, but it can realize the principle in action, and will be encouraged and gratified by the approval of the growing conscience, the divinity within. Our Juvenile Courts are already operat- ing on these lines. ^Responsibility and self-respect appeal to the young intelligence as directly and as strongly as do athletics or any other com- petitive success. Trust them, and they will learn to trust themselves. 134 Constructive Psychology It is far easier to instruct the child than to reform the criminal. The hope of the world lies in education. The real help for man is to learn to help and improve himself, by properly directed personal effort. EDUCATION A KETROSPECT AND A PKOSPECT A MENACE OK AN EVOLUTION The most important bearing of Construc- tive Psychology is not the education of a few Seers, or even Masters of the Good Law, important as these are to the world. Its most important relation and applica- tion are to the education of the young; to put them from childhood beyond the domi- nation of ignorance, superstition and fear, of self-indulgence and indifference to the well-being of others; to teach them self- control, justice, kindness, and their own personal responsibility. In other words, to start them in the way of their own higher and progressive evolution; to encourage them, trust them, teach them self-reliance 135 136 Constructive Psychology and aspiration, and how to help themselves. Let any really honest and intelligent indi- vidual knowing anything of Juvenile Courts, early crimes, and the slums of modern life, ask himself honestly how the above program would compare with what is usually taught at home, or picked up on the street by child- hood, or with any demonstrated influence of the Catechism, or ' ' Now I lay me down to sleep, ' ' in after life. Ethical instruction ought to begin where such early education leaves off. Then it may build for righteousness, character and usefulness in the world. A few generations of such real teaching would banish Juvenile Courts and reforma- tories for incorrigible childhood. Our responsibility here is the greatest known to man, because the consequences are so far-reaching and lasting. The great mass of the community today, and the majority of the ignorant and vicious hordes imported from the old world, so far as they reverence the name or recog- Education 137 nize the claims or the authority of religion at all, are Bonian Catholics. It is the genius of Clerical Rome to build up the Church at any and every cost to mankind. Its slogan has been in all ages : "Anything and everything for the good of Mother Church." The end always is said to justify the means employed to this end, whatever the means may be. The dogma of obedience to the Church is the foundation from which it rules all its believers, and proposes to rule the world. Any such thing as free-choice, rational voli- tion, or personal responsibility in its vota- ries, is not only avoided by every sophistry or subterfuge, but where it touches a dogma or an interest of the Church, declared to be a deadly sin, the sin of disobedience to the Church. No such colossal institution for fostering and promoting crime and breeding crim- inals was ever instituted by the genius or the depravity of man. Every principle that goes to the building of individual charac- 138 Constructive Psychology ter, self-reliance, self-control and personal responsibility, is abrogated in the individ- ual and assumed and sophisticated by the Church. The Church today in America is using its immense wealth and resources everywhere to rush the building of parochial schools in order to keep its children from the influ- ence of our. Free Schools and hold them in the bondage of ignorance, superstition and fear. No such issue as this has ever before been raised in this country nor on any such magnitude in the world. Kepeatedly the demand has been made for a division of the school fund, with the threat of refusing to pay the tax unless the division is made. Our Free Public Schools, imperfect as they may be, are the bulwark of Freedom and Civilization; but they are held by the Church as inimical to, or tending to under- mine, its dogma of blind obedience and authority over the young. One of the most intelligent and fearless Education 139 of Catholic Priests has taken as the title of his book : "The Parochial School The Curse of the Church and the Menace of the Nation." If one needs an object-lesson, as to what the Church can do in holding back civiliza- tion and degrading a whole people by its teaching, its example, its dogmas and des- potism, let him study present conditions in Southern Europe, or read Father McGra- dy's article on the subject in The Arena for July, 1907. Everywhere in the old world the people are freeing themselves from this blight of paganism, by repudiating the authority of the Church with all its greed and des- potism. These victims of superstition and exploi- tation are coming to America by the mil- lion every year, impoverished and de- 140 Constructive Psychology graded, ignorant, rebellious toward all authority, particularly toward anything in the name of religion, though they may out- wardly, from the momentum of education and habit, satisfy their consciences by its mass and its mummeries. The Mafia are merely the scum ferment- ed in the schools of the Church, and that rises to the surface as civilization, advances. Today, as I write, the ' ' Great Republican Convention" is in session at Chicago, but not a newspaper nor a politician in the United States dares even name this great issue. The power of the Church has them gagged by boycott and a solid Catholic vote. If the Catholic Church can demand a division of the school fund in favor of the parochial school, every other denomination has an equal right to make the same de- mand; and when a. single precedent is thus established, our Free Secular Schools will be at an end. The people of this "Free Country" will Education 141 be compelled to decide whether they have the right to maintain Free Public Schools or not, or whether they will allow a foreign and despotic power to undermine and over- throw them and inaugurate dogma and superstition in their place, with the inevi- table result of pauperage and crime such as have been thus brought about in Southern Europe. We are today not only permitting this abomination to progress here, unchecked, but we are paying as a people the price of its collapse in the old world by attempting to civilize and assimilate its victims by the million every year. Eome has not only pauperized the people wherever it has gained power and held sway, but has at last impoverished itself. The expenses of the "Holy See" are today borne by contributions largely from foreign countries. It thus may be seen how vital and basic is this whole question of education. It is the one great problem in America today. 142 Constructive Psychology No other issue is worth mentioning beside it ; and yet, as a people, we utterly ignore it and allow ourselves to be sophisticated and tricked out of our rights, thereby ignoring our plain duty as a "Free People. ' ' The higher education of men and women, and progress of the individual along the lines of the higher evolution discussed in the foregoing pages, depend, first, on the early education of the child in principles of morality and justice. As a people we not only have the right but the manifest duty of determining what shall constitute good citizenship. We are bound to insist that the demon of dogma and despotism, under the guise of religion, shall not demoralize the young, and so lead to vice and crime. We may, if we choose, continue to sleep and remain indifferent ; but we shall find it impossible to escape the penalty for our folly and supineness. Our boasted "Free Press" is gagged Education 143 almost universally already by threatened boycott, and the enemy of all our free insti- tutions works twenty-four hours a day un- molested to accomplish its purpose. Dog- matism, despotism, degeneracy and devo- lution is the "four-footed beast of the Apocalypse" as revealed today by the agents of the Eoman Vatican in the United States. It took many centuries for this same power under another name to undermine the civilization of ancient Egypt. Two or three decades more of our folly and supine- ness here will enable monks, mass and mummeries to reduce our boasted civiliza- tion to open strife, revolution or desolation. The power of the Church is immense. Its wealth and resources, which can at any moment be focalized at one point by votes and the dogma of obedience, are without parallel or rival. Its hold upon these re- sources depends upon keeping the people in bondage. Hence the hostility everywhere 144 Constructive Psychology manifest toward our Free Secular Public Schools. But in the face of all this power and pre- tense, bolstered up by graft in politics, by cunning and subterfuge, by boycott and Jesuitry, the strongest asset of the Eoman Church is the supineness and indifference of the mass of our citizens outside the Church, who permit this exploitation with- out protest. Two-thirds of the teachers employed in the largest cities of America are Catholics. We boast of our "Free Institutions' ' and grow emotional over our "educational ad- vantages, " and yet we employ as teachers those pledged to obedience to that power which hates our Free Schools and is doing its utmost to undermine and destroy them. This is Modernism with a vengeance ! The Roman Cleric and his Hierarchy may justly and contemptuously laugh over our cowardly indifference. We are "too easy" to command even his respect, though we are well worth exploiting and plucking. Education 145 The cleric is loyal to his demoralized in- stincts, his traditions, his vows of obe- dience, and he reaps his harvest in joy and exultation. The crime is ours in permitting it, and Froude, the historian, called such conduct "pusillanimous." When the harvest is ripe we shall pay the penalty in shame and sorrow, if not in a new "Keign of Terror/ ' Mexico, France, Italy, and even benight- ed and priest-ridden Spain, have aivakened from the apathy and exploitation of cen- turies, and today we are simply harboring their cast-off fetters, inviting their degra- dation, and allowing them to find harbor here for the graduates of clerical training. We bluster, and threaten individual an- archists who are but the blossom and the fruit; and yet we harbor the hotbed that nourished them, and supinely witness here in our very midst the transplanting and growth of the tree that bore them, till it casts its upas shadow over all our fair land. The average citizen ought to go to school 146 Constructive Psychology long enough to be able to read the hand- writing on the wall, or cease to call himself a citizen. The Parochial School is the "school for the more general diffusion of ignorance/ ' and its teachers are masters of the art of suppressing enlightenment or anything deserving the name of education. These schools are rising like magic on every avail- able corner or desirable site in every city in this country, and as they increase our Free Schools will decrease. Already the cleric declares that presently the demand for a division of the school fund will be more than a ' ' demand ; ' ' it will be a writ of execution. The edict of the Pope's Delegate any day could close the public schools in Boston, New York and Chicago, as effectually as he could lock the doors of a cathedral and proclaim a day of jubilee, or "fasting and prayer." He will do it when he gets a good ready, and he is getting ready very fast. l ' What fools we mortals be." Our only possible Education 147 hope is in the education of the citizen, in his enlightenment as to what is going on under his very nose. King's "Facing the Twentieth Century" and Father Crowley's "The Parochial School" might do for beginners. An eye on the daily press and the ' ' doings ' ' of the Chnrch might complete the education. He will look in vain for any note of warning or protest from the ' ' Conservators of our Liberties," the newspapers. They are generally fixed! Our ignorance, indifference and supine- ness constitute a crime, unequaled, against citizenship. It is treason against God, Nature and our fellowmen, far worse than insulting or de- fying our "starry banner,' ' which might justly, even now, bear a stripe of black amid the ' l red, white and blue, ' ' emblematic of the power and the petticoat of the Eoman Cleric in these United States. If we permit the alliance to be formed and perpetuated much longer, we ought to 148 Constructive Psychology sail under our true colors and proclaim it to the world. The work of the Roman Cleric in this country, as throughout the world, compared with any other known propaganda, is like the work of the burglar and the sneak-thief as compared to that of honest labor. They sneak in at every open door or window, take advantage of our confidence or generosity, threaten, cajole, or use the chloroform of religious mummery; but they abuse our tolerance even while condemning it, and steal our liberties like very brigands. We need not blame them, for they are educated and "built that way/' and cannot help it. The pity of it, however, is that they are here to educate our children and citizens in the same school of dogma and obedience. Every free-born American citizen is to blame for permitting it. No child educated in freedom of conscience, rational volition, common kindness toward others, and per- sonal responsibility, could indeed ever be- Education 149 come a t ' good Catholic ' ' ; for no good Cath- olic is ever permitted to exercise these God- given faculties, capacities and powers, that go toward the building of a noble, self- controlled, well-poised character. It is for the interest of Mother Church to keep them in ignorance, that they may be exploited, controlled, deceived and robbed. The clownish mummery of the Mass, the espionage and detective service of auricu- lar confession, the demoralized fraud of vicarious atonement, — these are the hea- thenish substitutes for morals, palmed off as "Beligion" in the name of Jesus. Constructive Psychology and the educa- tion it inaugurates are to the human soul what the bath, normal exercise and whole- some food are to the health of the human body. Eeligion, in its noblest and best sense, the real religion of Jesus, and the purest morals spring as naturally from this con- structive foundation as zest and the joy of life spring from the health of the body. 150 Constructive Psychology Clericalism overturns and subverts all this and puts in its place a nightmare of the soul, the ghosts and demons of superstition and fear, and leaves its victims degraded, demoralized, impoverished, and at last law- less and revengeful. No power on earth has ever so degraded and brutalized mankind as this. This issue is here today. It is here to stay until it is determined. Our Free Secu- lar Public Schools are on one side, and the priest-ridden Parochial Schools on the other; and the Parochial Schools are fast gaining ground and will presently dictate terms. No Catholic in full communion should ever be permitted to teach in our Free Schools. All church property should be taxed, the same as any other. We should fight "till doomsday' ' any attempt at a "division of the school fund." The Parochial Schools, so far as secular education is concerned, should be, like Education 151 every other, under the examination and control of State Examiners, not one of whom should ever be a Catholic. We should take Eome at its own word, let it stand on its own record; and we, as Free American Citizens, should stand on ours. We should not interfere with the Cath- olic religion, as such, but we should narrow its political claims and significance down to the simplest terms, and insist that Eome let our politics and our Free Schools severely and everlastingly alone. Education is the one great fundamental question today in these United States. The education herein proposed is the building of character upon the foundation of intelligent free choice and individual self-control, inspired by common honesty and common kindness, the principles of jus- tice, equity and fraternity. Can any intelligent and honest man or woman except a Catholic deny the truth or the importance, or doubt the results and 152 Constructive Psychology the beneficence of building character along these lines? Was any noble character known to man or recorded in human history ever built along any other lines! The appeal herein made is to common intelligence, common sense and common honesty. We are trying to build a new, a broader, better and more enlightened civilization. Materialism in all its forms and under many names, stands arrayed against this common good by denying God and the exist- ence of the human soul, considering man as an improved animal and nothing more, and leaving him without aspiration or the hope of fruition. On the other side of man's freedom and highest good stands the blighting curse of Popery, seeking to hold man in ignorance in order to control him. There is no real progress for man along either of these lines. All real progress hitherto has been on middle ground in Education 153 spite of these, by repudiating equally the blighting curse of materialism and the slavish dogmas of clericalism. Every step of real progress has been made in spite of both of these. Is it not time that both should be openly repudiated and defied? As it is, we make our obeisance to both alike, because of the dignity and authority of "Science," so-called, and because of the respectability and sanctity of ecclesias- ticism, or "Beligion," so-called. This is considered ' ' good form, ' ' though few intel- legent persons believe in the authority of the one, or in the sanctity of the other. Each of these institutions stands as a foil to the other, and plays shuttlecock with the intelligence of mankind. It is not i i scientific ' ' to admit as a fact the existence of the human soul, till some authority in science sets the pace or gives assent. Then we are permitted, without being considered silly, to make our obei- sance to our own Individual Intelligence, 154 Constructive Psychology and to say for the first time (above a whis- per) "I am that I am." It is not "orthodox" to do your own thinking from your own standards of jus- tice, equity and right, and endeavor to realize self-completion, and responsibility for your own thoughts, beliefs and conduct, because that flies in the face of vicarious atonement, and endangers not only your own soul, but the office and revenues of the Cleric, which is far worse. Each of these outer guards plays directly into the hands of Mammon, and this Triple Alliance browbeats and bullies mankind, and retards the progress of the human race. If man will once shake himself free from both — nay, from the authority or domi- nance of all three of these tyrannies, hold up his head facing the east and the rising sun, take one long, full breath of God's free air and be warmed by the rays of the rising sun, he will feel that he has just been Education 155 born into a new world, the world of all his brightest dreams and aspirations. Then let him read again the ' ' Sermon on the Mount, ' ' and find Jesus as he really is, for the first time, an elder, wiser, stronger, uplifting Brother, instead of a caricature devised by monks and hanging on a cross between heaven and earth for ages,* to excite tears and force revenue through sen- timentality, superstition and fear, breeding largely insincerity and hypocrisy. *This symbol of the man on the cross was intro- duced to Christianity in the time of Adrian 1st in the 8th century, A. D. For several hundred years the symbol representing Jesus crucified had been that of a lamb; "The lamb of good that taketh away the sin of the world.' ; Both concepts — the lamb and the man on the cross — were adapted from previous re- ligious and astronomical symbolisms, like almost all others held to be "sacred" by the church, the "vi- carious atonement' ' and the "virgin birth" being no exception. They help to constitute the politico- religious churchcraft of Papal Eome; valuable as- sets in fostering superstition and fear, and in se- curing revenue. Eead the list of relics in Catholic churches from "milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary" to a bottle containing the "darkness that came upon Egypt," to say nothing of the sample "wood of the cross," and "bones, etc., of Jesus," of which there are said to be a small carload. These things seem to go in the Twentieth Century almost as well as in the Fourteenth. 156 Constructive Psychology The " middle,' ' thinking, reading classes today have reached just this station in human progress. Let them not be afraid or ashamed to avow it openly, for the world sadly needs their combined energy and influence. All of this should be the blossom and the fruit of the Constructive Principle in Nature, intelligently applied to the build- ing of character by personal effort. If we read intelligently the lessons of his- tory and the signs of the times, and so realize what is actually and rapidly being accomplished in this fair land where the latest experiment in self-government is being tried, only one consideration can save us from utter despair. This is the knowledge of the fact that this organized treason against mankind has everywhere else failed in time, and its authors and abettors have been held in contempt and execration. The normal higher evolution of mankind seems designed by both God and Nature. Education 157 Its trend and its uplifting impulse saturate the foundations of all life, as gravitation underlies all matter, and pulls to a common center. Mankind may disregard it and wallow with the brute. He may oppose it, and degenerate, or die; but he cannot get rid of its judgments nor change its course. The crusade now so openly declared and well under way to "Make America Cath- olic" cannot possibly succeed and its work endure, for that would mean reversal of the laws of Nature and the intelligent designs of God. One thing this Clerical Octopus can do, that which it has never failed to do ; it can degrade, demoralize and impoverish a whole people; and between these, its igno- rant and superstitious victims and all other citizens, it can build a wall of suspicion, denunciation, persecution, strife and hatred, and blasphemously inscribe upon its banners the name of Jesus the Christ. It never once has failed to do this in fifteen 158 Constructive Psychology hundred years of its baleful history among the people of the old world. The Church boasts that it " never for- gets an injury nor forgives an enemy, ' ' and wherever and whenever it has gained politi- cal power, which is now its declared pur- pose in America, it never once has failed to use that power to fill prisons with its helpless victims, and to torture and murder its accredited enemies. It can do for America what it has else- where done, and its work here is now well under way. The only question for us now to decide is, whether we are wise and humane enough and have the courage to stay its further encroachments, or whether we will wait till arson and civil war are inaugurated by its blind fanatics with the approval of a Torquemada bearing the title or the proxy of the "Vice-regent of God," and held to be "Infallible" by his degraded hordes. If the whole American people were aroused today and ready to act as one man, Education 159 they would find the entrenchments of this greatest enemy of mankind on every hand, in the most unsuspected quarters. It would require at least the persistent and united work of a quarter of a century to dislodge them or loosen their clutch on the life of the nation. "0 Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and ye would not." History is but the warning or encour- aging voice of God, echoing through all the past ; Prophecy, the lessons of history with hand upraised in warning pointing to the future. Liberty lives only while its hand is clasped with Duty, and through all the affairs of the life of men runs the fixed and unchangeable Law of Personal Respon- sibility. We must form our own standards of justice, equity and right. We must act, 160 Constructive Psychology and we cannot possibly avoid the conse- quences. The real issues between the Parochial School and the Free Secular Public School ought to be very clearly defined so that no intelligent individual need be in the least doubt or confusion regarding them. The "living habits' ' of child or man ought to be such as to produce and main- tain growth, health and comfort of the physical body; and not deformity, disease and death. This includes food, baths, exer- cise, and fresh air, the work of mind or body. The body thus becomes the vehicle of life and the faithful servant of the Indi- vidual Intelligence. It promotes and secures normal evolution, long life and hap- piness. Education in all our free, secular or pub- lic schools now recognizes the above normal physical processes and natural laws. It is equally true and quite as important, that mental, emotional and volitional Education 161 "habits" of child or man ought to be such as to promote and secure growth, health, rational volition and self-control of mind, and of the Individual Intelligence ; not con- fusion, dependence, fanaticism nor crime. Defective as our Free Schools still are in making clear the basic principles in education as to normal self-development and all future evolution of the Individual, no subject among educators excites more interest nor receives more attention and earnest effort than this at the present time. Ignorance and inefficiency are not perversity and devolution. When we come to the Parochial School the question is not only different, but every basic principle is completely reversed. In the first place, the normal evolution and highest good of the individual is entirely ignored. In the place of this stands that subtle, seductive, despotic Colossus, "Mother Church. ' ' The practical good of the individual is 162 Constructive Psychology not only completely ignored, but it is ex- ploited as an asset of "Mother Church;" and as an offset, with an added fee, the individual is promised happiness in another world as the reward of obedience in this. Fear and superstition are the direct agencies fostered and employed with the masses, and in order to realize on these assets and agencies they must keep the people in ignorance. That is, they must ' ' educate ' ' them in their own way. In the meantime the Pope and his agents know perfectly well that they really know no more of any future life than they do of the complexion of the "man in the moon." For purposes of securing obedience, massing votes and collecting revenue, Mother Church uses the people, young and old, as pawns in the great game of world politics and world conquest she is playing; and the only possible hope for the indi- vidual of the mass consists in breaking their chains. Liberal education alone will do this. Hence the Church directs all Education 163 its measureless power against such educa- tion. The whole history of the Church and the Bulls of the Popes stand squarely in proof of the foregoing statements, and the pres- ent writer desires only to make that record clear and the issues plain and unmis- takable. By the dogma of Infallibility, not only are the edicts of the present Pope " infal- lible,' ' but all previous edicts of all other Popes, in spite of their contradictions, remain also infallible; so much does the Church presume on the gullibility of its victims. The Popes, with all their contradictions, hide behind the colossal bugaboo, "Mother Church," with Excathedra as the " little joker" or magic wand. As a single illustration among many that could be quoted, take this from Cardinal Manning : "The Church itself is the divine witness, preacher, judge of the revelation entrusted 164 Constructive Psychology to it. There exists no other. There is no tribunal to which appeal from the Church can be made." During the Inquisition, if anyone of the 90,000 victims of torture desired to "ap- peal" from the decision of the Inquisition to Mother Church, he could do so only through his inquisitorial torturer. This is the same kind of mercy and jus- tice you might expect if a ruffian were pounding and torturing you, and you were permitted to appeal for help only through the ruffian himself. He would of course conduct it in his own way, take his own time about it, and fix the report, if he ever made any, to suit himself. The Church is " infallible." It never changes and never errs, and this is its idea of justice. What about God ? The Church stands in His place and speaks in His name. What about Christ? The Pope is his direct agent and possesses his sole prerog- ative. Education 165 What are justice, right and equity? Whatever the Church declares them to be, in keeping with its own ambitions and designs. What are sins and wickedness? First and last and all the time, disobedience to the Church. What is Atheism and what is blasphemy ? To deny the authority or question the divin- ity of the Church. This is the ' * unpardon- able sin." What are patriotism and good Citizen- ship? To obey without question the de- crees of the Church and vote for its inter- ests and under its dictates, early, late, solid, and all the time. Does all this sound like a tirade or a nightmare of the dark ages? Could anyone but an imbecile, an idiot, or a degenerate be imagined as sanction- ing such degrading despotism ? It is all as literally true in every detail and is the position of the Church today as it was in the days of the "Holy Inquisi- 166 Constructive Psychology tion. " This any honest and intelligent person can easily demonstrate by reading the Encyclicals of the Popes, and current events down to this present day. Can anyone, thus informed, be in the least doubt what the Pope means by the word "Education," or how the clerics through the Parochial Schools are deter- mined to educate the children of "good Catholics ' ' and the rising generation in the United States ? Why they seek to destroy what they call our "Godless Public Schools?" Why they resort to the Jesuit- ical trick of getting "good Catholics" to constitute as fast and far as possible the majority of teachers in our free schools? Instead of a single position being herein misstated or overdrawn, the overwhelming mass of facts is barely touched upon, not even completely outlined. Sufficient has been shown to make it clear what the Church and Clericalism mean by "education" and why they hate our Free Schools and insist on their own. Education 167 Eeal education along the lines of Con- structive Psychology, as heretofore out- lined, aims to give to every child his birth- right of Free Opportunity to become the noblest and best of citizens, and so to co- operate for the highest good of society. His own conscience, educated and illu- mined by reason and controlled by rational volition, is not only to enable him to judge as to what is right and wrong, but volun- tarily to choose the right and avoid the wrong. This he can never do educated by Clerics, except in a spasmodic or restricted sense, in spite of his early training, and with such glimpses as he may get of freedom and personal responsibility. The ignorant, superstitious child who is denied all self-reliance or freedom to act, can never be imagined capable of making the best citizen, except as he may free himself from the bondage of early train- ing. Children so educated are always piti- ably handicapped, to say the least. 168 Constructive Psychology If we had not before us as object lessons today the whole of Southern Europe, and the ignorance, poverty and degradation seen everywhere there as the direct result of the rule of Mother Church, and so recog- nized today by these formerly "good Cath- olics " themselves; if we did not know of their efforts and determination to cast off this rule at any cost, we might find excuse for uncertainty or supineness. Atheism and anarchy, resentment and lawlessness, are the outcome of the policy of Mother Church, the bitter fruit of her educational system. How we can permit to be inaugurated here the same system and tolerate its in- fluence for a day, or permit it to undermine and destroy our free schools (the very key to the whole question), is one of the conun- drums that I dislike even to try to answer. Our position and attitude of ignorance and indifference is simply cowardly and pusil- lanimous, as compared with good citizen- ship. Education 169 When we do awaken at last, as we surely must, in our then "virtuous indignation" we are likely to justify passion and violence in order to hide our real self-reproach and shame that we waited so long. The man or woman who as a child has been educated in free choice, voluntary self- control and obligation to self and to others, is a vital element for good in any com- munity, a center of power for the benefit of all alike. One educated by Clerics, permitted no free choice, kept in the bondage of fear, filled with degrading and self -abasing su- perstitions and his whole life dominated by the dogma of blind obedience, is simply a pawn to be played by despots in the game of life and political supremacy. Every sentiment of freedom, anything like an independent self-centered character, becomes thereby impossible. His own de- moralization is considered a fitting tribute to Mother Church. The Church thus devours her own chil- 170 Constructive Psychology dren under the pretense of protecting theni, and in the end destroys herself. When the last tithe has been paid, the land filled with empty churches, the whole people utterly impoverished, as today in Southern Europe, the Church seeks ' ' other lands to conquer" and so perpetuates the demoralizing struggle century after cen- tury. This is why she is here. This is what she is doing in America today, and we are permitting her to do it without any suf- ficient protest. Patriotism for any "good Catholic" must not only include the Church but put the Church first before the State, and then if the State claims the least power over the Church, the Catholics must repudiate the State. This is the pressure everywhere used for the Union of Church and State. Patriotism thus becomes impossible. EGOMANIA, AND THE SUPERMAN What is to follow should be prefaced by the statement that no appeal is herein made to philosophy, metaphysics, theology, mys- ticism or revelation, as such. The appeal is directly to the common sense, observa- tion and general experience of mankind. By experiment, observation and experi- ence we arrive at a practical knowledge of things. By observation in action, and experience in use, we arrive at real values, and in no other way. Theories and beliefs may indeed point out lines of experiment, but they can never determine results. A catalogue of exploded theories would show a larger heap of refuse than any bomb-thrower could measure in a lifetime. The inventor of a new theory often makes first, the mistake of supposing 171 172 Constructive Psychology that it is altogether new; and next, imagines that it is a final trnth. The more completely he is satisfied on these points, the more likely is he to be altogether wrong. The movements, dissensions, interests and issues of the present time are rapidly narrowing down to a single point. This issue is made plain as that between Indi- vidualism and Collectivism; between the right of the individual to do as he pleases, and the claim of society to curtail his lib- erty and share in his individual resources. It is the old battle between autocracy and socialism that has been raging since time began. It makes not the least dif- ference whether we like such an issue or not. It is here and rapidly taking form, and being pushed to open combat with all the combined energy of the "will to live" and the desire to rule. Banners and slogans have, indeed, changed. The grace of God, divine rights, hereditary privileges, have largely disap- peared, and in their place are seen the ban Egomania, and the Superman 173 ner of mammon, the centralization of power in other forms, the massing of votes, and political trickery. These issues have changed in nothing hut the names since the French Revolution, or since the Garden of Eden for that mat- ter, when (as a woman politician put it the other day) "Eve got on the first bat, and saw a snake that could talk and beguile. ' ' The Darwinian doctrine of the "strug- gle for existence in the midst of a hostile environment, ' ' and "the survival of the fittest" among the improved animals, such as human beings are declared to be, has. borne its fruit and gone to seed. One-third of the human race are said to die before their fifth year, to say nothing of the struggles of adult life. Certain writers, among whom Priedrich Nietzsche and Ernest Haeckel undoubtedly are entitled to the first place, have accepted the Darwinian doctrine as the beginning and the end. Man is simply an improved animal and nothing more. "What impulse 174 Constructive Psychology or trend in the animal guides natural selec- tion, leads to improvement, or determines the line of ascent in the upward evolution beyond the will to live, the struggle for existence and the fact of the physical sur- vival of the fittest, they do not pretend to say. What element of discrimination and upward trend from beast to man guides natural and sexual selection they do not explain. As a simple matter of fact, the line of ascent from animal to man on the physical plane is no whit more clear or demonstrable with all its gaps and missing links, than the line of man's descent from something higher than himself. The push from the animal is no stronger than the pull from the angel, measured by all we actually know of man. It is no more evident that man is an im- proved animal than that he is a " fallen god." The "fallen god" can be quite as readily materialized as the "missing link," Egomania, and the Superman 175 or as logically discerned from the trends of evolution. Evolution implies variation, differentia- tion and continual readjustment. Involu- tion implies permanency of type, completer adjustment and more perfect realization. Evolution tends always to greater diver- sity. Involution tends always to greater unity, completeness, selfhood. These are processes. They are the two terms of the life equation, and they are co- incident and complementary. The trend of higher evolution is pro- gressively involved from the supra-human plane, just as form and function are evolved from the sub-human. These values are exact and definite at any moment in the life of the individual, and the unknown quantity is determined by the exact measure in which the individual has eliminated the animal and realized his diviner potencies and powers. The ethical and spiritual status of the individual, his net value to himself and to 176 Constructive Psychology humanity at any given point of his evolu- tion, are as definite as the weight of his physical body or the number of pounds avoirdupois he can lift. This is only another way of saying that man is a distinct personality as complete in himself, as such, as though he were alone in the universe. At death the equation is solved, so far as the present life is con- cerned. The individual equation is indeed com- plex, and compounded of many terms. But the result is one individual intelligence ; one man or woman ; one human soul. And the equation has been solved by man himself, whether he realizes it or not. He is, just what he is, neither more nor less. The problem given is that of a self-con- scious individualized Intelligence, with rational volition and personal responsibil- ity to determine what he is, what he can do, and what he can become by personal effort. The struggle for existence is now supple- mented by that for self -completion. Egomania, and the Superman 177 Darwin had the grace and the intelli- gence to realize that he was dealing with a physical problem, while the monist and the egomaniac deny that there is any other. It is no more evident that man is a living animal or a material organism than that he is an individual intelligence, and the ascent of the one from the sub-human is no more apparent than the descent of the other from the supra-human. These materialistic writers may be taken on their own ground, on the basis of fact and common observation and experience of mankind, without appeal to philosophy, theology or revelation at all. In order that we may not belittle the whole subject at the outset and contemp- tuously throw it out of court, I quote the opening sentence from the introduction to Henry L. Mencken's "The Philosophy of Nietzsche, ' ' as follows : ' ' The philosophy of Frederick Nietzsche and the music (and quasi music) of Eichard Strauss : Herein we have our modern sub- 178 Constructive Psychology stitutes for Shakespeare and the musical glasses. There is no escaping Nietzsche. You may hold him a hissing and a mock- ing and lift your virtuous skirts as you pass him by, but his roar is in your ears and his blasphemies sink into your mind. He has colored the thought and literature, the speculation and theorizing, the politics and superstition of the time. He reigns as king in the German universities, where, since Luther's day, all the world's most painful thinking has been done, and his echoes tinkle harshly or faintly from Chi- cago to Mesopotamia. His ideas appear in the writings of men as unlike as Eoose- velt and Bernard Shaw. ' ' "The son of a preacher,' ' Mencken says, "as a child Nietzsche was holy: as a man he was the symbol and embodiment of all unholiness. ' ' Nietzsche's intellect was brilliant, scin- tillating, uncontrolled. The realm of his consciousness so far as intellectual per- cepts are concerned — his world of ideas — Egomania, and the Superman 179 was quite inclusive. He had the wilfulness of a child, the audacity and recklessness of a brigand. Basing his theories on the Schopenhauer- ian doctrine of the "will to live," and the Darwinian idea of the "survival of the fittest," egotism and wilfulness dominated his conscious existence. Under this domi- nation, this egomania, he became utterly reckless. Nothing remained sacred. The superman, which he felt himself to be, should demonstrate his determination and his power to do as he pleased and trample everything he disliked under foot. This condition of mind and its inevitable results, are neither new nor strange to the alienist. Madhouses are full of such object lessons. Other people might doubt and question, but it was Nietzsche's prerogative to de- nounce and repudiate with scorn and con- tempt. The superman "must be supremely im- moral and unscrupulous. His must be the gospel of eternal defiance. He will be 180 Constructive Psychology scornful, merciless, and supremely fit. He will be set free from man's fear of gods and of laws, just as man has been set free from the ape's fear of lions, and of open places." "Disregard your neighbors,' ' lie says; "man is something to be surpassed. Sur- pass yourself at the expense of your neigh- bor. What you cannot seize let no man give you." The superman in the struggle for existence asks and gives no quarter. Nietzsche believed, says Mencken, that man, while superior to all other animals because of his greater development, was, after all, merely an animal like the rest of them. He was the pioneer among modern inonists and is said to have proved the truth of morphological universality some years before Haeckel wrote his ' ' Monism, ' ' and "The Riddle of the Universe." "Judge a given action," says Nietzsche, "solely by its effect upon your own wel- fare. All notions of sin and virtue should be banished from the mind." "In itself," he says, "an act of injury, violation, Egomania, and the Superman 181 exploitation or annihilation cannot be wrong. ' ' He was fond of picturing the ideal im- moralist as a magnificent blonde beast, in- nocent of virtue and sin, and knowing only good and bad. " Sympathy, ' ' he said, "stands in direct antithesis to the tonic passions which elevate the energy of human beings and increase their feeling of ef- ficiency and power. It is a depressant. Sympathy thwarts the law of development, of evolution, of the survival of the fittest. It preserves what is ripe for extinction. . . . It is both a multiplier of misery and a con- servator of misery. ' ' Of the eight declarations that have been by a stretch of courtesy called Nietzsche's philosophy, the following are the seventh and the eighth: ' ' That all the ideas that grow out of such gods and religions, such, for example, as the Christian ideas of humility, of self- sacrifice and of brotherhood — are enemies of life too. ' ' 182 Constructive Psychology 1 l That human beings of the ruling ef- ficient class should reject all gods and reli- gions, and with them the morality at the bottom of them and the ideas which grow out of them, and restore to its ancient king- ship that primal instinct which enables every efficient individual to differentiate between the things which are beneficial to him and the things which are harmful. ' ' Thus is to arise the "splendid blonde beast "which he designates also the " super- man." It is the lingering echo of the legends of his Scandinavian race, Thor with his hammer, or Ukko of the Kalevala. Philosophy per se discerns a rational order, and undertakes to determine a log- ical sequence, i. e., law and harmony. There is neither rational order, harmony, se- quence nor law discernible in the writings of Nietzsche. He not only denies and de- nounces all philosophies, ethics, traditions and religions, but contradicts himself again and again. This is the source from which Haeckel Egomania, and the Superman 183 derives his Monism, as a freer and more reckless interpretation of the doctrines of Darwin, and from which he presumes to solve "The Eiddle of the Universe.' ' Whatever he cannot explain, but which is inconvenient and troublesome, he simply denies dogmatically and rules out of court. Professor Huxley believed that man would have to be excepted from the law of natural selection. "The ethical progress of society," he said, "depends, not on imi- tating the cosmic process and still less in running away from it, but in combatting it." (Mencken, p. 140.) In his book, "The Idea of God," John Fiske says: "There are those who have indeed learned a lesson from Mephistoph- eles, the ' spirit that forever denies.' These are they that say in their hearts, ' There is no God, ' and ' congratulate ' themselves that they are going to die like the beasts. Bush- ing into the holiest arena of philosophy, even where angels fear to tread, they lay hold of each new discovery of science that 184 Constructive Psychology modifies our view of the universe, and herald it as a crowning victory for the materialist — a victory which is ushering in the happy day when atheism is to be the creed of all men. It is the view of such philosophizers that the astronomer, the chemist, and the anatomist, whose aim is the dispassionate examination of evidence and the unbiased study of phenomena, may fitly utter the prayers, * Lord, save me from my friends!' " Professor Fiske further shows how natural selection in man will finally be sup- plemented by Divine selection in his higher evolution. We may safely leave monists like Haeckel to scientists like Sir Oliver Lodge, who, in his "Life and Matter," has already called him to account. God is still in His heavens, all is well with the world; and neither the "splendid blonde beast," nor atheism, nihilism, nor monism is the last word even of physical science, pure and simple. Egomania, and the Superman 185 The distinction between simple egotism and egomania is well known to alienists. It is not a difference in degree, bnt a radi- cal difference in kind. It concerns the individual's self -consciousness ; his aware- ness of the self, and the non-self ; his abil- ity to measure values, and determine natu- ral relations and proportions. Egotism is an impulse, egomania a pas- sion, a frenzy, a disease. The egotist may be beaten at his game, acknowledge his de- feat, admit that he was wrong, change his tactics, or compromise. The egomaniac resents opposition, acknowledges no defeat, but becomes frenzied and often murderous under opposition and restraint. Here is the dominant idea, the insane impulse which he never questions. He loses all ef- fort or awareness of self-control. He does not propose for an instant that others shall control him, nor that he will control him- self. Here is perversity in place of rational volition. Nietzsche's intellect was keen. His 186 Constructive Psychology awareness of percepts was remarkable. He would impress the observer that his intel- lect was brilliant, but he was utterly unable to grasp concepts. Belations, values, se- quences were entirely beyond him. His followers, by selecting assertions here and there in his writings, have patched together a so-called "philosophy." Many other philosophies, and of quite opposite meaning, might be gathered in the same way from the same source. Max Nordau has made this exceedingly plain in his analysis of Nietzsche and his writings, by hundreds of quotations there- from. Listen to this from Nietzsche's Zarathustra : "Man is wicked, so spake to me in con- solation all the wisest. Ah, if only it is yet true today! For wickedness is man's best strength. Man must become better and more wicked, so I teach. The greatest wickedness is necessary to the best of the over-man. It might be good for that preacher of little people that he suffered Egomania, and the Superman 187 and bore the sins of man. But I rejoice in great sins as my great consolation.'' I refrain from quoting further from Nietzsche's references to Christianity and the Man of Sorrows. The devout Christian will find blasphemy on nearly every page. But, as stated in the begin- ning, I am not appealing to religion, but to common sense, and common experience of mankind. Judging from the few quotations I have made, those who are unfamiliar with the subject will naturally claim that too much importance is, even here, being given to the ravings of a lunatic. But if Nietzsche " reigns as king in the German universities," as Mencken says; if he has colored the whole thought of his time and given to Haeckel his Monism and to Bernard Shaw at least the slogan of the "Super-man," we shall be compelled to give the thing some attention. Haeckel finds the basis of his dogmatic Nihilism partly in the theory of physical 188 Constructive Psychology evolution and partly in Nietzsche's diabo- lism. The first we may safely leave in the hands of scientists and the second in the hands of the alienists as evidence of per- version, degeneracy or insanity. Bernard Shaw belongs to another cate- gory entirely, and we shall come to him fur- ther on, remarking now only in passing that where Nietzsche noisily assails, denounces and denies Shaw dissects, analyzes and lays bare. Shaw would arrive at the truth and make it plain and unmistakable. Nietzsche de- nies that there is any such thing, though he also asserts that there is, provided you agree with him. Then, again, like Oscar Wilde, if many agreed with him he would suspect himself of error, for it is his ego- mania to differ from the herd and thereby prove himself superior. The imitators and followers of Nietzsche, as among the German students, are those in whom the blood in the loins and the in- stincts of the bully are strong. Egomania, and the Superman 189 But this hot blood and folly of youth, largely engendered by the Bismarck regime, is likely to encourage dissipation and lead to degeneracy, particularly witlj free license of drink and sexual debauchery, after the removal of all moral restraint. They have adopted the slogan of the Pirates of the Levant : 1 1 Nothing is wrong, all is permissible. ' ' That a lunatic could have started such a crusade of vice and profligacy seems alto- gether incredible. That so-called scientists should sanction and seem to justify it seems no less remarkable. No one, even among Nietzsche's followers, doubts that he was insane. His worshipers admit that he was "crazy in spots." The alienist declares that he was never altogether sane. Now let us contemplate for a moment Nietzsche's super-man. A "splendid blonde beast/ ' to begin with. Conscience is repudiated. Kindness, charity, mercy, pity, compassion, sympathy are scorned and repudiated with contempt. 190 Constructive Psychology Heartlessness, cruelty, greed, selfishness are lauded as not only commendable but essential for the power and progress of the super-man, separated from and standing above the herd as the ripe product of evo- lution. What sane man does not know that the human is essentially the humane? Bulwer's Margrave, in his ' ' Strange Story, ' ' soulless though he was, was a gentleman; and self- preservation and self-defense were his crowning passions. He might stand as an embodiment of Schopenhauer's "Will to live." To stay alive on earth was his am- bition, his crowning passion. He never dreamed of the super-man. He knew that death for him meant annihilation. Picture the physiognomy of Nietzsche's super-man. Eyes without one ray of hu- man kindness ; mouth, and teeth, and jaws, and chin expressing relentless determina- tion, pitiless, conscienceless, remorseless. Where can anyone imagine the "improved animal" as coming in? Egomania, and the Superman 191 Not only does the physiognomy reveal the real characteristics of the individual, but we mould ourselves into every tissue of the human body. The lines upon the hand, the expression of the face, the tones of the voice, the gait in walking, the hand- writing — all these are what we make them. They are not fortuitous results from our environment, our heredity, nor the trend of race evolution. They are the net results of all these adjusted, precipitated and re- corded by the Individual Intelligence, by personal effort. God or Nature, law and evolution, have established the human race as the super- structure of individual life. Under these laws and conditions man has to perfect himself, and he must do this along lines that conserve the mass, or ignominiously perish. Newton's " first law" is universal and basic. Action and reaction are equal and opposite here as elsewhere, between the in- 192 Constructive Psychology dividual and the whole, as between the atom and the mass. Nothing is truer nor more self-evident than that every step in the ascent of man has arisen from pushing back the instincts of the brute and recognizing and unfolding the humane impulses. Evolution does not imply the perpetua- tion of the brute. Whole races become ex- tinct and are replaced by something higher and better. The brute may indeed destroy his weaker fellow and by tooth and claw demonstrate his power and fitness to sur- vive, and when he is the last survivor he too disappears and his race is extinct. The individual is inseparable from the race. Individualism is inseparable from collectivism, and man must give and take. As the cells and organs of man are to his body as a whole, so is every individual to his race. There is a law of justice, pro- portion, harmony, equilibrium. To the hu- man body this means health. To society it means equity, peace, progress, evolution. Egomania, and the Superman 193 The superman is not only inconceivable along other lines, bnt all effort to build or even imagine him along other lines contra- dicts itself at every step and belies every known fact of evolution. The seeming recklessness of God or Na- ture, regarding waste of individuals, must be explained in some other way than by the apotheosis of ignorance, defect, and dis- ease. The struggle for existence means the discovery and removal of these defects, and self-interest alone, when really understood, is a sufficient motive in the struggle to rec- ognize and eliminate. This means evolu- tion tried by the facts of common experi- ence and observation, and measured by common sense. Every one of intelligence knows this to be true. In his drama, "Man and Superman/ ' Shaw puts the following into the mouths of his actors : The Statue asks : c c And who the deuce is the Superman V 9 The Devil replies : ' ' Oh, the latest fash- 194 Constructive Psychology Ion among the Life Force fanatics. Did you not meet in heaven among the new ar- rivals that German-Polish madman — what was his name? Nietzsche I ' ' The Statue: " Never heard of him." The Devil: "Well, he came here first before he recovered his wits. I had some hopes of him, but he was a confirmed Life Force worshiper. It was he who raked up the Superman, who is as old as Promethe- us, and the twentieth century will run after this newest of the old crazes when it gets tired of the world, the flesh, and — your humble servant." " Superman is a good cry," replies the Statue, "and a good cry is half the battle. I should like to see this Nietzsche." The Devil: "Unfortunately he met Wagner here and had a quarrel with him. ' ' The Statue: "Quite right, too; Mozart for me." The Devil : ' ' Oh, it was not about music. Wagner once drifted into Life Force wor- ship and invented a Superman called Sieg- Egomania, and the Superman 195 fried. But he came to his senses after- wards. So when they met here Nietzsche denounced him as a renegade, and Wagner wrote a pamphlet to prove that Nietzsche was a Jew, and it ended in Nietzsche's go- ing to heaven in a huff. ' ' And Shaw says in the chapter ' ' On Good Breeding,' ' in the " Eevolutionist 's Hand- book/ ' "The cry for the Superman did not begin with Nietzsche, nor will it end with his vogue. But it has always been silenced by the same question: What kind of a person is this Superman to be! * * * You must furnish a specification of the sort of a man you want. Unfortunately you do not know what sort of a man you want. # # # ^ n( j a ft er a n ? no market demand in the world takes the form of the exact technical specification of the article re- quired. * * * The proof of the Super- man will be in the living, and we shall find out how to produce him by the old method of trial and error, and not by waiting for a completely convincing prescription of his 196 Constructive Psychology ingredients." (In other words, I may add, by experience.) "A nation," he says, " which revises its parish councils once in three years, but will not revise its articles of religion once in three hundred, even when these articles avowedly began as a political compromise dictated by Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, is a nation that needs remaking. Our only hope, then, is in Evolution." Shaw nowhere repudiates conscience nor compassion, nor ridicules virtue nor re- ligion. His language is chaste, though his meaning is very plain. He does lay bare that smug pretense to virtue and holiness, that outward conformity to custom and respectability, the hollo wness, conceit and hypocrisy of Mrs. Grundy, whether mas- querading under the name of religion, morality or good form; and those caught ' ' dead to rights ' ' make haste to charge him with immorality and with attacking relig- ion. He shows very clearly that the Super- man must depend for recognition entirely Egomania, and the Superman 197 on what he is, and what he does, and not on pretense, outward professions and con- formity. Measured by the same standards, Shaw is healthy and sane, while Nietzsche was diseased and deranged. The light of intel- ligence in Shaw is as keen and penetrating as was that of Nietzsche, and it beams with a steady glow that reveals many a hidden truth or concealed abomination. The sparks from Nietzsche 's circuit might splutter and blind the observer, and reveal nothing co- herent nor constructive, but a phantasma- goria of dancing imps, distorted shadows, broken fragments, overturned altars and profane confusion and destruction, with a splendid "Blonde Beast," half devil and half man, dancing a kankan in the midst. Nietzsche is a nightmare from which the sleeper will wake in a new Inferno. Shaw's Superman is a dream of a new Arcadia, re- mote indeed, yet possible, as he says, as the result of higher evolution, when in spirit and in truth man improves upon and rises 198 Constructive Psychology above himself by personal effort and ac- tual experience. Shaw is an architect, a builder; Nietzsche a scavenger and a de- stroyer. Appealing still to common sense and in- dividual intelligence, I may say that the method of this higher evolution is not far to seek. It does not bother itself with meta- physics nor philosophy, nor does it formu- late theories. It relies on facts. It is pragmatic to the last degree. Ask any fair-minded intelligent man if self-control is not an element of strength, enabling him who possesses it to use his own powers wisely and well if he chooses, or most efficiently, regardless of motive and aim. Self-control is an element of power. Rational volition is another means to power, the exercise of the will under dic- tates of reason. He who is thus master of himself and capable of rational volition has improved immensely, not only on the ani- mal, but on himself; and the effort and Egomania, and the Superman 199 discipline by which these powers have been acquired produce a marked tendency to equity and justice. Even expediency and self-interest will show him that injustice does not pay, and that he cannot deliberately injure another without injuring himself. This does not exclude morals; it confirms and necessi- tates the recognition of them. Suppose that the individual, as a child, is taught to recognize his own personal responsibility. Within quite a large area he can do as he pleases, but he must take the consequences. The intellect of the child is far more clear and acute than is gener- ally appreciated, or credited. Kecently a boy of twelve had quite a craze for playing marbles "for keeps.' ' His parents said "no,' ' and his face showed rebellion. But when he was told that he might play "for keeps" all he pleased, provided he would let the other fellow keep all he won and be good-natured about it, but return all he himself won, as not his 200 Constructive Psychology but only borrowed, you should have seen the quick intelligence in his face. ' ' I guess I don't care to 'play for keeps' after all," he said. The trouble is, we teach and profess ivords that really have little practical meaning. These few simple principles lie at the basis and are the foundation of all that we call morals, and the facts of experience so derived constitute the science of ethics. Nietzsche denied and repudiated every one of them. Self-will, regardless of results or consequences, is not self-control. They serve, and also command and triumph, who know how and when to wait, no less than when and how to act. Nietzsche also repudiated rational voli- tion and personal responsibility, and that is where egomania came in. Will, with him, was not a poiver, but a reasonless, frenzied impulse, a blind passion of destruction to all and everything that stood in his way, and ended by destroying himself. Egomania, and the Superman 201 It is not our religions nor codes of ethics alone that have withheld humanity from relapsing to barbarism. These have one and all been deductions from experience and observation. It is this Constructive Principle laid deep in the nature of man, whether recognized or not, that has pro- vided for and determined his higher evolution. But some one makes haste to say, ' ' Then you repudiate or ignore revelation and re- ligion. ' ' By no means. We merely change the basis, from ignorance, superstition and fear — whether of gods, devils, angels or men — to a foundation of fact, experience and law. Eeligion begins where these are recognized, and the superstructure hereon reared will not only be the Religion of Humanity, but it will give such an uplift to man as superstition never imagined nor dreamed of. The real Superman will not be the crea- tion of egomania, nor of creed and dogma, heralded by superstition and safeguarded 202 Constructive Psychology by fear and persecution. He will demon- strate his power by taking all men by the hand as a father takes his little children and lifting them up towards his own plane of beneficence and love. Bernard Shaw says truthfully that the Superman must be the result of the higher evolution; a fact demonstrated by work, and not a fad nor a fancy, not a conven- tionality nor a cloak for all manner of uncharity and hypocrisy. True religion has nothing to fear from the egomania of Nietzsche, the monistic nihilism of Haeckel, nor the brilliant anal- ysis and scathing expositions of Bernard Shaw. Its one great enemy is the cloak of insincerity and hypocrisy, and the absurdi- ties of superstition in which it even yet is enshrouded. Divested of these, it would be like our Statue of Liberty, enlightening the world; and the Superman, always no less divine than human, leading the way. If a Superman were impossible, no one could have imagined a caricature nor a counter- Egomania, and the Superman 203 feit. A counterfeit always presupposes a genuine coin. Notwithstanding all our boasted prog- ress and enlightenment, there still is mani- fest the fear that science is the enemy of religion. It is being rapidly perceived and demonstrated, however, that dogmatic ma- terialism and nihilism are as false to any true science, as superstition, fear and dogmatism are to true religion. The really advanced scientists, like Lodge and Thompson, are no longer perse- cuted, while the Church is compelled to excommunicate its brightest lights or re- form its creed. True science rests on facts and recog- nizes law, order and harmony. And as these are demonstrable, or self-evident, they are upheld by both God and Nature. Here, if anywhere, lies the foundation and the perpetuity of true Religion, a Uni- versal Religion, the Religion of Humanity. Here lies the promise and the potency of the Superman, as an orderly evolution and 204 Constructive Psychology not as an apotheosis of the beast, nor as a roaring and blatant egomaniac. Natural Science recognizes here the Con- structive Principle in human evolution. It builds from beast to man and from man to God. Egomania is its exact antithesis. It is destructive and not constructive, and is known to science as atavism and degeneracy. Only the thoughtless, the ignorant, the degenerate or the insane overlook or con- fuse these well-defined and everywhere manifest principles which are as plain as light and darkness to the common expe- rience of mankind. When the highest group of the improved animal emerged upon the human plane, ac- cording to the theory of evolution, the or- ganic center of life and intelligence, working still under the law of constructive psychology, began to realize its own powers and possibilities. Consciousness, now sym- bolized by a circle, had "returned into it- Egomania, and the Superman 205 self. ' ' This was the dawn of self -conscious- ness — the recognition of self and the non- self. The struggle for existence included now personal effort and the struggle for self- perfection. As the life impulse came from below, so this dawning perception came from above. If the life impulse is said to saturate the developing ego, this higher impulse may be said to overshadow it. This evolutionary impulse, deep-seated as the life principle itself, means personal effort for higher and still higher adjust- ment. In strict keeping and the closest analogy with this theory, a point will be reached when the improved and ever im- proving man will emerge from the human plane as he did from the animal, and recog- nize his kinship with the still higher, the constructive principle, running like a divine thread from beginning to end — as Dryden puts it, — "The diapason ending full in man ; ' ' or as J. G. Holland, the poet, said : 206 Constructive Psychology ' ' From hand to hand life's cup is passed Up being 's piled gradation Till men to angels yield at last The rich collation. ' ' How can anyone fail to see here im- bedded deep in Nature and working out in the higher evolution a real Superman! It is the problem of self-perfection in Indi- vidual Life, and it cannot be at cross- purposes with itself. Man cannot rise by trampling others down. All that we know of even the chemistry of atoms belies such a crude idea. The mass is the sum of the attractions, harmonies and equilibrium of each and every atom. In the face of these plain facts and mani- fest principles in evolution, all religions, codes of ethics and moral philosophies rep- resent the efforts of men, usually advanced men, to grasp and formulate these princi- ples which, by intuition, they more or less clearly perceive. Egomania, and the Superman 207 Measured by the standards of their own time, Zarathustra, Confucius, Laotse, Christna and Buddha, represented Super- men. That subsequent commentators over- awed by their superiority should have shrouded them in mystery and read into their lives miraculous elements, seems not only natural but inevitable. Jesus of Nazareth remains no less the Superman when it is discerned that his divinity was the result of normal and higher evolution, a promise and a potency to the whole human race. The miracle and the mystery in interpretation favor only superstition, give birth at last to creed and dogma, and prevent the truth from follow- ing the lines of least resistance in enlightening the world. The Superman is not only an improved animal, but, at last, a perfected human being; and the perfection of his humanity means the dawn and the development of his divinity. 208 Constructive Psychology 1 ' Yet I reckon through the ages One increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened With the process of the suns." THE END The Harmonic Series Vol.I. "HARMONICS OF EVOLU- TION " treats of the Harmonic Principle of Mar- riage in all the kingdoms of Nature, — Mineral, Veg- etable, Animal, Human. (Physical, Spiritual, and Intellectual) in accordance with the School of Natural Science. By Florence Huntley . . Cloth, $2.00 Vol. n. "THE GREAT PSYCHOLOG- IC ALi CRIME" is an exposition, illustration and elucidation of the Destructive Principle of Nature in Individual Life as demonstrated by the subjective principle and process of Hypnotism and Spiritual Mediumship in two worlds of Matter, Life and Intelligence. ByTK Cloth, $2.00 Vol.m. "THE GREAT WORK." The first scientific and philosophic exposition of the Constructive Principle of Nature in Individual Life, on two planes of evolution. The Key to Master- ship. Morality as an Exact Science. The Way of Life and Immortality. ByTK Cloth, $2.00 "THE DREAM CHILD." A romance of two worlds. A Psychological Problem. A bridge between romance and reality. Life and Love in the Physical and Spiritual Worlds. By Florence Huntley . . . Cloth, 75c INDO-AMERICAN BOOK CO. CHICAGO, ILL. Remit by P. O. or Express Money Order or Bank Draft Supplemental Harmonic Series The Supplemental Harmonic Series presents for liberal thinkers such books as have unusual merit and which offer contributory fact and corroborative evidence of the science and philosophy of the Great School. These books are not offered as official expositions of the School of Natural Science, but as valuable literature which supplements the general position and purpose of the School. New books will be added and old books revived from time to time so that this ser*>s will eventually cover many and varied lines of ethi \ history, research and discovery. VOLUME I. THE GENIUS OF FREEMASONRY and the Twentieth Century Crusade. A Sign and a Summons to Masons. An exposition of the spirit and purpose of Free- masonry, showing that the organization is now facing its greatest crisis. It is of equal interest to those who are not Masons. By J. D. Buck, author of " Mystic Masonry " and " A Study of Man." Bound in Silk Cloth, Gold Stamp, postpaid, $1.00 VOLUME II. THE CRUCIFIXION, by an Eye-witness. A manu- script discovered in Alexandria. An ancient letter from a personal friend of Jesus, written from Jerusalem seven years after the crucifixion, to friends in Alexandria, telling the strange, simple and impressive story of the crucifixion of Jesus, of his removal from the cross, his resuscitation and subsequent death, as this friend witnessed the events. With an introduction by T. K. author of "The Great Work." Bound in Silk Cloth, Gold Stamp, postpaid, $1.00 INDO-AMERICAN BOOK CO. 19 North Kedzle Avenue CHICAGO Some Other Good Books A A STBANGE STOET. } Bt Bclwer LrTTON - To the discerning student these books are fascinating foreshadowings of the Harmonic Series and present day exposition of Natural Science. Although romances, they are at the same time learned expositions of the loftiest principles and the most malign practices of human nature. Bulwer's "Zanoni" and "The Great Work," treating of the Constructive Principle, "A Strange Story" and "The Great Psychological Crime" treating of the Destructive Principle, had a common origin in the School of Natural Science, and in different form, illustrate the same facts and the same principles. ZANONI, Cloth Bound, postpaid $1.00 ZANONI, Half Calf , postpaid - $1.75 A STRANGE STORY, Cloth, postpaid $1.00 MYSTIC MASONRY. By J. D. Buck, M. D., A. and A. S. R., 32°. The author of "Mystic Masonry" has outlined the philosophy of Masonry and explained many of the ancient symbols. This involves the journey of the human soul and the higher evolution of man. The book is quite apprehensible to the non-Masonic reader, as noth- ing essential to the understanding of the philosophy is con- cealed, and it is designed to be a contribution to the knowl- edge of psychology and the uplift of the human race. Cloth, 12mo, 316 pages, postpaid .... $1.50 THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. A compilation from an ancient manuscript discovered by the Russian traveler Nicholas Notovitch in a Buddhist monastery in Thibet. It throws a new light on the life, education and teachings of the Master Jesus. It corrobo- rates the statements of the Great School. Special Indo- American edition, bound in Silk Cloth, Gold Stamp, postpaid $1.00 INDO- AMERICAN BOOK CO 19 North Kedzie Avenue CHICAGO Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1 " '" '" "" Illlll 013 436 255 8 $ ill IIKffll H