Part 23 (1/2)
It is thus even with the fas.h.i.+on of the clothes men wear. The ridiculous little tails of the German postilion's coat show of themselves how they came to dwindle to such absurd rudiments; but the English clergyman's bands no longer so convey their history to the eye, and look unaccountable enough till one has seen the intermediate stages through which they came down from the more serviceable wide collars, such as Milton wears in his portrait, and which gave their name to the ”band-box” they used to be kept in. In fact, the books of costume showing how one garment grew or shrank by gradual stages and pa.s.sed into another, ill.u.s.trate with much force and clearness the nature of the change and growth, revival and decay, which go on from year to year in more important matters of life. In books, again, we see each writer not for and by himself, but occupying his proper place in history; we look through each philosopher, mathematician, chemist, poet, into the background of his education--through Leibnitz into Descartes, through Dalton into Priestly, through Milton into Homer.[1]
[Footnote 1: Tylor, Edward B.: _Primitive Culture_, vol. I. pp. 17 ff.]
Besides understanding the present better in terms of its history, there is much in the heritage of the past, especially of its finished products, that the citizen of contemporary civilization will wish preserved for its own sake. The works of art, of music, and of literature which are handed down to us are ”possessions forever.” Whatever be the limitations of our social inheritance, as instruments for the solution of our difficulties, those finished products which const.i.tute the ”best that has been known and thought” in the world are beyond cavil. They may not solve our problems, but they immensely enrich and broaden our lives. They are enjoyed because they are intrinsically beautiful, but also because they widen men's sympathies and broaden the scope of contemporary purposes and ideals.
The culture that this transmission of racial experience makes possible, can be made perfect by the critical spirit alone, and, indeed, may be said to be one with it. For who is the true critic but he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional impulse obscure. And who is the true man of culture, if not he in whom fine scholars.h.i.+p and fastidious rejection... develops that spirit of disinterested curiosity which is the real spirit, as it is the real fruit of the intellectual life, and thus attains to intellectual clarity; and having learned the best that is known and thought in the world, lives--it is not fanciful to say so--among the Immortals.[1]
[Footnote 1: Oscar Wilde: _Intentions_, pp. 192-93.]
The student of Greek life knows that the Greeks in their view of Nature and of morals, in their conception of the way life should be lived, in their discrimination of the beautiful, have still much to teach us. He knows, however much we may have outlived the hierarchy of obedience which const.i.tutes mediaeval social and political life, we should do well to recover the humility in living, the craftsmans.h.i.+p in industry, and precision in thinking which const.i.tuted so conspicuous features of mediaeval civilization. He knows that progress is not altogether measured by flying machines and wireless telegraphy. He is aware that speed and quant.i.ty, the key values in an industrial civilization, are not the only values that ever have been, or ever should be cherished by mankind.
LIMITATIONS OF THE PAST. Along with a sensitive appreciation of the achievements and values of the past, goes, in the impartial critic, an acknowledgment of its limitations.
We can appreciate the distinctive contributions of Greek culture without setting up Greek life as an ultimate ideal. We know that with all the beauty attained and expressed in their art and, to a certain extent, in their civilization, the Athenians yet sacrificed the majority to a life of slavery in order that the minority might lead a life of the spirit, that their religion had its notable crudities and cruelties, that their science was trivial, and their control of Nature negligible.
In the words of one of their most thoroughgoing admirers:
The harmony of the Greeks contained in itself the factors of its own destruction. And in spite of the fascination which constantly fixes our gaze on that fairest and happiest halting place in the secular march of man, it was not there, any more than here, that he was destined to find an ultimate reconciliation and repose.[1]
[Footnote 1: G. Lowes d.i.c.kinson: _Greek View of Life_, p. 248.]
Again, we know the many beautiful features of mediaeval life through its painting and poetry and religion. We know Saint Francis and are familiar with the heroic records of saintliness and renunciation. We know, the great cathedrals, the pageantry and splendor, the exquisite handicraft, the tapestries and illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, the vast learning and the incomparable dialectic. We know also the social injustices, the misery and squalor the ignorance in which the ma.s.s of the people lived.
We can stop, therefore, neither in perpetual adoration of nor perpetual caviling at the past. Each age had its special excellences and its special defects, both from the point of view of the ideals then current, and those current in our own day.
In so far as the past is dead and over with, we cannot legitimately criticize it with standards of our own day. We cannot blame the Greeks for sanctioning slavery, nor criticize James I because he was not a thoroughgoing democrat. But in so far as the past still lives, it is open to critical examination and revision. Traditions, customs, ideas, and inst.i.tutions inherited from the past, which still control us, are subject to modification. We are justified in welcoming changes and modifications which, after careful inquiry, seem clearly to promise betterment in the life of the group. Thus to welcome changes which upon experimental evidence show clearly the benefits that will accrue to the group, is not radicalism. Nor is opposition to changes on the ground that upon critical examination they give promise of harmful consequences, conservatism.
Verdicts for or against change reached on such a basis reflect the spirit and technique of experimental science.
They reflect the desire to settle a course of action on the basis of its results in practice rather than on any preconceived prejudices in favor either of stability or change. To the critical mind, neither stability nor change is an end in itself.
There is no hypnotism about ”things as they are”; no lure about things as they have not yet been. The problem is s.h.i.+fted to a detailed and thoroughgoing inquiry into the consequences of specific changes in social habits, ideas and inst.i.tutions, education, business, and industry. Whether changes should or should not win critical approval depends on the kind of ideals or purposes we set ourselves and, secondly, on the practicability of the proposed changes. Change may thus be opposed or approved, in a given case, on the grounds of desirability or feasibility. Whether a change is or is not desirable depends on the ideals of the individual or the group.
Whether it is or is not feasible is a matter open increasingly to scientific determination. Thus a city may hire experts to discover what kind of transportation or educational system will best serve the city's needs. But whether it will or will not spend the money necessary depends on the social interests current.
EDUCATION AS THE TRANSMITTER OF THE PAST. Education is the process by which society undertakes the transmission of its social heritage. Indeed the main function of education in static societies is the initiation of the young into already established customs and traditions. It is the method used to hand down those social habits which the influential and articulate cla.s.ses in a society regard as important enough to have early fixed in its young members. The past is simply transmitted, handed down _en ma.s.se_. It is a set of patterns to be imitated, of ideals to be continued, of mechanisms for attaining the fixed purposes which are current in the group.
In progressive societies education may be used not simply to hand down habits of doing, feeling, and thinking, from the older generation to the younger, but to make habitual in the young reflective consideration of the ends which must be attained, and reflective inquiry into the means for attaining them. The past will not be handed down in indiscriminate completeness. The present and its problems are regarded as the standard of importance, and the past is considered as an incomparable reservoir of materials and methods which may contribute to the ends sought in the present. But there is so much material and so little time, that selection must be made.
Many things in the past, interesting on their own merits, must be omitted in favor of those habits, traditions, and recorded files of knowledge which are most fruitful and enlightening in the attainment of contemporary purposes. What those purposes are depends, of course, on ideals of the group in control of the process of education. But these purposes of ideals may be derived from present situations and not taken merely because they have long been current in the group. Thus, in a predominantly industrial civilization, it may be found more advisable and important to transmit the scientific and technical methods of control which men have acquired in recent generations than the traditional liberal arts. Science may be found more important than the humanities, medicine than moral theory. Even such education that tends to call itself ”liberal” or ”cultural” is effective and genuine education just in so far as it does illuminate the world in which we live.
The religion and art, the literature and life of the past broaden the meaning and the background of our lives. They are valuable just because they do enrich the lives of those who are exposed to their influence. If studying the great literature and the art of the past did not clarify the mind and emanc.i.p.ate the spirit, enabling men to live more richly in the present, they would hardly be as studiously cherished and transmitted as they are. We are, after all, living in the present.
The culture of the past either does or does not illuminate it.
If it does not it is a competing environment, a shadow world in which we may play truant from actuality, but which brings neither ”sweetness nor light” to the actual world in which we live.
PART II
THE CAREER OF REASON
The foregoing a.n.a.lysis of human behavior might thus be briefly summarized. We found that man is born a creature with certain tendencies to act in certain definite ways, tendencies which he largely possesses in common with the lower animals.
We found also that man could learn by trial and error, that his original instinctive equipment could be modified.
Thus far in his mental life man is indistinguishable from the beasts. But man's peculiar capacity, it appeared, lay in his ability to think, to control his actions in the light of a future, to choose one response rather than another because of its consequences, which he could foresee and prefer. This capacity for reflection, for formulating a purpose and being able to obtain it, we found to be practical in its origins, but persisting on its own account in the disinterested inquiry of philosophy and science and the free imaginative construction of art. And in all man's behavior, whether on the plane of instinct, habit, or reflection, we found action to be accompanied by emotion, by love and hate, anger and awe, which might at once impede action by confusing it, or sustain it by giving it a vivid and compelling motive.
The second part of the book was devoted to an a.n.a.lysis of the various specific traits which human beings display and the consequences that these have in men's relations with one another. Under certain conditions, one or another of these may become predominant; in particular historical conditions, one or another of them may have a high social value or the reverse. These traits vary in different individuals; in any of them, a man may be totally defective or abnormally developed.