ABSOLUTE CONTROL

Absolute control in all respects is nothing but Self-Control to the highest degree and it comes about with the realization that you are alone in a vary, vary huge Universe that is getting bigger everyday while you are getting smaller, it also manifest itself with the realization that every action will encounter with a corresponding consequence, regardless of being for better or worse, benefit or determent. Mother; please be aware that you have more influence on the thinking of a child than any other person on this planet earth and it starts at conception, and maybe before, for nine long mouths you have total absolute control of that child and no one will ever have that much control over it ever again. As you will see in the following you must take full advantage of this opportunity it only happens once in a life time, the child learns more by age six than it will learn for the rest of its life. You can teach it the printed word just as easily as the spoken word and at the same time, the printed word has ten times more power than the spoken word and much more staying power. There might be a little to much redundancy here in my wording but it takes a fair amount of redundancy to really get through. They can’t learn to walk on their own much less talk. Learning to read is the greatest gift to anyone and opens the door to Universal understanding. A person that understands the consequences is much easier to deal with than one who dose not. I see to many people that think they have every right to avoid all consequences, they want absolute control but can’t have it. They just can not have it without the understanding. UNDERSTANDING/APPERCEPTION A true and real scientist must have the mind wide open to the ways and wishes of man and God, plus the past, the future will unravel,(some will say; Mother Nature) so as to discern any new and good practice for the benefit of humankind as the following will illume. After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. I say "I finally resolved," for at first sight it seemed unwise willingly to lose hold on what was sure for the sake of something then uncertain. I could see the benefits which are acquired through fame and riches, and that I should be obliged to abandon the quest of such objects, if I seriously devoted myself to the search for something different and new. I perceived that if true happiness chanced to be placed in the former I should necessarily miss it; while if, on the other hand, it were not so placed, and I gave them my whole attention, I should equally fail. I therefore debated whether it would not be possible to arrive at the new principle, or at any rate at a certainty concerning its existence, without changing the conduct and usual plan of my life; with this end in view I made many efforts, in vain. For the ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads - Riches, Fame, and the Pleasures of Sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good. SENSUALS: By sensual pleasure the mind is enthralled to the extent of quiescence, as if the supreme good were actually attained, so that it is quite incapable of thinking of any other object; when such pleasure has been gratified it is followed by extreme melancholy, whereby the mind, though not enthralled, is disturbed and dulled. The pursuit of honors and riches is likewise very absorbing, especially if such objects be sought simply for their own sake, inasmuch as they are then supposed to constitute the highest good. FAME: In the case of fame the mind is still more absorbed, for fame is conceived as always good for its own sake, and as the ultimate end to which all actions are directed. Further, the attainment of riches and fame is not followed as in the case of sensual pleasures by repentance, but, the more we acquire, the greater is our delight, and, consequently, the more are we incited to increase both the one and the other; on the other hand, if our hopes happen to be frustrated we are plunged into the deepest sadness. Fame has the further drawback that it compels its votaries to order their lives according to the opinions of their fellow-men, shunning what they usually shun, and seeking what they usually seek. When I saw that all these ordinary objects of desire would be obstacles in the way of a search for something different and new - nay, that they were so opposed thereto, that either they or it would have to be abandoned, I was forced to inquire which would prove the most useful to me: for, as I say, I seemed to be willingly losing hold on a sure good for the sake of something uncertain. However, after I had reflected on the matter, I came in the first place to the conclusion that by abandoning the ordinary objects of pursuit, and betaking myself to a new quest, I should be leaving a good, uncertain by reason of its own nature, as may be gathered from what has been said, for the sake of a good not uncertain in its nature (for I sought for a fixed good), but only in the possibility of its attainment. Further reflection convinced me that if I could really get to the root of the matter I should be leaving certain evils for a certain good. I thus perceived that I was in a state of great peril, and I compelled myself to seek with all my strength for a remedy, however uncertain it might be; as a sick man struggling with a deadly disease, when he sees that death will surely be upon him unless a remedy be found, is compelled to seek a remedy with all his strength, inasmuch as his whole hope lies therein. All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hindrances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them. There are many examples of men who have suffered persecution even to death for the sake of their riches, and of men who in pursuit of wealth have exposed themselves to so many dangers, that they have paid away their life as a penalty for their folly. Examples are no less numerous of men, who have endured the utmost wretchedness for the sake of gaining or preserving their reputation. Lastly, are innumerable cases of men, who have hastened their death through over-indulgence in sensual pleasure. All these evils seem to have arisen from the fact, that happiness or unhappiness is made wholly dependent on the quality of the object which we love. When a thing is not loved, no quarrels will arise concerning it - no sadness be felt if it hatred, in short no disturbances of the mind. All these arise from the love of what is perishable, such as the objects already mentioned. LOVE: But love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind wholly with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness, wherefore it is greatly to be desired and sought for with all our strength. Yet it was not at random that I used the words, "If I could go to the root of the matter," for, though what I have urged was perfectly clear to my mind, I could not forthwith lay aside all love of riches, sensual enjoyment, and fame. One thing was evident, namely, that while my mind was employed with these thoughts it turned away from its former objects of desire, and seriously considered the search for a new principle; this state of things was a great comfort to me, for I perceived that the evils were not such as to resist all remedies. Although these intervals were at first rare, and of very short duration, yet afterwards, as the true good became more and more discernible to me, they became more frequent and more lasting; especially after I had recognized that the acquisition of wealth, sensual pleasure, or fame, is only a hindrance, so long as they are sought as ends not as means; if they be sought as means, they will be under restraint, and, far from being hindrances, will further not a little the end for which they are sought, as I will show in due time. TRUE GOOD: I will here only briefly state what I mean by true good, and also what is the nature of the highest good. In order that this may be rightly understood, we must bear in mind that the terms good and evil are only applied relatively, so that the same thing may be called both good and bad according to the relations in view, in the same way as it may be called perfect or imperfect. Nothing regarded in its own nature can be called perfect or imperfect; especially when we are aware that all things which come to pass, come to pass according to the eternal order and fixed laws of nature. However, human weakness cannot attain to this order in its own thoughts, but meanwhile man conceives a human character much more stable than his own, and sees that there is no reason why he should not himself acquire such a character. Thus he is led to seek for means which will bring him to this pitch of perfection, and calls everything which will serve as such means a true good. The chief good is that he should arrive, together with other individuals if possible, at the possession of the aforesaid character. What that character is we shall show in due time, namely, that it is the knowledge of the union existing being the mind and the whole of nature. This, then, is the end for which I strive, to attain to such a character myself, and to endeavor that many should attain to it with me. In other words, it is part of my happiness to lend a helping hand, that many others may understand even as I do, so that their understanding and desire may entirely agree with my own. In order to bring this about, it is necessary to understand as much of nature as will enable us to attain to the aforesaid character, and also to form a social order such as is most conducive to the attainment of this character by the greatest number with the least difficulty and danger. EDUCATION: We must seek the assistance of Moral Philosophy and the Theory of Education; further, as health is no insignificant means for attaining our end, we must also include the whole science of Medicine, and, as many difficult things are by contrivance rendered easy, and we can in this way gain much time and convenience, the science of Mechanics must in no way be despised. But before all things, a means must be devised for improving the understanding and purifying it, as far as may be at the outset, so that it may apprehend things without error, and in the best possible way. Thus it is apparent to everyone that I wish to direct all science to one end and aim, so that we may attain to the supreme human perfection which we have named; and, therefore, whatsoever in the sciences does not serve to promote our object will have to be rejected as useless. To sum up the matter in a word, all our actions and thoughts must be directed to this one end. Yet, as it is necessary that while we are endeavoring to attain our purpose, and bring the understanding into the right path we should carry on our life, we are compelled first of all to lay down certain rules of life as provisionally good, to wit the following:- To speak in a manner intelligible to the multitude, and to comply with every general custom that does not hinder the attainment of our purpose. For we can gain from the multitude no small advantages, provided that we strive to accommodate ourselves to its understanding as far as possible: moreover, we shall in this way gain a friendly audience for the reception of the truth. To indulge ourselves with pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for preserving health. Lastly, to endeavor to obtain only sufficient money or other commodities to enable us to preserve our life and health, and to follow such general customs as are consistent with our purpose. Having laid down these preliminary rules, I will betake myself to the first and most important task, namely, the amendment of the understanding, and the rendering it capable of understanding things in the manner necessary for attaining our end. In order to bring this about, the natural order demands that I should here recapitulate all the modes of perception, which I have hitherto employed for affirming or denying anything with certainty, so that I may choose the best, and at the same time begin to know my own powers and the nature which I wish to perfect. Reflection shows that all modes of perception or knowledge may be reduced to four:- Perception arising from hearsay or from some sign which everyone may name as he pleases. Perception arising from mere experience - that is, form experience not yet classified by the intellect, and only so called because the given event has happened to take place, and we have no contradictory fact to set against it, so that it therefore remains unassailed in our minds. Perception arising when the essence of one thing is inferred from another thing, but not adequately; this comes when from some effect we gather its cause, or when it is inferred from some general proposition that some property is always present. Lastly, there is the perception arising when a thing is perceived solely through its essence, or through the knowledge of its proximate cause. All these kinds of perception I will illustrate by examples. HEARSAY: By hearsay I know the day of my birth, my parentage, and other matters about which I have never felt any doubt. By mere experience I know that I shall die, for this I can affirm from having seen that others like myself have died, though all did not live for the same period, or die by the same cause. I know by mere experience that oil has the property of feeding fire, and water of extinguishing it. In the same way I know that a dog is a barking animal, man a rational being, and in fact nearly all the practical knowledge of life. We deduce one thing from another as follows: when we clearly perceive that we feel a certain body and no other, we thence clearly infer that the mind is united to the body, and that their union is the cause of the given sensation; but we cannot thence absolutely understand the nature of the sensation and the union. Or, after I have become acquainted with the nature of vision, and know that it has the property of making one and the same thing appear smaller when far off than when near, I can infer that the sun is larger than it appears, and can draw other conclusions of the same kind. Lastly, a thing may be perceived solely through its essence; when, from the fact of knowing something, I know what it is to know that thing, or when, from knowing the essence of the mind, I know that it is united to the body. By the same kind of knowledge we know that two and three make five, or that two lines each parallel to a third, are parallel to one another, etc. The things which I have been able to know by this kind of knowledge are as yet very few. In order that the whole matter may be put in a clearer light, I will make use of a single illustration as follows. Three numbers are given - it is required to find a fourth, which shall be to the third as the second is to the first. Tradesmen will at once tell us that they know what is required to find the fourth number, for they have not yet forgotten the rule which was given to them arbitrarily without proof by their masters; others construct a universal axiom from their experience with simple numbers, where the fourth number is self-evident, as in the case of 2 to 4 is to 3 to 6; here it is evident that if the second number be multiplied by the third, and the product divided by the first, the quotient is 6; when they see that by this process the number is produced which they knew beforehand to be the proportional, they infer that the process always holds good for finding a fourth number proportional. Mathematicians, however, know by the proof of the nineteenth proposition of the seventh book of Euclid, what numbers are proportional, namely, from the nature and property of proportion it follows that the product of the first and fourth will be equal to the product of the second and third: still they do not see the adequate proportionality of the given numbers, or, if they do see it, they see it not by virtue of Euclid's proposition, but intuitively, without going through any process. PERCEPTION: In order that from these modes of perception the best may be selected, it is well that we should briefly enumerate the means necessary for attaining our end. To have an exact knowledge of our nature which we desire to perfect, and to know as much as is needful of nature in general. To collect in this way the differences, the agreements, and the oppositions of things. To learn thus exactly how far they can or cannot be modified. To compare this result with the nature and power of man. We shall thus discern the highest degree of perfection to which man is capable of attaining. We shall then be in a position to see which mode of perception we ought to choose. As to the first mode, it is evident that from hearsay our knowledge must always be uncertain, and, moreover, can give us no insight into the essence of a thing, as is manifest in our illustration; now one can only arrive at knowledge of a thing through knowledge of its essence, as will hereafter appear. We may, therefore clearly conclude that the certainty arising from hearsay cannot be scientific in its character. For simple hearsay cannot affect anyone whose understanding does not, so to speak, meet it half way. The second mode of perception cannot be said to give us the idea of the proportion of which we are in search. Moreover its results are very uncertain and indefinite, for we shall never discover anything in natural phenomena by its means, except accidental properties, which are never clearly understood, unless the essence of the things in question be known first. Wherefore this mode also must be rejected. Of the third mode of perception we may say in a manner that it gives us the idea of the thing sought, and that it is to draw conclusions without risk of error; yet it is not by itself sufficient to put us in possession of the perfection we aim at. EVELUTIONS: The fourth mode alone apprehends the adequate essence of a thing without danger of error. This mode, therefore, must be the one which we chiefly employ. How, then, should we avail ourselves of it so as to gain the fourth kind of knowledge with the least delay concerning things previously unknown? I will proceed to explain. Now that we know what kind of knowledge is necessary for us, we must indicate the way and the method whereby we may gain the said knowledge concerning the things needful to be known. In order to accomplish this, we must first take care not to commit ourselves to a search, going back to infinity - that is, in order to discover the best method of finding truth, there is no need of another method to discover such method; nor of a third method for discovering the second, and so on to infinity. By such proceedings, we should never arrive at the knowledge of the truth, or, indeed, at any knowledge at all. The matter stands on the same footing as the making of material tools, which might be argued about in a similar way. For, in order to work iron, a hammer is needed, and the hammer cannot be forthcoming unless it has been made; but, in order to make it, there was need of another hammer and other tools, and so on to infinity. We might thus vainly endeavor to prove that men have no power of working iron. But as men at first made use of the instruments supplied by nature to accomplish very easy pieces of workmanship, laboriously and imperfectly, and then, when these were finished, wrought other things more difficult with less labor and greater perfection; and so gradually mounted from the simplest operations to the making of tools, and from the making of tools to the making of more complex tools, and fresh feats of workmanship, till they arrived at making, complicated mechanisms which they now possess. So, in like manner, the intellect, by its native strength, makes for itself intellectual instruments, whereby it acquires strength for performing other intellectual operations, , and from these operations again fresh instruments, or the power of pushing its investigations further, and thus gradually proceeds till it reaches the summit of wisdom. That this is the path pursued by the understanding may be readily seen, when we understand the nature of the method for finding out the truth, and of the natural instruments so necessary complex instruments, and for the progress of investigation. I thus proceed with my demonstration. A true idea, (for we possess a true idea) is something different from its correlate (ideatum); thus a circle is different from the idea of a circle. The idea of a circle is not something having a circumference and a center, as a circle has; nor is the idea of a body that body itself. Now, as it is something different from its correlate, it is capable of being understood through itself; in other words, the idea, in so far as its actual essence (essential formalis) is concerned, may be the subject of another subjective essence (essentia objectiva). And, again, this second subjective essence will, regarded in itself, be something real, capable of being understood; and so on, indefinitely. VIVIAN: For instance, the person Vivian is something real; the true idea of Vivian is the reality of Vivian represented subjectively, and is in itself something real, and quite distinct from the actual Vivian. Now, as this true idea of Vivian is in itself something real, and has its own individual existence, it will also be capable of being understood - that is, of being the subject of another idea, which will contain by representation (objective) all that the idea of Vivian contains actually (formaliter). And, again, this idea of the idea of Vivian has its own individuality, which may become the subject of yet another idea; and so on, indefinitely. This everyone may make trial of for himself, by reflecting that he knows what Vivian is, and also knows that he knows, and further knows that he knows that he knows, etc. Hence it is plain that, in order to understand the actual Vivian, it is not necessary first to understand the idea of Vivian, and still less the idea of the idea of Vivian. This is the same as saying that, in order to know, there is no need to know that we know, much less to know that we know that we know. This is no more necessary than to know the nature of a circle before knowing the nature of a triangle. But, with these ideas, the contrary is the case: for, in order to know that I know, I must first know. Hence it is clear that certainty is nothing else than the subjective essence of a thing: in other words, the mode in which we perceive an actual reality is certainty. Further, it is also evident that, for the certitude of truth, no further sign is necessary beyond the possession of a true idea: for, as I have shown, it is not necessary to know that we know that we know. Hence, again, it is clear that no one can know the nature of the highest certainty, unless he possesses an adequate idea, or the subjective essence of a thing: certainty is identical with such subjective essence. METHODS: Thus, as the truth needs no sign - it being to possess the subjective essence of things, or, in other words, the ideas of them, in order that all doubts may be removed - it follows that the true method does not consist in seeking for the signs of truth after the acquisition of the idea, but that the true method teaches us the order in which we should seek for truth itself, or the subjective essences of things, or ideas, for all these expressions are synonymous. Again, method must necessarily be concerned with reasoning or understanding - I mean, method is not identical with reasoning in the search for causes, still less is it the comprehension of the causes of things: it is the discernment of a true idea, by distinguishing it from other perceptions, and by investigating its nature, in order that we may so train our mind that it may, by a given standard, comprehend whatsoever is intelligible, by laying down certain rules as aids, and by avoiding useless mental exertion. Whence we may gather that method is nothing else than reflective knowledge, or the idea of an idea; and that as there can be no idea of an idea - unless an idea exists previously, - there can be no method without a pre-existent idea. Therefore, that will be a good method which shows us how the mind should be directed, according to the standard of the given true idea. Again, seeing that the ratio existing between two ideas the same as the ratio between the actual realities corresponding to those ideas, it follows that the reflective knowledge which has for its object the most perfect being is more excellent than reflective knowledge concerning other objects - in other words, that method will be most perfect which affords the standard of the given idea of the most perfect being whereby we may direct our mind. We thus easily understand how, in proportion as it acquires new ideas, the mind simultaneously acquires fresh instruments for pursuing its inquiries further. For we may gather from what has been said, that a true idea must necessarily first of all exist in us as a natural instrument; and that when this idea is apprehended by the mind, it enables us to understand the difference existing between itself and all other perceptions. In this, one part of the method consists. Now it is clear that the mind apprehends itself better in proportion as it understands a greater number of natural objects; it follows, therefore, that this portion of the method will be more perfect in proportion as the mind attains to the comprehension of a greater number of objects, and that it will be absolutely perfect when the mind gains a knowledge of the absolutely perfect being, or becomes conscious thereof. Again, the more things the mind knows, the better does it understand its own strength and the order of nature; by increased self-knowledge, it can direct itself more easily, and lay down rules for its own guidance; and, by increased knowledge of nature, it can more easily avoid what is useless. And this is the sum total of method, as we have already stated. We may add that the idea in the world of thought is in the same case as its correlate in the world of reality. If, therefore, there be anything in nature which is without connection with any other thing, and if we assign to it a subjective essence, which would in every way correspond to the objective reality, the subjective essence would have no connection, with any other ideas - in other words, we could not draw any conclusions with regard to it. On the other hand, those things which are connected with others - as all things that exist in nature – will be understood by the mind, and their subjective essences will maintain the same mutual relations as their objective realities - that is to say, we shall infer from these ideas other ideas, which will in turn be connected with others, and thus our instruments for proceeding with our investigation will increase. This is what we were endeavoring to prove. Further, from what has just been said - namely, that an idea must, in all respects, correspond to its correlate in the world of reality, - it is evident that, in order to reproduce in every respect the faithful image of nature, our mind must deduce all its ideas from the idea which represents the origin and source of the whole of nature, so that it may itself become the source of other ideas. It may, perhaps, provoke astonishment that, after having said that the good method is that which teaches us to direct our mind according to the standard of the given true idea, we should prove our point by reasoning, which would seem to indicate that it is not self-evident. We may, therefore, be questioned as to the validity of our reasoning. If our reasoning be sound, we must take as a starting-point a true idea. Now, to be certain that our starting-point is really a true idea, we need proof. This first course of reasoning must be supported by a second, the second by a third, and so on to infinity. To this I make answer that, if by some happy chance anyone had adopted this method in his investigations of nature - that is, if he had acquired new ideas in the proper order, according to the standard of the original true idea, he would never have doubted of the truth of his knowledge, inasmuch as truth, as we have shown, makes itself manifest, and all things would flow, as it were, spontaneously towards him. But as this never, or rarely, happens, I have been forced so to arrange my proceedings, that we may acquire by reflection and forethought what we cannot acquire by chance, and that it may at the same time appear that, for proving the truth, and for valid reasoning, we need no other means than the truth and valid reasoning themselves: for by valid reasoning I have established valid reasoning, and, in like measure, I seek still to establish it. Moreover, this is the order of thinking adopted by men in their inward meditations. The reasons for its rare employment in investigations of nature are to be found in current misconceptions, whereof we shall examine the causes hereafter in our philosophy. Moreover, it demands, as we shall show, a keen and accurate discernment. Lastly, it is hindered by the conditions of human life, which are, as we have already pointed out, extremely changeable. There are also other obstacles, which we will not here inquire into. If anyone asks why I have not at the starting-point set forth all the truths of nature in their due order, inasmuch as truth is self-evident, I reply by warning him not to reject as false any paradoxes he may find here, but to take the trouble to reflect on the chain of reasoning by which they are supported; he will then be no longer in doubt that we have attained to the truth. This is why I have as above. If there yet remains some skeptic, who doubts of our primary truth, and of all deductions we make, taking such truth as our standard, he must either be arguing in bad faith, or we must confess that there are men in complete mental blindness either innate or due to misconceptions - that is, to some external influence. Such persons are not conscious of themselves. If they affirm or doubt anything, they know not that they affirm or doubt: they say that they know nothing, and they say that they are ignorant of the very fact of their knowing nothing. Even this they do not affirm absolutely, they are afraid of confessing that they exist, so long as they know nothing; in fact, they ought to remain dumb, for fear of happily supposing which should smack of truth. Lastly, with such persons, one should not speak of sciences: for, in what relates to life and conduct, they are compelled by necessity to suppose that they exist, and seek their own advantage, and often affirm and deny, even with an oath. If they deny, grant, or gainsay, they know not that they deny, grant, or gainsay, so that they ought to be regarded as automata, utterly devoid of intelligence. Let us now return to our proposition. Up to the present, we have, first, defined the end to which we desire to direct all our thoughts; secondly, we have determined the mode of perception best adapted to aid us in attaining our perfection; thirdly, we have discovered the way which our mind should take, in order to make a good beginning - namely, that it should use every true idea as a standard in pursuing its inquiries according to fixed rules. Now, in order that it may thus proceed, our method must furnish us, first, with a means of distinguishing a true idea from all other perceptions, and enabling the mind to avoid the latter; secondly, with rules for perceiving unknown things according to the standard of the true idea; thirdly, with an order which enables us to avoid useless labor. When we became acquainted with this method, we saw that, fourthly, it would be perfect when we had attained to the idea of the absolutely perfect Being. This is an observation which should be made at the outset, in order that we may arrive at the knowledge of such a being more quickly. METHODS # 2: Let us then make a beginning with the first part of the method, which is, as we have said, to distinguish and separate the true idea from other perceptions, and to keep the mind from confusing with true ideas those which are false, fictitious, and doubtful. I intend to dwell on this point at length, partly to keep a distinction so necessary before the reader's mind, and also because there are some who doubt of true ideas, through not having attended to the distinction between a true perception and all others. Such persons are like men who, while they are awake, doubt not that they are awake, but afterwards in a dream, as often happens, thinking that they are surely awake, and then finding that they were in error, become doubtful even of being awake. This state of mind arises through neglect of the distinction between sleeping and waking. Meanwhile, I give warning that I shall not here give essence of every perception, and explain it through its proximate cause. Such work lies in the province of philosophy. I shall confine myself to what concerns method - that is, to the character of fictitious, false and doubtful perceptions, and the means of freeing ourselves there from. Let us then first inquire into the nature of a fictitious idea. Every perception has for its object either a thing considered as existing, or solely the essence of a thing. Now "fiction" is chiefly occupied with things considered as existing. I will, therefore, consider these first - I mean cases where only the existence of an object is feigned, and the thing thus feigned is understood, or assumed to be understood. For instance, I feign that Vivian, whom I know to have gone home, is gone to see me, or something of that kind. With what is such an idea concerned? It is concerned with things possible, and not with things necessary or impossible. IMPOSSIBLE: I call a thing impossible when its existence would imply a contradiction; necessary, when its non-existence would imply a contradiction; possible, when neither its existence nor its nonexistence imply a contradiction, but when the necessity or impossibility of its nature depends on causes unknown to us, while we feign that it exists. If the necessity or impossibility of its existence depending on external causes were known to us, we could not form any fictitious hypotheses about it. Whence it follows that if there be a God, or omniscient Being, such an one cannot form fictitious hypotheses. For, as regards ourselves, when I know that I exist, I cannot hypothesize that I exist or do not exist, any more than I can hypothesize an elephant that can go through the eye of a needle; nor when I know the nature of God, can I hypothesize that He or does not exist. The same thing must be said of the Chimaera, whereof the nature implies a contradiction. From these considerations, it is plain, as I have already stated, that fiction cannot be concerned with eternal truths. But before proceeding further, I must remark, in passing, that the difference between the essence of one thing and the essence of another thing is the same as that which exists between the reality or existence of one thing and the reality or existence of another; therefore, if we wished to conceive the existence, for example, of Adam, simply by means of existence in general, it would be the same as if, in order to conceive his existence, we went back to the nature of being, so as to define Adam as a being. Thus, the more existence is conceived generally, the more is it conceived confusedly and the more easily can it be ascribed to a given object. Contrariwise, the more it is conceived particularly, the more is it understood clearly, and the less liable is it to be ascribed, through negligence of Nature's order, to anything save its proper object. This is worthy of remark. FICTIONS: We now proceed to consider those cases which are commonly called fictions, though we clearly understood that the thing is not as we imagine it. For instance, I know that the earth is round, but nothing prevents my telling people that it is a hemisphere, and that it is like a half apple carved in relief on a dish; or, that the sun moves round the earth, and so on. However, examination will show us that there is nothing here inconsistent with what has been said, provided we first admit that we may have made mistakes, and be now conscious of them; and, further, that we can hypothesize, or at least suppose, that others are under the same mistake as ourselves, or can, like us, fall under it. We can, I repeat, thus hypothesize so long as we see no impossibility. Thus, when I tell anyone that the earth is not round, etc., I merely recall the error which I perhaps made myself, or which I might have fallen into, and afterwards I hypothesize that the person to whom I tell it, is still, or may still fall under the same mistake. This I say, I can feign so long as I do not perceive any impossibility or necessity; if I truly understood either one or the other I should not be able to feign, and I should be reduced to saying that I had made the attempt. It remains for us to consider hypotheses made in problems, which sometimes involve impossibilities. For instance, when we say - let us assume that this burning candle is not burning, or, let us assume that it burns in some imaginary space, or where there are no physical objects. Such assumptions are freely made, though the last is clearly seen to be impossible. But, though this be so, there is no fiction in the case. For, in the first case, I have merely recalled to memory, another candle not burning, or conceived the candle before me as without a flame, and then I understand as applying to the latter, leaving its flame out of the question, all that I think of the former. In the second case, I have merely to abstract my thoughts from the objects surrounding the candle, for the mind to devote itself to the contemplation of the candle singly looked at in itself only; I can then draw the conclusion that the candle contains in itself no causes for its own destruction, so that if there were no physical objects the candle, and even the flame, would remain unchangeable, and so on. Thus there is here no fiction, but, true and bare assertions. Let us now pass on to the fictions concerned with essences only, or with some reality or existence simultaneously. Of these we must specially observe that in proportion as the mind's understanding is smaller, and its experience multiplex, so will its power of coining fictions be larger, whereas as its understanding increases, its capacity for entertaining fictitious ideas becomes less. For instance, in the same way as we are unable, while we are thinking, to feign that we are thinking or not thinking, so, also, when we know the nature of body we cannot imagine an infinite fly; or, when we know the nature of the soul, we cannot imagine it as square, though anything may be expressed verbally. But, as we said above, the less men know of nature the more easily can they coin fictitious ideas, such as trees speaking, men instantly changed into stones, or into fountains, ghosts appearing in mirrors, something issuing from nothing, even gods changed into beasts and men and infinite other absurdities of the same kind. Some people think, perhaps, that fiction is limited by fiction, and not by understanding; in other words, after I have formed some fictitious idea, and have affirmed of my own free will that it exists under a certain form in nature, I am thereby precluded from thinking of it under any other form. For instance, when I have feigned (to repeat their argument) that the nature of body is of a certain kind, and have of my own free will desired to convince myself that it actually exists under this form, I am no longer able to hypothesize that a fly, for example, is infinite; so, when I have hypothesized the essence of the soul, I am not able to think of it as square, etc. But these arguments demand further inquiry. First, their upholders must either grant or deny that we can understand anything. If they grant it, then necessarily the same must be said of understanding, as is said of fiction. If they deny it, let us, who know that we do know something, see what they mean. They assert that the soul can be conscious of, and perceive in a variety of ways, not itself nor things which exist, but only things which are neither in itself nor anywhere else, in other words, that the soul can, by its unaided power, create sensations or ideas unconnected with things. In fact, they regard the soul as a sort of god. Further, they assert that we or our soul have such freedom that we can constrain ourselves, or our soul, or even our soul's freedom. For, after it has formed a fictitious idea, and has given its assent thereto, it cannot think or feign it in any other manner, but is constrained by the first fictitious idea to keep all its other thoughts in harmony therewith. Our opponents are thus driven to admit, in support of their fiction, the absurdities which I have just enumerated; and which are not worthy of rational refutation. While leaving such persons in their error, we will take care to derive from our argument with them a truth serviceable for our purpose, namely, that the mind, in paying attention to a thing hypothetical or false, so as to meditate upon it and understand it, and derive the proper conclusions in due order there from, will readily discover its falsity; and if the thing hypothetical be in its nature true, and the mind pays attention to it, so as to understand it, and deduce the truths which are derivable from it, the mind will proceed with an uninterrupted series of apt conclusions; in the same way as it would at once discover (as we showed just now) the absurdity of a false hypothesis, and of the conclusions drawn from it. We need, therefore, be in no fear of forming hypotheses, so long as we have a clear and distinct perception of what is involved. For, if we were to assert, haply, that men are suddenly turned into beasts, the statement would be extremely general, so general that there would be no conception, that is, no idea or connection of subject and predicate, in our mind. If there were such a conception we should at the same time be aware of the means and the causes whereby the event took place. Moreover, we pay no attention to the nature of the subject and the predicate. FICTIONS # 2: Now, if the first idea be not fictitious, and if all the other ideas be deduced there from, our hurry to form fictitious ideas will gradually subside. Further, as a fictitious idea cannot be clear and distinct, but is necessarily confused, and as all confusion arises from the fact that the mind has only partial knowledge of a thing either simple or complex, and does not distinguish between the known and the unknown, and, again, that it directs its attention promiscuously to all parts of an object at once without making distinctions, it follows, first, that if the idea be of something very simple, it must necessarily be clear and distinct. For a very simple object cannot be known in part, it must either be known altogether or not at all. Secondly, it follows that if a complex object be divided by thought into a number of simple component parts, and if each be regarded separately, all confusion will disappear. Thirdly, it follows that fiction cannot be simple, but is made up of the blending of several confused ideas of diverse objects or actions existent in nature, or rather is composed of attention directed to all such ideas at once, and unaccompanied by any mental assent. Now a fiction that was simple would be clear and distinct, and therefore true, also a fiction composed only of distinct ideas would be clear and distinct, and therefore true. For instance, when we know the nature of the circle and the square, it is impossible for us to blend together these two figures, and to hypothesize a square circle, any more than a square soul, or things of that kind. Let us shortly come to our conclusion, and again repeat that we need have no fear of confusing with true ideas that which is only a fiction. As for the first sort of fiction of which we have already spoken, when a thing is clearly conceived, we saw that if the existence of a that thing is in itself an eternal truth fiction can have no part in it; but if the existence of the conceived be not an eternal truth, we have only to be careful such existence be compared to the thing's essence, and to consider the order of nature. As for the second sort of fiction, which we stated to be the result of simultaneously directing the attention, without the assent of the intellect, to different confused ideas representing different things and actions existing in nature, we have seen that an absolutely simple thing cannot be feigned, but must be understood, and that a complex thing is in the same case if we regard separately the simple parts whereof it is composed; we shall not even be able to hypothesize any untrue action concerning such objects, for we shall be obliged to consider at the same time the causes and manner of such action. FALSES: These matters being thus understood, let us pass on to consider the false idea, observing the objects with which it is concerned, and the means of guarding ourselves from falling into false perceptions. Neither of these tasks will present much difficulty, after our inquiry concerning fictitious ideas. The false idea only differs from the fictitious idea in the fact of implying a mental assent - that is, as we have already remarked, while the presentations are occurring, there are no causes present to us, wherefrom, as in fiction, we can conclude that such representations do not arise from external objects: in fact, it is much the same as dreaming with our eyes open, or while awake. Thus, a false idea is concerned with, or (to speak more correctly) is attributable to, the existence of a thing whereof the essence is known, or the essence itself, in the same way as a fictitious idea. If attributable to the existence of the thing, it is corrected in the same way as a fictitious idea under similar circumstances. If attributable to the essence, it is likewise corrected in the same way as a fictitious idea. For if the nature of the thing known implies necessary existence, we cannot possible be in error with regard to its existence; but if the nature of the thing be not an eternal truth, like its essence, but contrariwise the necessity or impossibility of its existence depends on external causes, then we must follow the same course as we adopted in the of fiction, for it is corrected in the same manner. As for false ideas concerned with essences, or even with actions, such perceptions are necessarily always confused, being compounded of different confused perceptions of things existing in nature, as, for instance, when men are persuaded that deities are present in woods, in statues, in brute beasts, and the like; that there are bodies which, by their composition alone, give rise to intellect; that corpses reason, walk about, and speak; that God is deceived, and so on. But ideas which are clear and distinct can never be false: for ideas of things clearly and distinctly conceived are either very simple themselves, or are compounded from very simple ideas, that is, are deduced there from. The impossibility of a very simple idea being false is evident to everyone who understands the nature of truth or understanding and of falsehood. TRUTHS: As regards that which constitutes the reality of truth, it is certain that a true idea is distinguished from a false one, not so much by its extrinsic object as by its intrinsic nature. If an architect conceives a building properly constructed, though such a building may never have existed, and may never exist, nevertheless the idea is true; and the idea remains the same, whether it be put into execution or not. On the other hand, if anyone asserts, for instance, that Vivian exists, without knowing whether Vivian really exists or not, the assertion, as far as its asserter is concerned, is false, or not true, even though Vivian actually does exist. The assertion that Vivian exists is true only with regard to who knows for certain that Vivian does exist. Whence it follows that there is in ideas something real, hereby the true are distinguished from the false. This reality must be inquired into, if we are to find the best standard of truth we have said that we ought to determine our thoughts by the given standard of a true idea, and that method is reflective knowledge), and to know the properties of our understanding. Neither must we say that the difference between true and false arises from the fact, that true knowledge consists in knowing things through their primary causes, wherein it is totally different from false knowledge, as I have just explained it: for thought is said to be true, if it involves subjectively the essence of any principle which has no cause, and is known through itself and in itself. Wherefore the reality (forma) of true thought must exist in the thought itself, without reference to other thoughts; it does not acknowledge the object as its cause, but must depend on the actual power and nature of the understanding. For, if we suppose that the understanding has perceived some new entity which has never existed, as some conceive the understanding of God before He created anything (a perception which certainly could not arise any object), and has legitimately deduced other thoughts from said perception, all such thoughts would be true, without being determined by any external object; they would depend solely on the power and nature of the understanding. Thus, that which constitutes the reality of a true thought must be sought in the thought itself, and deduced from the nature of the understanding. In order to pursue our investigation, let us confront ourselves with some true idea, whose object we know for certain to be dependent on our power of thinking, and to have nothing corresponding to it in nature. With an idea of this kind before us, we shall, as appears from what has just been said, be more easily able to carry on the research we have in view. For instance, in order to form the conception of a sphere, I invent a cause at my pleasure - namely, a semicircle revolving round its center, and thus producing a sphere. This is indisputably a true idea; and, although we know that no perfect sphere in nature has ever actually been so formed, the perception remains true, and is the easiest manner of conceiving a sphere. We must observe that this perception asserts the rotation of a semicircle - which assertion would be false, if it were not associated with the conception of a sphere, or of a cause determining a motion of the kind, or absolutely, if the assertion were isolated. The mind would then only tend to the affirmation of the sole motion of a semicircle, which is not contained in the conception of a semicircle, and does not arise from the conception of any cause capable of producing such motion. Thus falsity consists only in this, that something is affirmed of a thing, which is not contained in the conception we have formed of that thing, as motion or rest of a semicircle. Whence it follows that simple ideas cannot be other than true - e.g., the simple idea of a semicircle, of motion, of rest, of quantity, etc. Whatsoever affirmation such ideas contain is equal to the concept formed, and does not extend further. Wherefore we form as many simple ideas as we please, without any fear of error. It only remains for us to inquire by what power our mind can form true ideas, and how far such power extends. It is certain that such power cannot extend itself infinitely. For when we affirm somewhat of a thing, which is not contained in the concept we have formed of that thing, such an affirmation shows a defect of our perception, or that we have formed fragmentary or mutilated ideas. Thus we have seen that the notion of a semicircle is false when it is isolated in the mind, but true when it is associated with the concept of a sphere, or of some cause determining such a motion. But if it be the nature of a thinking being, as seems, prima facie, to be the case, to form true or adequate thoughts, it is plain that inadequate ideas arise in us only because we are parts of a thinking being, whose thoughts – some in their entirety, others in fragments only - constitute our mind. But there is another point to be considered, which was not worth raising in the case of fiction, but which give rise to complete deception - namely, that certain things presented to the imagination also exist in the understanding - in other words, are conceived clearly and distinctly. Hence, so long as we do not separate that which is distinct from that which is confused, certainty, or the true idea, becomes mixed with indistinct ideas. For instance, certain Stoics heard, perhaps, the term "soul," and also that the soul is immortal, yet imagined it only confusedly; they imaged, also, and understood that very subtle bodies penetrate all others, and are penetrated by none. By combining these ideas, and being at the same time certain of the truth of the axiom, they forthwith became convinced that the mind consists of very subtle bodies; that these very subtle bodies cannot be divided etc. But we are freed from mistakes of this kind, so long as we endeavor to examine all our perceptions by the standard of the given true idea. We must take care, as has been said, to separate such perceptions from all those which arise from hearsay or unclassified experience. Moreover, such mistakes arise from things being conceived too much in the abstract; for it is sufficiently self-evident that what I conceive as in its true object I cannot apply to anything else. Lastly, they arise from a want of understanding of the primary elements of nature as a whole; whence we proceed without due order, and confound nature with abstract rules, which, although they be true enough in their sphere, yet, when misapplied, confound themselves, and pervert the order of nature. However, if we proceed with as little abstraction as possible, and begin from primary elements - that is, from the source and origin of nature, as far back as we can reach, - we need not fear any deceptions of this kind. As far as the knowledge of the origin of nature is concerned, there is no danger of our confounding it with abstractions. For when a thing is conceived in the abstract, as are all universal notions, the said universal notions are always more extensive in the mind than the number of individuals forming their contents really existing in nature. Again, there are many things in nature, the difference between which is so slight as to be hardly perceptible to the understanding; so that it may readily happen that such things are confounded together, if they be conceived abstractedly. But since the first principle of nature cannot (as we shall see hereafter) be conceived abstractedly or universally, and cannot extend further in the understanding than it does in reality, and has no likeness to mutable things, no confusion need be feared in respect to the idea of it, provided (as before shown) that we possess a standard of truth. This is, in fact, a being single and infinite; in other words, it is the sum total of being, beyond which there is no being found. DOUBTS: Thus far we have treated of the false idea. We have now to investigate the doubtful idea - that is, to inquire what can cause us to doubt, and how doubt may be removed. I speak of real doubt existing in the mind, not of such doubt as we see exemplified when a man says that he doubts, though his mind does not really hesitate. The cure of the latter does not fall within the province of method, it belongs rather to inquiries concerning obstinacy and its cure. Real doubt is never produced in the mind by the thing doubted of. In other words, if there were only one idea in the mind, whether that idea were true or false, there would be no doubt or certainty present, only a certain sensation. For an idea is in itself nothing else than a certain sensation. But doubt will arise through another idea, not clear and distinct enough for us to be able to draw any certain conclusions with regard to the matter under consideration; that is, the idea which causes us to doubt is not clear and distinct. To take an example. Supposing that a man has never reflected, taught by experience or by any other means, that our senses sometimes deceive us, he will never doubt whether the sun be greater or less than it appears. Thus rustics are generally astonished when they hear that the sun is much larger than the earth. But from reflection on the deceitfulness of the senses doubt arises, and if, after doubting, we acquire a true knowledge of the senses, and how things at a distance are represented through their instrumentality, doubt is again removed. GOD: Hence we cannot cast doubt on true ideas by the supposition that there is a deceitful Deity, who leads us astray even in what is most certain. We can only hold such an hypothesis so long as we have no clear and distinct idea - in other words, until we reflect the knowledge which we have of the first principle of all things, and find that which teaches us that God is not a deceiver, and until we know this with the same certainty as we know from reflecting on the area equal to two right angles. But if we have a knowledge of God equal to that which we have of a triangle, all doubt is removed. In the same way as we can arrive at the said knowledge of a triangle, though not absolutely sure that there is not some arch-deceiver leading us astray, so can we come to a like knowledge of God under the like condition, and when we have attained to it, it is sufficient, as I said before, to remove every doubt which we can possess concerning clear and distinct ideas. Thus, if a man proceeded with our investigations in due order, inquiring first into those things which should first be inquired into, never passing over a link in the chain of association, and with knowledge how to define his questions before seeking to answer them, he will never have any ideas save such as are very certain, or, in other words, clear and distinct; for doubt is only a suspension of the spirit concerning some affirmation or negation which it would pronounce upon unhesitatingly if it were not in ignorance of something, without which the knowledge of the matter in hand must needs be imperfect. We may, therefore, conclude that doubt always proceeds from want of due order of investigation. MEMORYS: These are the points I promised to discuss in the first part of my treatise on method. However, in order not to omit anything which can conduce to the knowledge of the understanding and its faculties, I will add a few words on the subject of memory and forgetfulness. The point most worthy of attention is, that memory is strengthened both with and without the aid of the understanding. For the more intelligible a thing is, the more easily is it remembered, and the less intelligible it is, the more easily do we forget it. For instance, a number of unconnected words is much more difficult to remember than the same number in the form of a narration. The memory is also strengthened without the aid of the understanding by means of the power wherewith the imagination or the sense called common, is affected by some particular physical object. I say particular, for the imagination is only affected by particular objects. If we read, for instance, a single romantic comedy, we shall remember it very well, so long as we do not read many others of the same kind, for it will reign alone in the memory. If, however, we read several others of the same kind, we shall think of them altogether, and easily confuse one with another. I say also, physical. For the imagination is only affected by physical objects. As, then, the memory is strengthened both with and without the aid of the understanding, we may conclude that it is different from the understanding, and that in the latter considered in itself there is neither memory nor forgetfulness. What, then, is memory? It is nothing else than the actual sensation of impressions on the brain, accompanied with the thought of a definite duration, of the sensation. This is also shown by reminiscence. For then we think of the sensation, but without the notion of continuous duration; thus the idea of that sensation is not the actual duration of the sensation or actual memory. Whether ideas are or are not subject to corruption will be seen in philosophy. (6) If this seems too absurd to anyone, it will be sufficient for our purpose, if he reflect on the fact that a thing is more easily remembered in proportion to its singularity, as appears from the example of the comedy just cited. Further, a thing is remembered more easily in proportion to its intelligibility; therefore we cannot help remember that which is extremely singular and sufficiently intelligible. Thus, then, we have distinguished between a true idea and other perceptions, and shown that ideas fictitious, false, and the rest, originate in the imagination - that is, in certain sensations fortuitous (so to speak) and disconnected, arising not from the power of the mind, but from external causes, according as the body, sleeping or waking, receives various motions. But one may take any view one likes of the imagination so long as one acknowledges that it is different from the understanding, and that the soul is passive with regard to it. The view taken is immaterial, if we know that the imagination is something indefinite, with regard to which the soul is passive, and that we can by some means or other free ourselves there from with the help of the understanding. Let no one then be astonished that before proving the existence of body, and other necessary things, I speak of imagination of body, and of its composition. The view taken is, I repeat, immaterial, so long as we know that imagination is something indefinite, etc. As regards as a true idea, we have shown that it is simple or compounded of simple ideas; that it shows how and why something is or has been made; and that its subjective effects in the soul correspond to the actual reality of its object. This conclusion is identical with the saying of the ancients, that true proceeds from cause to effect; though the ancients, so far as I know, never formed the conception put forward here that the soul acts according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton. Hence, as far as is possible at the outset, we have acquired a knowledge of our understanding, and such a standard of a true idea that we need no longer fear confounding truth with falsehood and fiction. Neither shall we wonder why we understand some things which in nowise fall within the scope of the imagination, while other things are in the imagination but wholly opposed to the understanding, or others, again, which agree therewith. We now know that the operations, whereby the effects of imagination are produced, take place under other laws quite different from the laws of the understanding, and that the mind is entirely passive with regard to them. Whence we may also see how easily men may fall into grave errors through not distinguishing accurately between the imagination and the understanding; such as believing that extension must be localized, that it must be finite, that its parts are really distinct one from the other, that it is the primary and single foundation of all things, that it occupies more space at one time than at another and other similar doctrines, all entirely opposed to truth, as we shall duly show. WORDS: Again, since words are a part of the imagination - that is, since we form many conceptions in accordance with confused arrangements of words in the memory, dependent on particular bodily conditions, - there is no doubt that words may, equally with the imagination, be the cause of many and great errors, unless we are strictly on our guard. Moreover, words are formed according to popular fancy and intelligence, and are, therefore, signs of things as existing in the imagination, not as existing in the understanding. This is evident from the fact that to all such things as exist only in the understanding, not in the imagination, negative names are often given, such as incorporeal, infinite, etc. So, also, many conceptions really affirmative are expressed negatively, and vice versa, such as uncreate, independent, infinite, immortal, etc., inasmuch as their contraries are much more easily imagined, and, therefore, occurred first to men, and usurped positive names. Many things we affirm and deny, because the nature of words allows us to do so, though the nature of things does not. While we remain unaware of this fact, we may easily mistake falsehood for truth. Let us also beware of another great cause of confusion, which prevents the understanding from reflecting on itself. Sometimes, while making no distinction between the imagination and the intellect, we think that what we more readily imagine is clearer to us; and also we think that what we imagine we understand. Thus, we put first that which should be last: the true order of progression is reversed, and no legitimate conclusion is drawn. Now, in order at length to pass on to the second part of this method, I shall first set forth the object aimed at, and next the means for its attainment. The object aimed at is the acquisition of clear and distinct ideas, such as are produced by the pure intellect, and not by chance physical motions. In order that all ideas may be reduced to unity, we shall endeavor so to associate and arrange them that our mind may, as far as possible, reflect subjectively the reality of nature, both as a whole and as parts. As for the first point, it is necessary (as we have said) for our purpose that everything should be conceived, either solely through its essence, or through its proximate cause. If the thing be self-existent, or, as is commonly said, the cause of itself, it must be understood through its essence only; if it be not self-existent, but requires a cause for its existence, it must be understood through its proximate cause. For, in reality, the knowledge, of an effect is nothing else than the acquisition of more perfect knowledge of its cause. Therefore, we may never, while we are concerned with inquiries into actual things, draw any conclusion from abstractions; we shall be extremely careful not to confound that which is only in the understanding with that which is in the thing itself. The best basis for drawing a conclusion will be either some particular affirmative essence, or a true and legitimate definition. For the understanding cannot descend from universal axioms by themselves to particular things, since axioms are of infinite extent, and do not determine the understanding to contemplate one particular thing more than another. DEFINITIONS: Thus the true method of discovery is to form thoughts from some given definition. This process will be the more fruitful and easy in proportion as the thing given be better defined. Wherefore, the cardinal point of all this second part of method consists in the knowledge of the conditions of good definition, and the means of finding them. I will first treat of the conditions of definition. A definition, if it is to be called perfect, must explain the inmost essence of a thing, and must take care not to substitute for this any of its properties. In order to illustrate my meaning, without taking an example which would seem to show a desire to expose other people's errors, I will choose the case of something abstract, the definition of which is of little moment. Such is a circle. If a circle be defined as a figure, such that all straight lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal, every one can see that such a definition does not in the least explain the essence of a circle, but solely one of its properties. Though, as I have said, this is of no importance in the case of figures and other abstractions, it is of great importance in the case of physical beings and realities: for the properties of things are not understood so long as their essences are unknown. If the latter be passed over, there is necessarily a perversion of the succession of ideas which should reflect the succession of nature, and we go far astray from our object. In order to be free from this fault, the following rules should be observed in definition:- If the thing in question be created, the definition must (as we have said) comprehend the proximate cause. For instance, a circle should, according to this rule, be defined as follows: the figure described by any line whereof one end is fixed and the other free. This definition clearly comprehends the proximate cause. A conception or definition of a thing should be such that all the properties of that thing, in so far as it is considered by itself, and not in conjunction with other things, can be deduced from it, as may be seen in the definition given of a circle: for from that it clearly follows that all straight lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal. That this is a necessary characteristic of a definition is so clear to anyone, who reflects on the matter, that there is no need to spend time in proving it, or in showing that, owing to this second condition, every definition should be affirmative. I speak of intellectual affirmation, giving little thought to verbal affirmations which, owing to the poverty of language, must sometimes, perhaps, be expressed negatively, though the idea contained is affirmative. The rules for the definition of an uncreated thing are as follows:-- I. The exclusion of all idea of cause - that is, the thing must not need explanation by Anything outside itself. II. When the definition of the thing has been given, there must be no room for doubt as to whether the thing exists or not. III. It must contain, as far as the mind is concerned, no substantives which could be put into an adjectival form; in other words, the object defined must not be explained through abstractions. IV. Lastly, though this is not absolutely necessary, it should be possible to deduce from the definition all the properties of the thing defined. All these rules become obvious to anyone giving strict attention to the matter. I have also stated that the best basis for drawing a conclusion is a particular affirmative essence. The more specialized the idea is, the more it is distinct, and therefore clear. Wherefore the knowledge of particular things should be sought for as diligently as possible. As regards the order of our perceptions, and the manner in which they should be arranged and united, it is necessary that, as soon as is possible and rational, we should inquire whether there be any being (and, if so, what being), that is the cause of all things, so that its essence, represented in thought, may be the cause of all our ideas, and then our mind will to the utmost possible extent reflect nature. For it will possess, subjectively, nature's essence, order, and union. Thus we can see that it is before all things necessary for us to deduce all our ideas from physical things - that is, from real entities, proceeding, as far as may be, according to the series of causes, from one real entity to another real entity, never passing to universals and abstractions, either for the purpose of deducing some real entity from them, or deducing them from some real entity. Either of these processes interrupts the true progress of the understanding. But it must be observed that, by the series of causes and real entities, I do not here mean the series of particular and mutable things, but only the series of fixed and eternal things. It would be impossible for human infirmity to follow up the series of particular mutable things, both on account their multitude, surpassing all calculation, and on account of the infinitely diverse circumstances surrounding one and the same thing, any one of which may be the cause of its existence or non-existence. Indeed, their existence has no connection with their essence, or (as we have said already) is not an eternal truth. Neither is there any need that we should understand their series, for the essences of particular mutable things are not to be gathered from their series or order of existence, which would furnish us with nothing beyond their extrinsic denominations, their relations, or, at most, their circumstances, all of which are very different from their inmost essence. This inmost essence must be sought solely from fixed and eternal things, and from the laws, inscribed (so to speak) in those things as in their true codes, according to which all particular things take place and are arranged; nay, these mutable particular things depend so intimately and essentially (so to phrase it) upon the fixed things, that they cannot either be conceived without them. But, though this be so, there seems to be no small difficulty in arriving at the knowledge of these particular things, for to conceive them all at once would far surpass the powers of the human understanding. The arrangement whereby one thing is understood, before another, as we have stated, should not be sought from their series of existence, nor from eternal things. For the latter are all by nature simultaneous. Other aids are therefore needed besides those employed for understanding eternal things and their laws. However, this is not the place to recount such aids, nor is there any need to do so, until we have acquired a sufficient knowledge of eternal things and their infallible laws, and until the nature of our senses has become plain to us. Before betaking ourselves to seek knowledge of particular things, it will be seasonable to speak of such aids, as all tend to teach us the mode of employing our senses, and to make certain experiments under fixed rules and arrangements which may suffice to determine the object of our inquiry, so that we may there from infer what laws of eternal things it has been produced under, and may gain an insight into its inmost nature, as I will duly show. Here, to return to my purpose, I will only endeavor to set forth what seems necessary for enabling us to attain to knowledge of eternal things, and to define them under the conditions laid down above. With this end, we must bear in mind what has already been stated, namely, that when the mind devotes itself to any thought, so as to examine it, and to deduce there from in due order all the legitimate conclusions possible, any falsehood which may lurk in the thought will be detected; but if the thought be true, the mind will readily proceed without interruption to deduce truths from it. This, I say, is necessary for our purpose, for our thoughts may be brought to a close by the absence of a foundation. If, therefore, we wish to investigate the first thing of all, it will be necessary to supply some foundation which may direct our thoughts thither. Further, since method is reflective knowledge, the foundation which must direct our thoughts can be nothing else than the knowledge of that which constitutes the reality of truth, and the knowledge of the understanding, its properties, and powers. When this has been acquired we shall possess a foundation wherefrom we can deduce our thoughts, and a path whereby the intellect, according to its capacity, may attain the knowledge of eternal things, allowance being made for the extent of the intellectual powers. If, as I stated in the first part, it belongs to the nature of thought to form true ideas, we must here inquire what is meant by the faculties and power of the understanding. The chief part of our method is to understand as well as possible the powers of the intellect, and its nature; we are, therefore, compelled (by the considerations advanced in the second part of the method) necessarily to draw these conclusions from the definition itself of thought and understanding. But, so far as we have not got any rules for finding definitions, and, as we cannot set forth such rules without a previous knowledge of nature, that is without a definition of the understanding and its power, it follows either that the definition of the understanding must be clear in itself, or that we can understand nothing. Nevertheless this definition is not absolutely clear in itself; however, since its properties, like all things that we possess through the understanding, cannot be known clearly and distinctly, unless its nature be known previously, understanding makes itself manifest, if we pay attention to its properties, which we know clearly and distinctly. Let us, then, enumerate here the properties of the understanding, let us examine them, and begin by discussing the instruments for research which we find innate in us. The properties of the understanding which I have chiefly remarked, and which I clearly understand, are the following:- I. It involves certainty - in other words, it knows that a thing exists in reality as it is reflected subjectively. II. That it perceives certain things, or forms some ideas absolutely, some ideas from others. Thus it forms the idea of quantity absolutely, without reference to any other thoughts; but ideas of motion it only forms after taking into consideration the idea of quantity. III. Those ideas which the understanding forms absolutely express infinity; determinate ideas are derived from other ideas. Thus in the idea of quantity, perceived by means of a cause, the quantity is determined, as when a body is perceived to be formed by the motion of a plane, a plane by the motion of a line, or, again, a line by the motion of a point. All these are perceptions which do not serve towards understanding quantity, but only towards determining it. This is proved by the fact that we conceive them as formed as it were by motion, yet this motion is not perceived unless the quantity be perceived also; we can even prolong the motion to form an infinite line, which we certainly could not do unless we had an idea of infinite quantity. IV. The understanding forms positive ideas before forming negative ideas. V. It perceives things not so much under the condition of duration as under a certain form of eternity, and in an infinite number; or rather in perceiving things it does not consider either their number or duration, whereas, in imagining them, it perceives them in a determinate number, duration, and quantity. VI. The ideas which we form as clear and distinct, seem to follow from the sole necessity of our nature, that they appear to depend absolutely on our sole power; with confused ideas the contrary is the case. They are often formed against our will. VII. The mind can determine in many ways the ideas of things, which the understanding forms from other ideas: thus, for instance, in order to define the plane of an ellipse, it supposes a point adhering to a cord to be moved around two centers, or, again, it conceives an infinity of points, always in the same fixed relation to a given straight line, angle of the vertex of the cone, or in an infinity of other ways. The more ideas express perfection of any object, the more perfect are they themselves; for we do not admire the architect who has planned a chapel so much as the architect who has planned a splendid temple. I do not stop to consider the rest of what is referred to as thought, be it worship, love, joy, hate, etc. They are nothing to our present purpose, and cannot even be conceived unless the understanding be perceived previously. When perception is removed, all these go with it. False and fictitious ideas have nothing positive about them (as we have abundantly shown), which causes them to be called false or fictitious; they are only considered as such through the defectiveness of knowledge. Therefore, false and fictitious ideas as such can teach us nothing concerning the essence of thought; this must be sought from the positive properties just enumerated; in other words, we must lay down some common basis from which these properties necessarily follow, so that when this is given, the properties are necessarily given also, and when it is removed, they too vanish with it. Observe that it is thereby manifest that we cannot understand anything of nature without at the same time increasing our knowledge of the first cause, or God. Nature being the essence of God. The rest of the treatise is wanting. LEARNING TO LEARN LEARNING TO TEACH LEARING TO REMEMBER LEARNING TO FORGET We can get to know, below, about Boris Sidis (1869-1928) form the pen of his wife and his ideas about teaching little children to read, write and to count, better yet to tabulate. Boris had started himself in the field of education in the old country, Russia, where he devoted himself to teaching peasants how to read and write. For this crime against the society of his time--trying to educate those who wanted to learn--he was sentenced to an indefinite term in prison. He was offered the opportunity for freedom at one time but refused when he learned that there was a condition which forbade him from having anything more to do with learning of any kind--the only life he knew. For being this unreasonable, he was placed in solitary confinement in a man-sized cell, one so small that he could only get in a reclining position by pulling up his knees. He spent two months of this torture in his Russian prison. He was unconscious for an extended period, and was not expected to survive for a long time. His father, a man of moderate wealth, was finally able to secure his release by assuring authorities that his son would leave the country. Boris did leave and made himself a success in America. At a dinner party a few years after his becoming prominent at Harvard, Boris was introduced to the director of education in Russia who was visiting the United States. He pleaded with Boris to return saying that he would have a free hand in establishing a solid educational system. My husband indignantly reminded the Russian representative of his days in prison said that Czarist promises meant nothing. He was unwilling, he said, to ever return to Russia as long as a totalitarian government existed. By this time, he had received his University degree from Harvard and was later awarded his Ph.D. in psychology and his M.D. from the Harvard Medical school. My husband’s knowledge of psychology was invaluable in the education of Billy. He was never left alone without the company of one of us. His early investigations into the ability to learn were made a game rather than a chore. He was made to feel like an adult from the very beginning. At one time, for example, I thought it about time to teach William how to eat at the table. Nothing was said to him about it because he was only a few months old. Billy was merely brought to the table whenever the family ate. Food and a spoon were placed in front of him. He watched the rest of the family eat and although we included him in any of our conversations, we didn't try to teach him to eat in any way. After a few weeks, we noticed him getting impatient at every meal. Finally he picked up his spoon and began playing with it. Later, he attempted to place it in his mouth, but because he was still uncoordinated, he managed to hit every part of his face with his food except his mouth. One day, he at last managed to find it. He squealed with delight. He had learned how to eat. No one had taught him; he had reasoned it out. The word, "reasoning," is the crux of our system. In true education it is not the amount of knowledge that counts but originality and independence of thought that are of importance. But our schools today are based on a system of regulations and office-like discipline. Individuality is frequently discourages thereby suppressing originality. The result is the "average American," the clever businessman, the good artisan, the resourceful politician, but few scientists, artists, philosophers, or statesmen. My husband was no beginner in the field of education He was known as one of the more prominent psychologists of his period. While at Harvard, he was a student of William James, Josiah Royce and Herbert Palmer. He wrote a book while he was a student, "The Psychology of Suggestion," with an introduction by Professor James. He was author of a score of other books and pamphlets on similar subjects (be specific here), and was a founder and for a time editor of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. He later became an associate in psychopathology at the Pathological Institute of the New York State Hospitals. An unusual aspect of this position was that he did not have his doctor's degree at the time even though his job called for him to act as supervisor over a number of M.D.s. While teaching at Harvard, along with fellow-Professor James, Boris leveled a blast at organized education which even reached his own University and the President of the renowned institution. His villification of accepted methods of teaching, "Phillistines and Genius," was commented upon editorially by almost every important paper in Europe and the United States--from The New York Times and Baltimore Sun to the Spokane (Washington) _________. Although my husband was essentially a psychologist and psychopathologist, he considered psychology to be very closely allied with education. His attack on education resulted mainly from the amazing accomplishments we achieved with Billy. Then, too, I received most of my early education from Boris during the time that he tutored me for my college entrance examinations. The ability to learn languages stemmed from a basic understanding of what every language is based upon. Looking through the Boston Library one day, my husband found a book explaining the word forms of the early Aryan language. Most modern tongues are based on this archaic form, and it was easy for Billy or my husband to enlarge their vocabularies merely by referring to the basic form. During the week that it would take either of them to learn a language, they would devote themselves entirely to that subject alone. Learning was not a matter of repetition to them, and it need not be for anyone. Too often we have regarded the child's mind as a vacant lot, a place where we could unload certain facts which would accumulate there. We labor under the delusion that stories and fairy tales, myths and deceptions about life and man are good for the child's mind. On such a foundation, it is difficult to erect a proud monument. We forget the simple fact that what is harmful for the adult is still more harmful to the child. Surely what is poisonous to the grown-up mind cannot be useful food to the young. If credulity in old wives tales, lack of individuality, sheepish submissiveness, unquestioned belief in authority, meaningless imitation of jingles, memorization of mother-goose wisdom, repetition of incomprehensible prayers, uncritical aping of good manners, silly games, prejudices and superstitions and fears of the supernatural are censored in adults, why should we approve their cultivation in the young? In public schools, education is nothing but a series of repetitions so that a number of facts can be dredged into a child's unwilling brain. According to our system, it is a matter of recreation. Learning can be fun, and it is when treated like a game. A typical example arises when you teach a child to spell. In school, the typical process begins with rat, r-at, rat. Then comes cat, c-a-t, cat, and so on ad infinitum. The teacher is usually underpaid; she is tired of endless repetitions; and she probably can't help instilling some basic fears and feelings of insecurity on a child who is floundering--not because he can't do anything else, but because he isn't taught to think for himself. Billie, on the other hand, learned to spell before he ever went to school. He did not memorize all of the words in the English language even though he was a proficient speller. He didn't even memorize any of the words in any language. What he did was to learn the method of spelling so that he could apply his techniques to any new word that might come up. How did he do this at so early an age? It was simple. He made a game of it by using blocks. He learned that three letters placed in a certain way spelled cat. Then he learned that if the "t" were doubled and an "le" added he would have a new word with a different meaning. This approach was so effective that he never forgot to double a final consonant when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel. That’s a simple rule AFTER it has been memorized. But Billie learned it without memorizing. The block technique was only one aspect of a large pattern. Learning to Billie was always a game, no matter what subject he was working on. Education became a part of every action he engaged in although it was made such fun that he never realized it. Bedtimes were perfect for putting this scheme into effect. All young children like to be fondled and read to just before they go to sleep. Billie was started off with some of the most perfect fairy tales in existence--Greek mythology. The myths were presented to him in such a way that it was all fun. But underneath, he was getting a classic education, almost from the time he could first learn. to talk and comprehend bedtime stories. From mythology, it was easy to explain the system of the universe to the boy. Planets could be explained in terms of' their names, which were taken from the Greek gods he had already learned about. From there, it was a simple matter to go to mathematics. Impossible for a child of three or four? The theorists might say yes, but the facts say no. There are many ways to look at this early development of the child's mental capacities. How can it help the child? What will be the effect on you? And will the state benefit or lose out if children become educated earlier in life? Let's take the child first because the purpose of the whole system is to help him. If the principles of the system are used, he gets the positive results o certain techniques. With emphasis on minimizing the amount of time necessary for him to learn, the youngster will get the benefit of more time to devote to playing. This will give him a better opportunity to strive for a healthy body as well as a superior brain. His thinking ability will not be dulled by endless repetitions, and everything he learns will be enjoyable as a game and a delight because it is the result of his learning, not your teaching. He will learn to reason things out, and by so doing will be able to apply a few principles to a great many things. You as a parent will also be happier. With a happy child, you will have less on your mind to frustrate you and give you feelings of insecurity. Your child will become independent of mind more rapidly, and you can give him more responsibility at an earlier age. By being fully capable when he is younger, he will be able to become financially secure in his own right sooner than he ordinarily would have. He can start to work earlier, and he can advance more rapidly. All of this will, of course, have a positive effect on the whole social and economic picture of the country. More people will be better educated at an earlier age. By avoiding long hours say of schoolwork and finishing school in two years rather than eight, the entire budget for education can be cut to a fraction of what it is now. Teachers now laboring six and seven hours a day to drum cold facts into unwilling heads can relax on a four-hour schedule and help more students develop a happy harmony between a strong body and an able mind. More students will have additional help from the same number of teachers. Because the training period will not be as long, instructors can be better paid without increasing their schedules. There will be no need to decrease the number of teachers, but they can be better paid and have the benefit of their endeavors spread for a greater amount of good. CHAPTER 2 The early development of your child's mental capacities is governed by your actions. Too often, a youngster's thinking power is stymied by an impatient parent, a busy parent, or one who is thoughtless. Let the experience of experts guide you in your attitudes. Psychologists know that the infant’s brain is an organ the same as his heart or stomach. It must be treated in accord with what it is. A child with an inferior heart, for example, is limited in his actions. He can't play football, climb ladders, or play hop scotch. A youngster with a brain that is defective for one reason or another must also be developed differently. His thought processes are slower, and the ability to learn is hampered. A child with a healthy body on the other hand requires a different type of development. Without exercise, his muscles and tissues will deteriorate. He must continually fulfill the needs of his energetic body to keep it in its good condition. The brain is no different. As an organ of the body it must get its regular exercise to keep it in good working order. There can be lapses for short periods, but any extended interruption in its function will decrease its efficiency. There is a common fallacy that the brain in a young child should not be exercised because it is a delicate organ that will become distorted. But its reasoning power in later life is derived from the effectiveness of its earlier use. Consequently, the brain is weakened by lying dormant too long the same as the human body is weakened by lying in bed too long. A perfect example is the increasing weakness of the convalescent, who must learn to walk anew following an extended period of muscular disuse. The too, because the brain is the superior organ, it helps develop the other organs and increases the opportunity to unleash tremendous physical and mental energies. It is up to you whether the brain will become the filter of the body, dictating every action, or whether it wall make the best use of its vast potential. With the brain instigating reason in all directions, such activities as sport can be performed at a higher level and with more dexterity. Reasoning helps motor coordination and makes muscular activity more efficient. Adults in contact with children must recognize the functions of the brain ABC the youngster may develop the idea; it must not be instilled in him. Older people believe that fame and fortune go hand in hand with happiness in our culture. This is unfortunate when it remains the only ideal for many people who cannot achieve the goal because of the flighty hand of Dame Fortune. Surely there are other goals of human service-- godliness, creative work, and efficient behavior. A goal is something that each person establishes for himself. The unattainable must be modified or changed to prevent a personality distortion through frustration. During the child’s years when he is between one and six, the brain absorbs more than at any other period in life. If grammar schools accepted children of these ages, it would take four years or less for these children to acquire a complete elementary education usually requiring eight years. This is neither sensational nor absurd. My son, for example, finished the entire eight year course in five months, working a maximum of two hours a day during that period. Four hours a day will cover all the aspects of a normal day at the schoolhouse. That reference to "all the aspects" should be taken in a broad sense. Remember that physical activity is as important as mental activity in achieving a suitable balance of the healthy mind and body. Two hours, then, should be spent on sports and playing. The remaining two hours can be devoted to a formal pursuit of method and education. Most people would now assume that the task of learning is actually a function of the home and that homework should therefore be increased. But the opposite is actually true. With this method, no home assignments should be given. "Go home," the pupil should be told, "and think about what you have learned today." Next morning, a half hour of the study time can be used in answering questions the child on have thought about it in reference to what they learned the day before. The pupils will thereby accumulate a knowledge of fact with the ability to reason. With the child’s new found ability to think for himself, his talents may sometimes lead themselves into incorrect conclusions. These will, of course, result in actions that are unsatisfactory to the adult. When the average parent or teacher sees any undesirable behavior of this sort in a child, his usual attitude is to stop the action abruptly. This frequently takes the form of a raised voice, a slap, a sound shaking, or a spanking. This punishment is no more than a short cut for the adults. It is the lazy way of solving a problem, and it is detrimental to the health and mental development of the child. Shock has been substituted for reason by the adult. A more satisfactory result can be attained by explaining to the youngster why his behavior is undesirable, dangerous to himself or others, damaging, disturbing, etc. Rather than condemn, substitute an alternative or merely distract. The result of any sort of punishment is fear, which cripples the mind and body of child and adult alike. Thinking is inhibited and originality is killed. Physical progress is also limited. A perfect example is the increase of psychoneurotic cases during wars. Knowledge and understanding are fear’s worst enemies. Awareness by the child himself of his role in life and what is worthwhile will aid him in developing his powers of reason without being unduly limited. Most children develop physically without a commensurate mental development because parents are unable or unwilling to devote the time to help teach. A burned child will stay away from fire. But why must he be hurt before he can acquire this knowledge? There is no reason of course. A little effort in the side of the parents will give the child an understanding and awareness of such pains before they occur. In explaining something like this, however, remember that a bit of information such as that of heat burning the human skin cannot be absorbed with any meaning because it is an isolated fact. What have you told the child about his skin? how it breathes? and how it is fed by what he eats? Does he know what a service soap and water perform for his skin, or has he learned to dislike it because the habit has interfered with a game he is playing or a new discovery? If you both have an understanding of the workings of the body, you will save much time and effort. A child who understands that his skin must be clean so it can breathe and stay healthy to avoid rashes he knows are uncomfortable will find new pleasure in a bath. He will have discovered something new as the result of his reasoning powers. A good approach to an understanding of the body easily is through the skin--particularly if you are frightened about the explanation. It is not a burden, although it can be made into one. Make a game of it instead. A child can learn about his skin easily--by touching, looking and feeling it. Sensations originating at the surface of the body can be explained almost as a fairy tale to the child. The words must be simple, and the teaching must be enjoyable. Understanding brings precautions. Certain of these precautions will keep the doctor away. Knowledge of the human body at any early age is important because understanding aids the fullest utilization of powers and prowess. To me, one of the mysteries of the ages is that educators do not teach children a sufficient amount about their own bodies. For children to have a complete approach to life, they should have a basic understanding of the mechanism they inhabit. Reasoning can be complete when a child begins to learn what his body is constructed of, why and how it happens to be formed in this matter, and how he can best learn to develop this body which must serve him for his whole life. Health habits of any kind should, of course, be explained. Many adults of encouraged unhealthy practices of eating, sleeping, and other habitual forms of existence. Many of these are not the result of ignorance as much as the reluctance to give up previously established habits that have become a part of the personality. The habits can be changed; but how much better it would have been had they never been developed at all! Likes and dislikes are learned. Why not guide the youngster to learn what is beneficial while rejecting whatever is destructive. Early understanding will lead to reasoning which will serve as the child’s guide. Soon, your duty in guiding will be replaced by the child’s ability to reason for himself. In expending a little more energy at the beginning, you will be able to more than compensate at the end. The task of developing the child into a mature human being will be more quickly turned over to the child himself. The method is not restricted to health habits alone. The whole pattern of education is based on the proposition that the child must educate himself by reasoning, using gems of knowledge that are offered by the adult. Of primary importance with this system is that the parent must go to the child. For the adult to sit on the floor is very important because of what it represents. A new child is more easily reached when he is approached on his own level--figuratively and literally. We cannot and must not assume that all young children will be amenable to our training immediately. Behavior problems brought on through previous years of insecurity and inconsistencies result in the aggressive, destructive, poorly-controlled behavior often encountered in confused children. Some children will require time to get reoriented to a new environment of ease in place of strain; love and kindness in place of reprimands and impatience; consistency for inconsistency; and guidance in place of didactic statement of improperly explained facts. Here is an example of showing a new path to a child. This incident actually happened, and it demonstrates how you can give a youngster a glimpse into a new exciting land of knowledge and truth. Even though I had met this little girl, age 4, the other evening, I pretended to forget her name. "Hello. What’s your name?" "Oh, you forgot," she replied. "I told you last night." I frowned unhappily. "I’m a dumbbell, I guess. What do you think of that? Do YOU know what a dumbbell is?" "Yes," she laughed, delighted at having an adult admit to such a thing. "Ethel, what you been doing," I continued. "Oh, you didn’t forget at all," she said. "No? Maybe I was playing a joke. Do you like jokes?" I asked. "Oh, yes," she exclaimed. Ethel was now an equal because of the simplicity of my approach. I tried to make my eyes smile so the little girl would feel welcomed by a patience that puts children at ease with adults. The conversation took a turn as it so often does with children. "I’m very hot," she said. "But you don’t mind, do you? Would you like me to tell you a little story about being hot?" "Yes," she went on. "Tell me a story. The sun makes me hot. Whenever it shines, it makes me hot." The topic changed abruptly. "You know I didn’t mean it when I called you a dumbbell," she said. "I am really the dumbbell because you didn’t forget my name at all." Back we go to the previous topic. "You know, when the clouds are covering the sun I’m not hot." "What are clouds made of; do you know?" I asked. "Oh yes, I know." A man was standing nearby. "This man and I would like to know what the clouds are made of." The little girl thought a minute. "Well, I guess it must be something thick and heavy. I know it must be thick and heavy because it keeps out the heat. Oh, I don’t know. You tell me what it is." "How can I tell you when I’m a dumbbell?" I asked seriously. "Oh," she apologized. "I didn’t mean that. Tell me what a cloud is made of. "Would you like to know about the sun, how it hides and all?" "Oh yes," she replied. "I’ll tell you a little story about the sun." I decided to go into the planetary system based on Greek mythology. "The sun is the father and the earth is one of his nine children. He lives thousands and thousands of miles away from his children. How far away do you think we are from the sun?" "Oh, a long way," she said. "That’s right. And the father wants to keep in touch with his children and find out how they are and what they are doing. So he sends out thousands of messengers." "What are messengers?" The questions begin. "Have you ever seen a boy bring groceries to your house or a telegram? That is what a messenger is. These little messengers make you hot because they get so hot from running back and forth from the earth to their father, the sun. When you feel hot, it’s because these messengers are kissing your skin. They are healthy, aren’t they? But only when you don’t have too many visiting you at one time and give you a sunburn. Now, would you like to know what clouds are really made of?" "Yes." "Well, I’ll tell you," I replied. "They’re made of water." "Water? Why doesn’t it fall down?" "It does when it rains, doesn’t it?" "Well," she persisted, "how does it get up there?" "Remember the messenger I told you about who got so hot from traveling back and forth?" "Yes." "They draw the water from the rivers, lakes, and oceans." "I don’t see it," she said. "No, do you know why you don’t see it? Because the water is turned into little bits of wet that we call particles." This last was too much for her. That’s one reason I used a big word. "What is a particle?" she asked. This question was actually instigated by the use of indirect suggestion. "Have you ever seen steam?" "Oh, yes," she replied. "My mother cooks tea and there is steam." "Well, that is what happens to the water that gets kissed a lot by the messengers. It turns into little particles that have been heated by those hot messengers and then it starts going up because hot things always rise. And the farther up it goes, the cooler it gets, and as it gets cooler it begins to stick closer to other particles, and together they make big drops of water. And what do you think happens when the drops get heavy enough? The drops fall, and we have rain. What do you think of that?" "Oh, I never knew that before." "Did you like that little story?" I asked. "Yes, I did. I like stories like that." The little girl's mother came by then, and the two of them were off. The whole incident took only ten minutes or so and illustrates how easily you can use your surroundings to invent a story which will enlighten as it amuses. Whenever a child comments on anything natural, you can always tell a little story. Get the child's interest and give him an idea to seize upon that will stick with him even if he forgets the superficial material. EVOLVING DESTINIES Fossils will not lie, Man can. With our ever improving measuring devises we are seeing further and further into and understanding our past, by understanding the past more accurately we should draw a better picture of our future. Our ancestors as blessed or cursed, as they may be, just did not have at their disposal the resources and the were-with-all to predict what we can today. Fossils are Gods way of showing us in a tangible form the Earth’s and the Universes’ history for many, many years to our past. We have just, began reading fossils in earnest for the last two hundred years. Of course, we do not know it all and no-one ever will, but we can make it better or make it worse, thought has lot to do with it and words help or hurt, trust only movement, you can hear, you can see, you can feel, you can taste and you can smell. These are truly Gods gift to all creatures on this planet we call earth. I believe we all have a Sixth sense that’s not being used, as well as, could or should be practiced. Thanks to the Hubble telescope we are fairly certain that we are living in an expanding Universe for the present, and of course that might change any minute, (all right doom and gloom, shut-up). Transferring a thought into another person’s mind via way of a sound, (the spoken word) is vary difficult indeed, but to do it with the printed word is ten times more arduous. Please! Believe me I know! I worked five years in Saudi Arabia (1979/1985), and do, I have a story to tell. No! I did not go over there to fight a war I went over there to find some money---Honey! Honey!---likes money! The human race has just passed through one of the darkest periods of its history. It may even prove to be the most tragic of all, due to the fact that the conflict penetrated into the remotest corners of the world and that its unprecedented violence destroyed whatever illusions we might have had as to the solidity and permanence of the civilization man was so proud of. A general uneasiness had spread over all the occidental countries ever since the first world war. This was not a new phenomenon but simply an awakening of the human conscience which had been anesthetized by the mechanical progress of the preceding fifty years. The rapid development of the material side of civilization had aroused the interest of men and kept them in a kind of breathless expectation of the next day's miracle. Little time was left for the solving of the true problems: the human problems. Men were hypnotized by the incredibly brilliant display of new inventions following one another almost without interruption from 1880 on, and were like children who are so fascinated by their first view of a three-ring circus that they even forget to eat or drink. This prodigious spectacle became the symbol of reality, and true values, dimmed by the glitter of the new star, were relegated to second place. The shift was easy and painless because philosophers and scientists of the nineteenth century had already prepared the minds of the thinking public by setting up question marks without answers. Many people had a presentiment of the danger and gave the alarm, but it remained unheeded. It remained unheeded because a strange new idol had been born and a true fetishism, the cult of novelty, had taken hold of the masses. On the other hand, the discerning minds—the Cassandras—only had anachronic arguments at their disposal. The world was changing every day, replacing yesterday's garb by a more brilliant and unexpected one. While the dazzled children of men opened wide their eyes in an admiring ecstasy which insensibly turned into a true faith in the unlimited power of science and invention, the wise men fought only with venerable but outworn arguments, words stripped of the prestige of youth, and appeals for the awakening of a conscience which nobody wanted and many thought strangely old-fashioned and useless. The Churches made a great effort but without rejuvenating their teachings. The results were not successful enough to halt the universal demoralization or even the disaffection and uneasiness of the crowd. It could not be otherwise. Compulsory education had opened up new paths, highways, and lanes in the intelligence of men. Without becoming much more intelligent, men had learned to employ the tricks of rational thought. An infinitely seductive tool, a new toy had been put in their hands and they all had the illusion that they knew how to use it. This tool had obtained sensational results which gradually transformed their material life and raised unlimited hopes. It was natural that the respect, heretofore bestowed on the priests, should be transferred progressively to those who had succeeded in harnessing the forces of nature and in penetrating some of her secrets. Thus materialism spread not only amongst technicians but, alas, in the masses. Rational thinking should have been employed to fight this disease of reason. A mathematical argument can only be fought by other mathematical arguments, a scientific reasoning can only be destroyed by a reasoning of the same kind. If a lawyer tries to demonstrate that you are in the wrong it is no use pleading your case sentimentally or even logically. He will only be convinced if you confront him with other laws which contradict those he has invoked. It makes no difference if you are right and if, equitably, you should win. It is just as impossible to overcome his objections by subjective and psychological statements as it is to open a door with the wrong key. We must use the right key if we want to fight paralyzing skepticism and destructive materialism which are by no means the inevitable consequences of the scientific interpretation of nature, as we have been led to believe. Therefore, we must attack the enemy with his own weapons and on his own ground. If we are unable to convince the skeptic, because of his bad faith or simply because of his negative faith, there is hope that the honest and impartial spectator who has followed the vicissitudes of the struggle will recognize the victor. In other words, nowadays we can hardly expect to destroy atheism by using the sentimental and traditional arguments which could arouse the ignorant masses of the past. We cannot fight tanks with cavalry, nor planes with bows and arrows. Science was used to sap the base of religion. Science must be used to consolidate it. The world has evolved in the last five hundred years. It is important to recognize this and to adapt ourselves to the new conditions. We no longer travel from New York to San Francisco in a "prairie schooner," nor do we burn witches as they did in some places during the seventeenth century. We no longer treat infectious diseases by purging and bleeding, but we still use the same weapons as two thousand years ago to fight the greatest peril which has ever menaced human society, and we do not realize that large quantities of powerful arms are within our reach, capable of ensuring a certain if not immediate victory. The purpose of this book is to examine critically the scientific capital accumulated by man, and to derive there from logical and rational consequences. We shall see that these consequences lead inevitably to the idea of God. The present work, therefore, will not help convinced believers, except for the fact that it will give them new scientific arguments which they may use to advantage. It is not primarily meant for them. It is meant for those who, as a result of certain conversations, or experiences, have, at some moment of their existence, felt a doubt arising in their minds. It is meant for those who suffer from the conflict between what they think is their rational self, and their spiritual, religious, or sentimental self. It is meant for all men of good will who have understood that the aim of human life is the realization of a superior conscience and the perfection of self by a harmonious fusion of all the specifically human qualities; for all those who strive to understand the meaning of their efforts and of their trials. It is meant for those who would wish these efforts to be integrated in the cosmic order, and who are eager to contribute to it in a certain measure, thus conferring to their existence and aspirations a real value transcending the narrow frame of their individual interests. It is meant for all those who believe in the reality of human dignity and of man's mission in the universe, and for those who do not believe in it yet, but who are anxious to be convinced. To achieve this result we will first study some mechanisms of human thought, so as to know what real value can be attributed to our concepts, to our reasoning, and to those of the materialists. Some of the latter are sincere and have an absolute and naive faith in their cerebral processes; others, however, are not so sincere and deem that the public should not be admitted back of the scientific stage lest they realize that the scenery is sometimes of pasteboard and canvas. They often avoid showing up obscurities and contradictions. They may not see them themselves. Indeed, it is the philosophers of science rather than the laboratory workers who should point out the difficulties of interpretation, the gaps and the relativity of the theories. Such men unfortunately are rare, and their language is often incomprehensible even to the cultivated public. In our opinion it is imperative for the layman to know something of modern scientific and philosophic thought, and to learn how to use it so as to avoid being misled and impressed by the reasoning of materialistic scientists who, even if they are of good faith, are not always free from error. I hope the readers will understand that, if they are interested in the destiny of us, we cannot attack this immense question without knowing the handicaps attached to human thought which enable us to study it. When physicists make measurements with the aim of verifying a hypothesis, when astronomers check the position of a star, they know exactly the degree of precision of their instruments, and the mean error introduced into their observations. They take that into account, and the calculus of errors constitutes an important chapter in all the sciences. Our problem is us. The instrument used is the brain. I am, therefore, necessary to know the limitation of the instrument before trying to solve the problem. We will see that this investigation will reveal grave weaknesses in the scientific and mathematical reasoning of materialists. These weaknesses are so serious that, in the actual state of our knowledge, they take away all scientific value from their arguments. We shall next examine our being in the universe, and this will lead to an attentive study of evolution. This in turn will lead us to expound a hypothesis which incorporates human evolution into evolution in general, and to develop its logical consequences. The aim of this is specifically human. I am firmly convinced that the modern uneasiness arises mainly from the fact that intelligence has deprived man of all reason for existence by destroying, in the name of a science still in the cradle, the doctrines which up till now gave a meaning to individual life, a reason for effort, a transcendent end to attain: namely, the religions. The negation of free will, the negation of moral responsibility; the individual considered merely as a physicochemical unit, as a particle of living matter, hardly different from the other animals, inevitably brings about the death of moral man, the suppression of all spirituality, of all hope, the frightful and discouraging feeling of total uselessness. Now, what characterizes us, as God’s favored being here on Earth, is precisely the presence in us of abstract ideas, of moral ideas, of spiritual ideas, and it is only of these that we can be proud. They are as real as our body and confer to this body a value and an importance which it would be far from possessing without them. If, therefore, we want to give a meaning to life, a reason for effort, we must try to revalorize these ideas scientifically and rationally, and it seems to us that this can only be achieved by trying to incorporate them into evolution, by considering them as manifestations of evolution, in the same way as the eyes, the hands, and articulate speech. It must be demonstrated that every person has a part to play and that we are free to play it or not; that we are a link in a chain and not a wisp of straw swept along by a torrent; that, in brief, personal dignity is not a vain word, and that when we are not convinced of this and do not try to attain this dignity, we lowers ourselves to the level of the beast. These are the ideas propounded by the processor in the following pages with the help of our present scientific knowledge. EDUCATION vs INSTRUCTION 1. The progress and happiness of the masses can only be achieved by the improvement of the individual, and this improvement can only be based on a high and noble moral discipline, not only accepted but understood. That is why education and instruction can be considered as instrumental in forwarding our actual phase of enlightenment. 2. The education of children, which is so fundamental from the point of view of the moral development of a people, has always been influenced by political and social convulsions. It is possible that in certain periods of the past, education was superior to what it is today. It was evidently less general, but the problem is not so much of quantity as of quality. A bad education, or an education based on false principles and widely extended, leads to disastrous results. The theory of universal culture is excellent, but premature as long as people do not agree on the quality and nature of the instruction and the preparation of ground. To give children an intellectual tincture, a smattering of “instruction,” without previously constructing on firm moral foundations the base which must support it, is to build on sand; and the higher the monument the more complete will be its collapse. 3. This manner of procedure is, alas, much too frequent, and probably rest on the deplorable confusion between EDUCATION & INSTRUCTION. Education consists in preparing the moral character of a child, in teaching SHE or HE the few fundamental and invariable principles accepted in all the countries of the world. It consists in giving them, from tenderest childhood, the notion of human dignity. On the other hand, instruction consists in making them absorb the accumulated knowledge of humankind in every realm. Education directs their actions, inspires their behavior in all their contacts with humankind, and helps them master themselves. Instruction gives them the elements of intellectual activity and informs them the actual state of their civilization. Education gives them the unalterable foundations of their lives; instruction enables them to adapt themselves to the variations of their environment and to link these variations to past and future events. Only in the past is environment immutable; it is essentially variable in the present. 4. An important experimental element which has not been taken into consideration, until of late, is the psychological value of time. Time does not have the same value in childhood as in later years. A year is much longer, physiologically and psychologically, for a child than for an adult. One year for a child of ten corresponds to two years for an adult of twenty. When the child is younger the discrepancy is still greater. The time elapsed between the third and seventh year probably represents a duration equivalent to fifteen or twenty years for grownup of twenty-five. Now, it is precisely at this age that a child builds up the framework into which all the events of their future life will fit, and in particular their moral code. This explains the considerable amount of knowledge a child can accumulate during its first years. It would be highly desirable for parents and educators to take this fact into consideration. 5. The moral education of a child is different from that given to a grownup. Indeed, for the very young it is important not to judge the gravity of a fault by its consequences. For a child a fault is serious in itself---absolutely and not relatively---because it has been decreed that it is grave. Only the absolute character of a fault can impart to the child a true moral discipline without which progress is impossible. The criterion cannot be the same for adults, except in the military. 6. It is impossible to model a child morally if this principle is not followed, for the faults are almost always venial by their consequences. It is only during the most tender age that the character can be formed. 7. When we speak of beginning education in tender childhood, we mean in the cradle. We realize that this will shock the sentiments of many parents and especially of mothers, who will object that it is exaggerated or impossible. We do not think so; they do not realize the important part played unconscious egoism in their love. The smile, the joy of their child, gives them so much pleasure that they do not have the courage to impose at the start the disciplines which will have to intervene one day, and will become more difficult and painful to apply as the child grows older. Even through they are ready for any sacrifice, they are often weak, and the moral formation of the child is thus rendered much more painful later on, both for themselves and the child. We will not speak of laziness of parents which unfortunately often intervenes. It is much less tiring and nerve-racking to give a child its milk as soon as it cries, or take it up into one’s arms, than to let it yell. If the mother weakens only once, the child does not forget and soon becomes unbearable. 8. I foresee the objections of parents who will say, “it is impossible to be strict with a baby in the cradle or with a one or two-year-old child. It is too young to learn and does not understand.” That is a gross error. First of all, a child of three months can learn perfectly. It is not a question of being severe, but of being patient, stubborn, more stubborn than it. And secondly, it does not need to understand it is even necessary that it should not understand; for it is precisely at this time that one must impose habits that will have to be contracted one day, no matter what happens. Besides, without knowing it, mothers do not take the time to form certain habits, when the child is still in the cradle. No child likes to be washed; yet all mothers-or almost all-teach them to be clean, or at least try to do so, and everyone knows that this takes years. They keep-or should keep-their babies from sticking their fingers in their mouths. They make this effort for physical habits, but neglect the more necessary elements, thanks to his instruction- namely, when he or she is about fifteen years old. Let us not forget that their education should make them more able to live in a society which is largely Christian and that it is they who must adapt themselves to it and not it to them. 9. Primary education must fashion the character of a child at the moment when the brain is still free from any imprint and infinitely plastic. This preparatory work must be accomplished before the impact of their dawning personality against their universe has created habits which will have to be vanquished some day. It is important to impress on them, from the very beginning, the simple rules, the apparent “deformations,” acquired and adopted by civilization, which constitute the basis of the specifically human heritage, the tradition, faithfully preserved and slowly polished in the course of ages. 10. The reaction of a young child to its limited universe can only be instinctive, animallike; it is, therefore, regressive from the standpoint of evolution, and tradition must fight against it. If the framework is patiently imposed before this reaction has had time to develop into a permanent attitude, the external world must fit it into a new pattern, and when the conscience of the child awakes, it will find in itself the web on which the tapestry of its life will spread without effort and without revolt. Otherwise there will inevitably be a conflict between the ancestral heritage, which speaks out clearly, and the human tradition, which is incomprehensible for the young. 11. The task of the parents, or of those who assume the responsibility of the elementary formation of the child is limited at first to the application of the small number of absolute and very simple rules. A child must learn to obey automatically. The idea that it is possible to disobey his parents must be eradicated. If he only succeeds in imposing his will once, he will never forget it and will always attempt to do so again with an infinite patience, much greater than that of the parents. Afterwards, they must be taught to control themselves, by fighting against anger, impatience, tears, without his being aware of it, the authority of the parents will impose itself on them like a force of nature. His personality cannot suffer, for it is only a question of rules governing its attitude toward the other in current life, and of the external manifestation of its psychological, emotive reaction. 12. The younger the child, the easier it is to obtain a result. The rules will impress themselves indelibly, and all the other influences resulting from his contact with his environment will never be anything but super-impressions, which will never efface the first impression. On the contrary, if the more complex rules of true morality, which will follow as soon as the child begins to speak, are imposed after he has himself already reacted, it is they which will act as super-impressions and will be incapable of completely eradicating the imprint of the first. Education must, therefore, begin by the establishment of conditioned reflexes, the reason for which can be explained later. As we said before, these habits do not affect in the least the personality of the child which is of an intellectual nature. They only contribute to make well-behaved, disciplined children who will be better prepared for life more beneficial and happier 13. When a child begins to speak and to think, one must not be afraid to make the brain and memory work. He quality of a child’s memory is surprising and it rapidly lost. The coordinating power between the ears and the organs of speech is prodigious and really persists beyond the age of ten. A child can, without effort, learn to speak two or three languages fluently, without an accent, but this becomes almost impossible when it is over ten years old, and at that time requires a great deal of work and effort which, at that age, arouses a contrary reactions, a protestation, thus handicapping the result. At the age of two or three years, this protestation does not exist. 14. We have mentioned the fact that the value of time is not the same for a child as for a grownup. They can therefore absorb without effort much more knowledge than he does at present, that is, provided the teacher remembers that ten minutes of attention correspond to more than one hour of concentration for an adult. It is better to give six or seven lessons of five minutes per day (equivalent to seven lessons of one hour per week for an older person) than one lesson of thirty minutes during which length of time a child is physiologically incapable of fixing his attention. 15. Two principal methods are employed to bring up children. The first consists in saying: “This is forbidden; if you do it, you will be punished. This is obligatory; if you do not do it, you will be punished; but if you do it, you will have candy.” 16. This technique, the same as that employed to train animals, and which creates conditioned reflexes, gives excellent results as long as the child has not come into full possession of its personality, that is, when its is very young. In that form, or in a less brutal form, it is at that time absolutely necessary in order to create the rigid framework we mentioned above. But later on, it is without value from an educational point of view. 17. The second method, which is much less employed, applies to older children and can be summarized in the following way: “Do not do that, it is contrary to your dignity; if you do it you lower yourself. This, on the contrary is good; it is of a nature to increase your own value as a human being, in your eyes as well as the eyes of your fellow men. If you do it you may be rewarded by them, but you will derive a higher satisfaction from your own conscience.” It is clear that this method can only bear fruit in a soil of superior quality. 18. The same methods can be applied to grown-ups, with analogous restrictions, namely, that the first is the only one which has a chance to succeed with morally undeveloped persons who have not yet attained a high degree of evolution, whereas the second will give good results only with an elite representing the spearheads of evolution. Unfortunately, a great many of people have not gone beyond the stage of childhood from a moral point of view. They must, therefore, be considered as children, and that is the point of view of most religions. However, we must not forget that humanity is to improve, on an average, not through obedience to external rules but through a profound internal amelioration, and that its progress depends only on itself. We must, therefore, beware of excessive standardization and not discourage those who posses unusual qualities and represent the “mutant forms” which anticipate the future. We must seek them out, and help them individually. 19. This is a delicate point in the moral education of civilized peoples. Intelligence, or rather the faculty of reasoning, has been cultivated by compulsory education. A certain number of individuals, gifted with brains which were apt to develop, were thus revealed. These minds learned the “tricks” which characterize civilizations, and two principal groups of unequal number and quality were formed. The first, and largest, is composed of those who have absorbed their primary secondary instruction without digesting it. They constitute a kind of standardized mass which lives under the illusion that it knows how to use its brain and derives therefore a pride which is sometimes dangerous. The second is represented by those who have digested and assimilated their instruction, have gone beyond it and combined it with their intuition, with their own genius and are thus qualified to make human knowledge progress. 20. The existence of these two groups is practically ignored from a moral and religious point of view. Everything takes place if moral education were a luxury, a “supplementary course” required by habit, but not worth the trouble of adapting, either to the intellectual ability of the student or to the transformations under gone by our science and our philosophy in the last hundred years. Nobody dreams of bringing it into harmony with the different degrees of culture and intelligence. In all educational centers, the strict minimum of moral principles continues to be taught with indifference, in a boring fashion, hurriedly, and without any kind of conviction. We trust social life, environment, custom to give an individual a superficial moral character. We do not seek a deep fundamental improvement. 21. A number of religious schools insist more on history, forms, rites, dogma, heresies, than on the profound human significance of religion. Virtually every Church, with more of less violence and intolerance, strives to demonstrate that it is the best, and dwells at greater length on the differences which separate it from the others than on the unique inspiration which unites them. Outside of a few rare exceptions, no effort is made to enliven or modernize the moral instruction derived from the scriptures. Some Churches revolt at this idea because they think that the word “modern” is synonymous with “evil”; but they always thought so, from the time they were founded. They cannot hope to make people go back to a distant past which they them selves criticized. Which period would they select? There is no way of escaping the problems of the present. We must face them frankly. 22. No matter whether intelligent of stupid, weather belonging to the first amorphous group or to the second active minority, schoolboys and students absorb the same dish which the majority of them will never digest. The incomparable beauty of Christian morality, its universality, its necessity are not brought out because the old-fashioned curriculums are about the same as a century ago. The world has entirely changed its aspect in the last hundred years, but this is not yet known officially. 23. The whole intellectual culture of man should rest on foundations of reinforced concrete represented by an unshakeable moral education. Instead of this we build flimsily, haphazardly, and pray God that the whole may stand. Yet, it is written in the scriptures: “Where there is no vision, the people shall perish.” We would not have dared to put it so brutally. It is people who must understand and foresee. If they fail, so much the worse for them. 24. This phenomenon is one of the most astounding of our epoch. In far too great a number of cases, the average person is, from a religious point of view, prisoner to traditions’ legends’ dogmas, sometimes beautiful, impressive or touching, but almost always without relation to their rational instruction. It seems as if people were afraid to attempt the fusion which must take place one day. This often results in a painful and nefarious conflict in certain souls. 25. As long as the critical sense, resulting from the exercise of intelligence resting on science, had not developed, this state of things mattered little. Such is not the case today, and nobody has the right to neglect what little progress has been achieved intellectually. Strange to say, very few efforts have been made by religious philosophers or scientists to emphasize the fact that, as we advance, our universe becomes more marvelous, more overwhelming in the infinitely great as well as in the infinitely small, but always more mysterious in its origin and in its end. 26. Our rational science, as we have shown earlier or will later, demands a cause other than chance and imposes the idea of a finalism, no matter how painful this confession may be to sincere materialist. This is about as far as science can go; but religious educators should, on their side, understand that the notion of moral and spiritual values, or the idea of the omnipotence of god can no longer be explained in the same way to the amorphous group, to the elite groups, and to the natives of central Brazil. Let it be well understood that the fundamental principles remain identical, but that their presentation, their development, should be adapted to the receptive ability of the student. Each of them must extract the spirit of the teaching. The same words will never obtain the same results with a Polynesian, a high schooler, and a university attendee. By feeding them the same food, we may achieve opposite effects, and we do not foster the individual effort on which progress depends. 27. Evolved man, always eager to learn, must understand the striking parallelism which exists between biological evolution and moral and psychic evolution. When he ponders over inert matter, over life, over man, he must feel the harmonious majesty of the great laws, dominating the whole, and which are today only accessible to intuition. He must remember that, even if a progression is sometimes spontaneously started by a sudden mutation, its maintenance and amplification require either other mutations in the same direction, which is incompatible with the idea of chance, or else the combined action of factors of adaptation and natural selection directed, on an average, toward more and more “improbable” forms. In the psychological realm, physical adaptation and natural selection are replaced by individual effort and free choice. In both cases, that of biological evolution and that of psychological evolution, struggle is necessary, but the mechanisms differ. Man alone must still wage a double fight; both his weapons are in his brain: intelligence which protects his body, and moral ambition which guarantees evolution. 28. We have seen that human evolution in the moral is more rapid than biological evolution because tradition has superseded the other mechanisms. But education and instruction are at the base of tradition. It is, therefore, through them that we must act, to assure the distant as well as the immediate future. And as one of the crucial problems which face us at the present time is to protect ourselves from further attack, to protect our “Christian” free civilization, our ideals, and beliefs against the threat of destruction, we are automatically led to envisage the problems set by the aggressive nations. 29. It is not by limiting the industrial activity of a country, admitting that this were possible, that one can hope to orient it in a progressive and pacific direction, but by establishing universal educational standards. It would be highly desirable that all countries should one day consent to having their school and university curriculums approved by a international committee, and that history books be replaced by others in which, for the first time, truth would be respected, responsibilities established or equitably shared, where universal, moral ideas and human dignity would be taught, and no longer merely the worship of the warrior and the tale of his prowess. This will demand a great sacrifice of vanity, and may entail a certain unfairness toward those who died for their countries, but it seems to us that only on the day when all youth has absorbed the same intellectual nourishment, the same history, only when they obey the same moral catechism will the world finally have a chance of knowing peace. Not before. 30. The fight to suppress future wars must be waged in the schools. If this is not done in time, the actual governments will be responsible for any conflicts that may arise; and the bravest man trembles at the thought of what they will be. 31. Education is the tools for progress, one of the tools of human evolution; but it has been turned into a personal, national, political lever. Humanity should realize that, within reasonable limits, it must be denationalized. Will the nations recognize that the peril which civilization has just escaped could only attain its gigantic proportions through the schools? Everybody agrees that propaganda has revealed itself as a powerful means of sowing mistrust in all prepared minds, and of starting fissures in the populations already disrupted by internal quarrels. It stands to reason that the same methods, cynically applied to the plastic, enthusiastic, and uncritical minds of children, are bound to obtain terrible results. Nothing is easier than to exalt racial or national pride, to create a fanatical esprit de corps and to erect a sanguinary idol. A child’s virgin mind is an ideal soil for the development of any idea, right or wrong; but he is closer to the oldest and most dangerous tendencies of humanity than the mature mind which has had time to live and to think. Up until now, only the dictators, no matter what title they choose, have availed themselves of this elementary observation, and of the power of lies. If the truth alone were taught in schools, throughout the world, there could be no totalitarian states. Only through the schools can we undo the harm the schools have done. 32. The teaching of history in the whole world has, for a long time, been at fault. It invariably reflects a distinct partiality inasmuch as, in the description of conflicts with foreign powers, the facts are always presented, in each country, in such a way that the country in question will always be in the wrong. One may say that this is natural. Yes, but when history is based on falsehoods or on manipulation of facts and documents it becomes dangerous because it is absorbed by all children as gospel and because they are led to consider themselves either as victims or as superman. Later in life they will never forget this first reaction which has become an integral part of their ego. 33. A more or less marked xenophobia was carefully nurtured long before the recent dictatorships. In all the textbooks historical facts are arranged, regardless of antecedents, dressed up, mutilated, and, even through events and dates correspond, the causes of the conflicts and the responsibilities are presented in a diametrically different way. 34. So that in the third milliohm we witness the bewildering spectacle of countries whose interests and wishes are to live in peace, and in which the same subject is taught to children in such different aspects that the gentlest natures cannot help sheltering a grudge in the depth of their hearts against their neighbors, even their allies; and the grudge will be all the more active as the young brain into which this seed has been sown is more generous and noble. 35. A history book is a powerful weapon the importance of which was soon understood by unscrupulous leaders. How can we hope for a coordinated effort on the part of men whose brains have been systematically nourished with opposing ideas and truncated facts? Class struggles on the one hand, wars on the other, these are the only possible results of such an aberration. 36. The only history which makes any sense is universal history. Outside of certain purely local facts, generally without great importance, nothing takes place in a country which is not linked to the events unfolding in bordering or distant countries. The economic, political, military life of a nation is conditioned by that of its neighbors. The plant which represents its history grows its roots all around. They are sometimes strong, sometimes tenuous, and innumerable intercommunications force each country to participate unconsciously in the activity of all the others. This is truer in our day than a century ago, and will be still more marked in the future. An inextricable network of veins and arteries, invisible from the exterior, renders all nations solidary with the whole. To isolate arbitrarily the history of one country is equivalent to sectioning these veins which are thus transformed into unexplainable stumps. Yet this is the way history is taught. Only the bare, unquestionable facts are allowed to subsist, for they can be interpreted in a sense which is favorable to the maintenance of national, racial, political, and other hatreds. 37. Universal history, which is the only truthful one, must be propagated. It must be taught as science is taught, by putting aside all national vanity, by eliminating the sentimental element which has become dangerous and archaic in our time. A child has hundreds of other occasions to be proud of his country nowadays. There is a need for honesty and impartiality, and this need is above all felt in European countries where history, and hence hatred, have a longer past. 38. If this is not done, we will find ourselves in the case of a man who, having dug a hole, is forced to dig another so as get rid of the earth which he has taken out of the first. It is a vicious circle. The best will in the world does not accomplish anything if it remains blind to the fundamental vices which paralyze its action before it can even be felt. Pierre Lecomte du Noüy (1883-1947). French Philosopher, descendant of the French dramatist Pierre Corneille & son of an authoress of many novels, one of which Amitié Amoureuse was translated into sixteen languages and ran for six hundred editions in France. Du Noüy believed that mankind should have confidence in science, but that we should be aware that we know less about the material world than is commonly believed. This book made a huge splash when it first appeared. The author, born in Paris in 1883, died 1947, worked as a scientist at the Rockefeller Institute studying the properties of blood and later in Paris as head of the biophysics division of the Pasteur Institute. He escaped to the United States during the War. This book presents his theory that man has completed his biological evolution and is beginning his moral evolution. He puts forth convincing arguments that man is not on earth by chance alone. Indeed, he attempts to show that by the laws of pure chance, man would not be here at all. "A book of such fundamental grasp and insight as cannot be expected to appear more than once or twice in a century" INFANTILE SEXUALITY It is a part of popular belief about the sexual impulse that it is absent in childhood and that it first appears in the period of life known as puberty. This, though a common error, is serious in its consequences and is chiefly due to our present ignorance of the fundamental principles of the sexual life. A comprehensive study of the sexual manifestations of childhood would probably reveal to us the existence of the essential features of the sexual impulse, and would make us acquainted with its development and its composition from various sources. *The Neglect of the Infantile.*--It is remarkable that those writers who endeavor to explain the qualities and reactions of the adult individual have given so much more attention to the ancestral period than to the period of the individual's own existence--that is, they have attributed more influence to heredity than to childhood. As a matter of fact, it might well be supposed that the influence of the latter period would be easier to understand, and that it would be entitled to more consideration than heredity. To be sure, one occasionally finds in medical literature notes on the premature sexual activities of small children, about erections and masturbation and even actions resembling coitus, but these are referred to merely as exceptional occurrences, as curiosities, or as deterring examples of premature perversity. No author has to my knowledge recognized the normality of the sexual impulse in childhood, and in the numerous writings on the development of the child the chapter on "Sexual Development" is usually passed over. *Infantile Amnesia.*--This remarkable negligence is due partly to conventional considerations, which influence the writers on account of their own bringing up, and partly to a psychic phenomenon which has thus far remained unexplained. I refer to the peculiar amnesia which veils from most people (not from all!) the first years of their childhood, usually the first six or eight years. So far it has not occurred to us that this amnesia ought to surprise us, though we have good reasons for surprise. For we are informed that in those years from which we later obtain nothing except a few incomprehensible memory fragments, we have vividly reacted to impressions, that we have manifested pain and pleasure like any human being, that we have evinced love, jealousy, and other passions as they then affected us; indeed we are told that we have uttered remarks which proved to grown-ups that we possessed understanding and a budding power of judgment. Still we know nothing of all this when we become older. Why does our memory lag behind all our other psychic activities? We really have reason to believe that at no time of life are we more capable of impressions and reproductions than during the years of childhood. On the other hand we must assume, or we may convince ourselves through psychological observations on others, that the very impressions which we have forgotten have nevertheless left the deepest traces in our psychic life, and acted as determinants for our whole future development. We conclude therefore that we do not deal with a real forgetting of infantile impressions but rather with an amnesia similar to that observed in neurotics for later experiences, the nature of which consists in their being detained from consciousness (repression). But what forces bring about this repression of the infantile impressions? He who can solve this riddle will also explain hysterical amnesia. We shall not, however, hesitate to assert that the existence of the infantile amnesia gives us a new point of comparison between the psychic states of the child and those of the psychoneurotic. We have already encountered another point of comparison when confronted by the fact that the sexuality of the psychoneurotic preserves the infantile character or has returned to it. May there not be an ultimate connection between the infantile and the hysterical amnesias? The connection between the infantile and the hysterical amnesias is really more than a mere play of wit. The hysterical amnesia which serves the repression can only be explained by the fact that the individual already possesses a sum of recollections which have been withdrawn from conscious disposal and which by associative connection now seize that which is acted upon by the repelling forces of the repression emanating from consciousness. We may say that without infantile amnesia there would be no hysterical amnesia. I believe that the infantile amnesia which causes the individual to look upon his childhood as if it were a _prehistoric_ time and conceals from him the beginning of his own sexual life--that this amnesia is responsible for the fact that one does not usually attribute any value to the infantile period in the development of the sexual life. One single observer cannot fill the gap which has been thus produced in our knowledge. As early as 1896 I had already emphasized the significance of childhood for the origin of certain important phenomena connected with the sexual life, and since then I have not ceased to put into the foreground the importance of the infantile factor for sexuality. SEXUAL LATENCY PERIOD OF CHILDHOOD AND ITS INTERRUPTIONS The extraordinary frequent discoveries of apparently abnormal and exceptional sexual manifestations in childhood, as well as the discovery of infantile reminiscences in neurotics, which were hitherto unconscious, allow us to sketch the following picture of the sexual behavior of childhood. It seems certain that the newborn child brings with it the germs of sexual feelings which continue to develop for some time and then succumb to a progressive suppression, which is in turn broken through by the proper advances of the sexual development and which can be checked by individual idiosyncrasies. Nothing is known concerning the laws and periodicity of this oscillating course of development. It seems, however, that the sexual life of the child mostly manifests itself in the third or fourth year in some form accessible to observation. *The Sexual Inhibition.*--It is during this period of total or at least partial latency that the psychic forces develop which later act as inhibitions on the sexual life, and narrow its direction like dams. These psychic forces are loathing, shame, and moral and esthetic ideal demands. We may gain the impression that the erection of these dams in the civilized child is the work of education; and surely education contributes much to it. In reality, however, this development is organically determined and can occasionally be produced without the help of education. Indeed education remains properly within its assigned realm only if it strictly follows the path of the organic determinant and impresses it somewhat cleaner and deeper. *Reaction Formation and Sublimation.*--What are the means that accomplish these very important constructions so significant for the later personal culture and normality? They are probably brought about at the cost of the infantile sexuality itself, the influx of which has not stopped even in this latency period--the energy of which indeed has been turned away either wholly or partially from sexual utilization and conducted to other aims. The historians of civilization seem to be unanimous in the opinion that such deviation of sexual motive powers from sexual aims to new aims, a process which merits the name of _sublimation_, has furnished powerful components for all cultural accomplishments. We will therefore add that the same process acts in the development of every individual, and that it begins to act in the sexual latency period. We can also venture an opinion about the mechanisms of such sublimation. The sexual feelings of these infantile years on the one hand could not be utilizable, since the procreating functions are postponed,--this is the chief character of the latency period; on the other hand, they would in themselves be perverse, as they would emanate from erogenous zones and would be born of impulses which in the individual's course of development could only evoke a feeling of displeasure. They therefore awaken contrary forces (feelings of reaction), which in order to suppress such displeasure, build up the above mentioned psychic dams: loathing, shame, and morality. *The Interruptions of the Latency Period.*--Without deluding ourselves as to the hypothetical nature and deficient clearness of our understanding regarding the infantile period of latency and delay, we will return to reality and state that such a utilization of the infantile sexuality represents an ideal bringing up from which the development of the individual usually deviates in some measure and often very considerably. A portion of the sexual manifestation which has withdrawn from sublimation occasionally breaks through, or a sexual activity remains throughout the whole duration of the latency period until the reinforced breaking through of the sexual impulse in puberty. In so far as they have paid any attention to infantile sexuality the educators behave as if they shared our views concerning the formation of the moral forces of defense at the cost of sexuality, and as if they knew that sexual activity makes the child uneducable; for the educators consider all sexual manifestations of the child as an "evil" in the face of which little can be accomplished. We have, however, every reason for directing our attention to those phenomena so much feared by the educators, for we expect to find in them the solution of the primitive formation of the sexual impulse. THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY For reasons which we shall discuss later we will take as a model of the infantile sexual manifestations thumbsucking (pleasure-sucking), to which the Hungarian pediatrist, Lindner, has devoted an excellent essay. *Thumbsucking.*--Thumbsucking, which manifests itself in the nursing baby and which may be continued till maturity or throughout life, consists in a rhythmic repetition of sucking contact with the mouth (the lips), wherein the purpose of taking nourishment is excluded. A part of the lip itself, the tongue, which is another preferable skin region within reach, and even the big toe--may be taken as objects for sucking. Simultaneously, there is also a desire to grasp things, which manifests itself in a rhythmical pulling of the ear lobe and which may cause the child to grasp a part of another person (generally the ear) for the same purpose. The pleasure-sucking is connected with an entire exhaustion of attention and leads to sleep or even to a motor reaction in the form of an orgasm. Pleasure-sucking is often combined with a rubbing contact with certain sensitive parts of the body, such as the breast and external genitals. It is by this road that many children go from thumb-sucking to masturbation. Lindner himself has recognized the sexual nature of this action and openly emphasized it. In the nursery thumbsucking is often treated in the same way as any other sexual "naughtiness" of the child. A very strong objection was raised against this view by many pediatrists and neurologists which in part is certainly due to the confusion of the terms "sexual" and "genital." This contradiction raises the difficult question, which cannot be rejected, namely, in what general traits do we wish to recognize the sexual manifestations of the child. I believe that the association of the manifestations into which we gained an insight through psychoanalytic investigation justify us in claiming thumbsucking as a sexual activity and in studying through it the essential features of the infantile sexual activity. *Autoerotism.*--It is our duty here to arrange this state of affairs differently. Let us insist that the most striking character of this sexual activity is that the impulse is not directed against other persons but that it gratifies itself on its own body; to use the happy term invented by Havelock Ellis, we will say that it is autoerotic. It is, moreover, clear that the action of the thumbsucking child is determined by the fact that it seeks a pleasure which has already been experienced and is now remembered. Through the rhythmic sucking on a portion of the skin or mucous membrane it finds the gratification in the simplest way. It is also easy to conjecture on what occasions the child first experienced this pleasure which it now strives to renew. The first and most important activity in the child's life, the sucking from the mother's breast (or its substitute), must have acquainted it with this pleasure. We would say that the child's lips behaved like an _erogenous zone_, and that the excitement through the warm stream of milk was really the cause of the pleasurable sensation. To be sure, the gratification of the erogenous zone was at first united with the gratification of taking nourishment. He who sees a satiated child sink back from the mother's breast, and fall asleep with reddened cheeks and blissful smile, will have to admit that this picture remains as typical of the expression of sexual gratification in later life. But the desire for repetition of the sexual gratification is separated from the desire for taking nourishment; a separation which becomes unavoidable with the appearance of the teeth when the nourishment is no longer sucked in but chewed. The child does not make use of a strange object for sucking but prefers its own skin because it is more convenient, because it thus makes itself independent of the outer world which it cannot yet control, and because in this way it creates for itself, as it were, a second, even if an inferior, erogenous zone. The inferiority of this second region urges it later to seek the same parts, the lips of another person. ("It is a pity that I cannot kiss myself," might be attributed to it.) Not all children suck their thumbs. It may be assumed that it is found only in children in whom the erogenous significance of the lip-zone is constitutionally reënforced. Children in whom this is retained are habitual kissers as adults and show a tendency to perverse kissing, or as men they have a marked desire for drinking and smoking. But if repression comes into play they experience disgust for eating and evince hysterical vomiting. By virtue of the community of the lip-zone the repression encroaches upon the impulse of nourishment. Many of my female patients showing disturbances in eating, such as hysterical globus, choking sensations, and vomiting, have been energetic thumbsuckers during infancy. In the thumbsucking or pleasure-sucking we have already been able to observe the three essential characters of an infantile sexual manifestation. The latter has its origin in conjunction with a bodily function which is very important for life, it does not yet know any sexual object, it is _autoerotic_ and its sexual aim is under the control of an _erogenous zone_. Let us assume for the present that these characters also hold true for most of the other activities of the infantile sexual impulse. THE SEXUAL AIM OF THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY *The Characters of the Erogenous Zones.*--From the example of thumbsucking we may gather a great many points useful for the distinguishing of an erogenous zone. It is a portion of skin or mucous membrane in which the stimuli produce a feeling of pleasure of definite quality. There is no doubt that the pleasure-producing stimuli are governed by special determinants which we do not know. The rhythmic characters must play some part in them and this strongly suggests an analogy to tickling. It does not, however, appear so certain whether the character of the pleasurable feeling evoked by the stimulus can be designated as "peculiar," and in what part of this peculiarity the sexual factor exists. Psychology is still groping in the dark when it concerns matters of pleasure and pain, and the most cautious assumption is therefore the most advisable. We may perhaps later come upon reasons which seem to support the peculiar quality of the sensation of pleasure. The erogenous quality may adhere most notably to definite regions of the body. As is shown by the example of thumbsucking, there are predestined erogenous zones. But the same example also shows that any other region of skin or mucous membrane may assume the function of an erogenous zone; it must therefore carry along a certain adaptability. The production of the sensation of pleasure therefore depends more on the quality of the stimulus than on the nature of the bodily region. The thumbsucking child looks around on his body and selects any portion of it for pleasure-sucking, and becoming accustomed to it, he then prefers it. If he accidentally strikes upon a predestined region, such as breast, nipple or genitals, it naturally has the preference. A quite analogous tendency to displacement is again found in the symptomatology of hysteria. In this neurosis the repression mostly concerns the genital zones proper; these in turn transmit their excitation to the other erogenous zones, usually dormant in mature life, which then behave exactly like genitals. But besides this, just as in thumbsucking, any other region of the body may become endowed with the excitation of the genitals and raised to an erogenous zone. Erogenous and hysterogenous zones show the same characters. *The Infantile Sexual Aim.*--The sexual aim of the infantile impulse consists in the production of gratification through the proper excitation of this or that selected erogenous zone. In order to leave a desire for its repetition this gratification must have been previously experienced, and we may be sure that nature has devised definite means so as not to leave this occurrence to mere chance. The arrangement which has fulfilled this purpose for the lip-zone we have already discussed; it is the simultaneous connection of this part of the body with the taking of nourishment. We shall also meet other similar mechanisms as sources of sexuality. The state of desire for repetition of gratification can be recognized through a peculiar feeling of tension which in itself is rather of a painful character, and through a centrally-determined feeling of itching or sensitiveness which is projected into the peripheral erogenous zone. The sexual aim may therefore be formulated as follows: the chief object is to substitute for the projected feeling of sensitiveness in the erogenous zone that outer stimulus which removes the feeling of sensitiveness by evoking the feeling of gratification. This external stimulus consists usually in a manipulation which is analogous to sucking. It is in full accord with our physiological knowledge if the desire happens to be awakened also peripherally through an actual change in the erogenous zone. The action is puzzling only to some extent as one stimulus for its suppression seems to want another applied to the same place. THE MASTURBATIC SEXUAL MANIFESTATIONS It is a matter of great satisfaction to know that there is nothing further of greater importance to learn about the sexual activity of the child after the impulse of one erogenous zone has become comprehensible to us. The most pronounced differences are found in the action necessary for the gratification, which consists in sucking for the lip zone and which must be replaced by other muscular actions according to the situation and nature of the other zones. *The Activity of the Anal Zone.*--Like the lip zone the anal zone is, through its position, adapted to conduct the sexuality to the other functions of the body. It should be assumed that the erogenous significance of this region of the body was originally very large. Through psychoanalysis one finds, not without surprise, the many transformations that are normally undertaken with the usual excitations emanating from here, and that this zone often retains for life a considerable fragment of genital irritability.[14] The intestinal catarrhs so frequent during infancy produce intensive irritations in this zone, and we often hear it said that intestinal catarrh at this delicate age causes "nervousness." In later neurotic diseases they exert a definite influence on the symptomatic expression of the neurosis, placing at its disposal the whole sum of intestinal disturbances. Considering the erogenous significance of the anal zone which has been retained at least in transformation, one should not laugh at the hemorrhoidal influences to which the old medical literature attached so much weight in the explanation of neurotic states. Children utilizing the erogenous sensitiveness of the anal zone can be recognized by their holding back of fecal masses until through accumulation there result violent muscular contractions; the passage of these masses through the anus is apt to produce a marked irritation of the mucus membrane. Besides the pain this must produce also a sensation of pleasure. One of the surest premonitions of later eccentricity or nervousness is when an infant obstinately refuses to empty his bowel when placed on the chamber by the nurse and reserves this function at its own pleasure. It does not concern him that he will soil his bed; all he cares for is not to lose the subsidiary pleasure while defecating. The educators have again the right inkling when they designate children who withhold these functions as bad. The content of the bowel which is an exciting object to the sexually sensitive surface of mucous membrane behaves like the precursor of another organ which does not become active until after the phase of childhood. In addition it has other important meanings to the nursling. It is evidently treated as an additional part of the body, it represents the first "donation," the disposal of which expresses the pliability while the retention of it can express the spite of the little being towards its environment. From the idea of "donation" he later gains the meaning of the "babe" which according to one of the infantile sexual theories is acquired through eating and is born through the bowel. The retention of fecal masses, which is at first intentional in order to utilize them, as it were, for masturbatic excitation of the anal zone, is at least one of the roots of constipation so frequent in neuropaths. The whole significance of the anal zone is mirrored in the fact that there are but few neurotics who have not their special scatologic customs, ceremonies, etc., which they retain with cautious secrecy. Real masturbatic irritation of the anal zone by means of the fingers, evoked through either centrally or peripherally supported itching, is not at all rare in older children. *The Activity of the Genital Zone.*--Among the erogenous zones of the child's body there is one which certainly does not play the main role, and which cannot be the carrier of earliest sexual feeling-- which, however, is destined for great things in later life. In both male and female it is connected with the voiding of urine (penis, clitoris), and in the former it is enclosed in a sack of mucous membrane, probably in order not to miss the irritations caused by the secretions which may arouse the sexual excitement at an early age. The sexual activities of this erogenous zone, which belongs to the real genitals, are the beginning of the later normal sexual life. Owing to the anatomical position, the overflowing of secretions, the washing and rubbing of the body, and to certain accidental excitements (the wandering of intestinal worms in the girl), it happens that the pleasurable feeling which these parts of the body are capable of producing makes itself noticeable to the child even during the sucking age, and thus awakens desire for its repetition. When we review all the actual arrangements, and bear in mind that the measures for cleanliness have the same effect as the uncleanliness itself, we can then scarcely mistake nature's intention, which is to establish the future primacy of these erogenous zones for the sexual activity through the infantile onanism from which hardly an individual escapes. The action of removing the stimulus and setting free the gratification consists in a rubbing contiguity with the hand or in a certain previously-formed pressure reflex effected by the closure of the thighs. The latter procedure seems to be the more primitive and is by far the more common in girls. The preference for the hand in boys already indicates what an important part of the male sexual activity will be accomplished in the future by the impulse to mastery (Bemächtigungstrieb). It can only help towards clearness if I state that the infantile masturbation should be divided into three phases. The first phase belongs to the nursing period, the second to the short flourishing period of sexual activity at about the fourth year, only the third corresponds to the one which is often considered exclusively as onanism of puberty. The infantile onanism seems to disappear after a brief time, but it may continue uninterruptedly till puberty and thus represent the first marked deviation from the development desirable for civilized man. At some time during childhood after the nursing period, the sexual impulse of the genitals reawakens and continues active for some time until it is again suppressed, or it may continue without interruption. The possible relations are very diverse and can only be elucidated through a more precise analysis of individual cases. The details, however, of this _second_ infantile sexual activity leave behind the profoundest (unconscious) impressions in the persons's memory; if the individual remains healthy they determine his character and if he becomes sick after puberty they determine the symptomatology of his neurosis. In the latter case it is found that this sexual period is forgotten and the conscious reminiscences pointing to them are displaced; I have already mentioned that I would like to connect the normal infantile amnesia with this infantile sexual activity. By psychoanalytic investigation it is possible to bring to consciousness the forgotten material, and thereby to remove a compulsion which emanates from the unconscious psychic material. *The Return of the Infantile Masturbation.*--The sexual excitation of the nursing period returns during the designated years of childhood as a centrally determined tickling sensation demanding onanistic gratification, or as a pollution-like process which, analogous to the pollution of maturity, may attain gratification without the aid of any action. The latter case is more frequent in girls and in the second half of childhood; its determinants are not well understood, but it often, though not regularly, seems to have as a basis a period of early active onanism. The symptomatology of this sexual manifestation is poor; the genital apparatus is still undeveloped and all signs are therefore displayed by the urinary apparatus which is, so to say, the guardian of the genital apparatus. Most of the so-called bladder disturbances of this period are of a sexual nature; whenever the enuresis nocturna does not represent an epileptic attack it corresponds to a pollution. The return of the sexual activity is determined by inner and outer causes which can be conjectured from the formation of the symptoms of neurotic diseases and definitely revealed by psychoanalytic investigations. The internal causes will be discussed later, the accidental outer causes attain at this time a great and permanent significance. As the first outer cause we have the influence of seduction which prematurely treats the child as a sexual object; under conditions favoring impressions this teaches the child the gratification of the genital zones, and thus usually forces it to repeat this gratification in onanism. Such influences can come from adults or other children. I cannot admit that I overestimated its frequency or its significance in my contributions to the etiology of hysteria, though I did not know then that normal individuals may have the same experiences in their childhood, and hence placed a higher value on seductions than on the factors found in the sexual constitution and development. It is quite obvious that no seduction is necessary to awaken the sexual life of the child, that such an awakening may come on spontaneously from inner sources. *Polymorphous-perverse Disposition.* It is instructive to know that under the influence of seduction the child may become polymorphous-perverse and may be misled into all sorts of transgressions. This goes to show that it carries along the adaptation for them in its disposition. The formation of such perversions meets but slight resistance because the psychic dams against sexual transgressions, such as shame, loathing and morality-- which depend on the age of the child--are not yet erected or are only in the process of formation. In this respect the child perhaps does not behave differently from the average uncultured woman in whom the same polymorphous-perverse disposition exists. Such a woman may remain sexually normal under usual conditions, but under the guidance of a clever seducer she will find pleasure in every perversion and will retain the same as her sexual activity. The same polymorphous or infantile disposition fits the prostitute for her professional activity, and in the enormous number of prostitutes and of women to whom we must attribute an adaptation for prostitution, even if they do not follow this calling, it is absolutely impossible not to recognize in their uniform disposition for all perversions the universal and primitive human. *Partial Impulses.* For the rest, the influence of seduction does not aid us in unravelling the original relations of the sexual impulse, but rather confuses our understanding of the same, inasmuch as it prematurely supplies the child with the sexual object at a time when the infantile sexual impulse does not yet evince any desire for it. We must admit, however, that the infantile sexual life, though mainly under the control of erogenous zones, also shows components in which from the very beginning other persons are regarded as sexual objects. Among these we have the impulses for looking and showing off, and for cruelty, which manifest themselves somewhat independently of the erogenous zones and which only later enter into intimate relationship with the sexual life; but along with the erogenous sexual activity they are noticeable even in the infantile years as separate and independent strivings. The little child is above all shameless, and during its early years it evinces definite pleasure in displaying its body and especially its sexual organs. A counterpart to this desire which is to be considered as perverse, the curiosity to see other persons' genitals, probably appears first in the later years of childhood when the hindrance of the feeling of shame has already reached a certain development. Under the influence of seduction the looking perversion may attain great importance for the sexual life of the child. Still, from my investigations of the childhood years of normal and neurotic patients, I must conclude that the impulse for looking can appear in the child as a spontaneous sexual manifestation. Small children, whose attention has once been directed to their own genitals--usually by masturbation--are wont to progress in this direction without outside interference, and to develop a vivid interest in the genitals of their playmates. As the occasion for the gratification of such curiosity is generally afforded during the gratification of both excrementitious needs, such children become _voyeurs_ and are zealous spectators at the voiding of urine and feces of others, After this tendency has been repressed, the curiosity to see the genitals of others (one's own or those of the other sex) remains as a tormenting desire which in some neurotic cases furnishes the strongest motive power for the formation of symptoms. The cruelty component of the sexual impulse develops in the child with still greater independence of those sexual activities which are connected with erogenous zones. Cruelty is especially near the childish character, since the inhibition which restrains the impulse to mastery before it causes pain to others--that is, the capacity for sympathy-- develops comparatively late. As we know, a thorough psychological analysis of this impulse has not as yet been successfully accomplished; we may assume that the cruel feelings emanate from the impulse to mastery and appear at a period in the sexual life before the genitals have taken on their later rôle. It then dominates a phase of the sexual life, which we shall later describe as the pregenital organization. Children who are distinguished for evincing especial cruelty to animals and playmates may be justly suspected of intensive and premature sexual activity in the erogenous zones; and in a simultaneous prematurity of all sexual impulses, the erogenous sexual activity surely seems to be primary. The absence of the barrier of sympathy carries with it the danger that the connections between cruelty and the erogenous impulses formed in childhood cannot be broken in later life. An erogenous source of the passive impulse for cruelty (masochism) is found in the painful irritation of the gluteal region which is familiar to all educators since the confessions of J.J. Rousseau. This has justly caused them to demand that physical punishment, which usually concerns this part of the body, should be withheld from all children in whom the libido might be forced into collateral roads by the later demands of cultural education. THE INFANTILE SEXUAL INVESTIGATION *Inquisitiveness.*--At the same time when the sexual life of the child reaches its first bloom, from the age of three to the age of five, it also evinces the beginning of that activity which is ascribed to the impulse for knowledge and investigation. The desire for knowledge can neither be added to the elementary components of the impulses nor can it be altogether subordinated under sexuality. Its activity corresponds on the one hand to a sublimating mode of acquisition and on the other hand it labors with the energy of the desire for looking. Its relations to the sexual life, however, are of particular importance, for we have learned from psychoanalysis that the inquisitiveness of children is attracted to the sexual problems unusually early and in an unexpectedly intensive manner, indeed it perhaps may first be awakened by the sexual problems. *The Riddle of the Sphinx.*--It is not theoretical but practical interests which start the work of the investigation activity in the child. The threat to the conditions of his existence through the actual or expected arrival of a new child, the fear of the loss in care and love which is connected with this event, cause the child to become thoughtful and sagacious. Corresponding with the history of this awakening, the first problem with which it occupies itself is not the question as to the difference between the sexes, but the riddle: from where do children come? In a distorted form, which can easily be unraveled, this is the same riddle which was given by the Theban Sphinx. The fact of the two sexes is usually first accepted by the child without struggle and hesitation. It is quite natural for the male child to presuppose in all persons it knows a genital like his own, and to find it impossible to harmonize the lack of it with his conception of others. *The Castration Complex.*--This conviction is energetically adhered to by the boy and tenaciously defended against the contradictions which soon result, and are only given up after severe internal struggles (castration complex). The substitutive formations of this lost penis of the woman play a great part in the formation of many perversions. The assumption of the same (male) genital in all persons is the first of the remarkable and consequential infantile sexual theories. It is of little help to the child when biological science agrees with his preconceptions and recognizes the feminine clitoris as the real substitute for the penis. The little girl does not react with similar refusals when she sees the differently formed genital of the boy. She is immediately prepared to recognize it, and soon becomes envious of the penis; this envy reaches its highest point in the consequentially important wish that she also should be a boy. *Birth Theories.*--Many people can remember distinctly how intensely they interested themselves, in the prepubescent period, in the question where children came from. The anatomical solutions at that time read very differently; the children come out of the breast or are cut out of the body, or the navel opens itself to let them out. Outside of analysis one only seldom remembers the investigation corresponding to the early childhood years; it had long merged into repression but its results were thoroughly uniform. One gets children by eating something special (as in the fairy tale) and they are born through the bowel like a passage. These infantile theories recall the structures in the animal kingdom, especially do they recall the cloaca of the types which stand lower than the mammals. *Sadistic Conception of the Sexual Act.*--If children of so delicate an age become spectators of the sexual act between grown-ups, for which an occasion is furnished by the conviction of the grown-ups that little children cannot understand anything sexual, they cannot help conceiving the sexual act as a kind of maltreating or overpowering, that is, it impresses them in a sadistic sense. Psychoanalysis also teaches us that such an early childhood impression contributes much to the disposition for a later sadistic displacement of the sexual aim. Besides this children also occupy themselves with the problem of what the sexual act consists in or, as they grasp it, of what marriage consists, and seek the solution of the mystery mostly in an association to which the functions of urination and defecation give occasion. *Typical Failure of the Infantile Sexual Investigation.*--It can be stated in general about the infantile sexual theories that they are reproductions of the child's own sexual constitution, and that despite their grotesque mistakes they evince more understanding of the sexual processes than is credited to their creators. Children also perceive the pregnancy of the mother and know how to interpret it correctly; the stork fable is very often related before auditors who confront it with a deep, but mostly mute suspicion. But as two elements remain unknown to the infantile sexual investigation, namely, the rôle of the propagating semen and the female genital opening--precisely the same points in which the infantile organization is still backward--the effort of the infantile investigator regularly remains fruitless, and ends in a renunciation which not infrequently leaves a lasting injury to the desire for knowledge. The sexual investigation of these early childhood years is always conducted alone, it signifies the first step towards independent orientation in the world, and causes a marked estrangement between the child and the persons of his environment who formerly enjoyed its full confidence. *Phases of Development of the Sexual Organization.*--As characteristics of the infantile sexuality we have hitherto emphasized the fact that it is essentially autoerotic (it finds its object in its own body), and that its individual partial impulses, which on the whole are unconnected and independent of one another, are striving for the acquisition of pleasure. The end of this development forms the socalled normal sexual life of the adult in which the acquisition of pleasure has been put into the service of the function of propagation, and the partial impulses, under the primacy of one single erogenous zone, have formed a firm organization for the attainment of the sexual aim in a strange sexual object. *Pregenital Organizations.*--The study, with the help of psychoanalysis, of the inhibitions and disturbances in this course of development now permits us to recognize additions and primary stages of such organization of the partial impulses which likewise furnish a sort of sexual regime. These phases of the sexual organization normally will pass over smoothly and will only be recognizable by slight indications. Only in pathological cases do they become active and discernible to coarse observation. Organizations of the sexual life in which the genital zones have not yet assumed the dominating rôle we would call the _pregenital_ phase. So far we have become acquainted with two of them which recall reversions to early animal states. One of the first of such pregenital sexual organizations is the _oral_, or if we wish, the cannibalistic. Here the sexual activity is not yet separated from the taking of nourishment, and the contrasts within the same not yet differentiated. The object of the one activity is also that of the other, the sexual aim consists in the _incorporating_ into one's own body of the object, it is the prototype of that which later plays such an important psychic role as _identification_. As a remnant of this fictitious phase of organization forced on us by pathology we can consider thumbsucking. Here the sexual activity became separated from the nourishment activity and the strange object was given up in favor of one from his own body. A second pregenital phase is the sadistic-anal organization. Here the contrasts which run through the whole sexual life are already developed, but cannot yet be designated as _masculine_ and _feminine_, but must be called _active_ and _passive_. The activity is supplied by the musculature of the body through the mastery impulse; the erogenous mucous membrane of the bowel manifests itself above all as an organ with a passive sexual aim, for both strivings there are objects present, which however do not merge together. Besides them there are other partial impulses which are active in an autoerotic manner. The sexual polarity and the strange object can thus already be demonstrated in this phase. The organization and subordination under the function of propagation are still lacking. *Ambivalence.*--This form of the sexual organization could be retained throughout life and continue to draw to itself a large part of the sexual activity. The prevalence of sadism and the role of the cloaca of the anal zone stamps it with an exquisitely archaic impression. As another characteristic belonging to it we can mention the fact that the contrasting pair of impulses are developed in almost the same manner, a behavior which was designated by Bleuler with the happy name of_ambivalence_. The assumption of the pregenital organizations of the sexual life is based on the analysis of the neuroses and hardly deserves any consideration without a knowledge of the same. We may expect that continued analytic efforts will furnish us with still more disclosures concerning the structure and development of the normal sexual function. To complete the picture of the infantile sexual life one must add that frequently or regularly an object selection takes place even in hildhood which is as characteristic as the one we have represented for he phase of development of puberty. This object selection proceeds in uch a manner that all the sexual strivings proceed in the direction of ne person in whom they wish to attain their aim. This is then the earest approach to the definitive formation of the sexual life after uberty, that is possible in childhood. It differs from the latter only n the fact that the collection of the partial impulses and their ubordination to the primacy of the genitals is very imperfectly or not t all accomplished in childhood. The establishment of this primacy in he service of propagation is therefore the last phase through which the sexual organization passes. *The Two Periods of Object Selection.* That the object selection takes place in two periods, or in two shifts, can be spoken of as a typical occurrence. The first shift has its origin between the age of three and five years, and is brought to a stop or to retrogression by the latency period; it is characterized by the infantile nature of its sexual aims. The second shift starts with puberty and determines the definitive formation of the sexual life. The fact of the double object selection which is essentially due to the ffect of the latency period, becomes most significant for the isturbance of this terminal state. The results of the infantile object election reach into the later period; they are either preserved as such or are even refreshed at the time of puberty. But due to the development of the repression which takes place between the two phases they turn out as unutilizable. The sexual aims have become softened and now represent what we can designate as the _tender_ streams of the sexual life. Only psychoanalytic investigation can demonstrate that behind this tenderness, such as honoring and esteeming, there is concealed the old sexual strivings of the infantile partial impulses which have now become useless. The object selection of the pubescent period must renounce the infantile objects and begin anew as a sensuous stream. The fact that the two streams do not meet often enough has as a result that one of the ideals of the sexual life, namely, the union of all desires in one object, can not be attained. *THE SOURCES OF THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY.* In our effort to follow up the origins of the sexual impulse, we have thus far found that the sexual excitement originates (_a_) as an imitation of a gratification which has been experienced in conjunction with other organic processes; (_b_) through the appropriate peripheral stimulation of erogenous zones; (_c_) and as an expression of some "impulse," like the looking and cruelty impulses, the origin of which we do not yet fully understand. The psychoanalytic investigation of later life which leads back to childhood and the contemporary observation of the child itself coöperate to reveal to us still other regularly-flowing sources of the sexual excitement. The observation of childhood has the disadvantage of treating easily misunderstood material, while psychoanalysis is made difficult by the fact that it can reach its objects and conclusions only by great detours; still the united efforts of both methods achieve a sufficient degree of positive understanding. In investigating the erogenous zones we have already found that these skin regions merely show the special exaggeration of a form of sensitiveness which is to a certain degree found over the whole surface of the skin. It will therefore not surprise us to learn that certain forms of general sensitiveness in the skin can be ascribed to very distinct erogenous action. Among these we will above all mention the temperature sensitiveness; this will perhaps prepare us for the understanding of the therapeutic effects of warm baths. *Mechanical Excitation.* We must, moreover, describe here the production of sexual excitation by means of rhythmic mechanical shaking of the body. There are three kinds of exciting influences: those acting on the sensory apparatus of the vestibular nerves, those acting on the skin, and those acting on the deep parts, such as the muscles and joints. The sexual excitation produced by these influences seems to be of a pleasurable nature--it is worth emphasizing that for some time we shall continue to use indiscriminately the terms "sexual excitement" and "gratification" leaving the search for an explanation of the terms to a later time--and that the pleasure is produced by mechanical stimulation is proved by the fact that children are so fond of play involving passive motion, like swinging or flying in the air, and repeatedly demand its repetition. As we know, rocking is regularly used in putting restless children to sleep. The shaking sensation experienced in wagons and railroad trains exerts such a fascinating influence on older children, that all boys, at least at one time in their lives, want to become conductors and drivers. They are wont to ascribe to railroad activities an extraordinary and mysterious interest, and during the age of phantastic activity (shortly before puberty) they utilize these as a nucleus for exquisite sexual symbolisms. The desire to connect railroad travelling with sexuality apparently originates from the pleasurable character of the sensation of motion. When the repression later sets in and changes so many of the childish likes into their opposites, these same persons as adolescents and adults then react to the rocking and rolling with nausea and become terribly exhausted by a railroad journey, or they show a tendency to attacks of anxiety during the journey, and by becoming obsessed with railroad phobia they protect themselves against a repetition of the painful experiences. This also fits in with the not as yet understood fact that the concurrence of fear with mechanical shaking produces the severest hysterical forms of traumatic neurosis. It may at least be assumed that inasmuch as even a slight intensity of these influences becomes a source of sexual excitement, the action of an excessive amount of the same will produce a profound disorder in the sexual mechanism. *Muscular Activity.* It is well known that the child has need for strong muscular activity, from the gratification of which it draws extraordinary pleasure. Whether this pleasure has anything to do with sexuality, whether it includes in itself sexual satisfaction? or can be the occasion of sexual excitement; all this may be refuted by critical consideration, which will probably be directed also to the position taken above that the pleasure in the sensations of passive movement are of sexual character or that they are sexually exciting. The fact remains, however, that a number of persons report that they experienced the first signs of excitement in their genitals during fighting or wrestling with playmates, in which situation, besides the general muscular exertion, there is an intensive contact with the opponent's skin which also becomes effective. The desire for muscular contest with a definite person, like the desire for word contest in later years, is a good sign that the object selection has been directed toward this person. "Was sich liebt, das neckt sich." In the promotion of sexual excitement through muscular activity we might recognize one of the sources of the sadistic impulse. The infantile connection between fighting and sexual excitement acts in many persons as a determinant for the future preferred course of their sexual impulse. *Affective Processes.* The other sources of sexual excitement in the child are open to less doubt. Through contemporary observations, as well as through later investigations, it is easy to ascertain that all more intensive affective processes, even excitements of a terrifying nature, encroach upon sexuality; this can at all events furnish us with a contribution to the understanding of the pathogenic action of such emotions. In the school child, fear of a coming examination or exertion expended in the solution of a difficult task can become significant for the breaking through of sexual manifestations as well as for his relations to the school, inasmuch as under such excitements a sensation often occurs urging him to touch the genitals, or leading to a pollution-like process with all its disagreeable consequences. The behavior of children at school, which is so often mysterious to the teacher, ought surely to be considered in relation with their germinating sexuality. The sexually-exciting influence of some painful affects, such as fear, shuddering, and horror, is felt by a great many people throughout life and readily explains why so many seek opportunities to experience such sensations, provided that certain accessory circumstances (as under imaginary circumstances in reading, or in the theater) suppress the earnestness of the painful feeling. If we might assume that the same erogenous action also reaches the intensive painful feelings, especially if the pain be toned down or held at a distance by a subsidiary determination, this relation would then contain the main roots of the masochistic-sadistic impulse, into the manifold composition of which we are gaining a gradual insight. *Intellectual Work.* Finally, is is evident that mental application or the concentration of attention on an intellectual accomplishment will result, especially often in youthful persons, but in older persons as well, in a simultaneous sexual excitement, which may be looked upon as the only justified basis for the otherwise so doubtful etiology of nervous disturbances from mental "overwork." If we now, in conclusion, review the evidences and indications of the sources of the infantile sexual excitement, which have been reported neither completely nor exhaustively, we may lay down the following general laws as suggested or established. It seems to be provided in the most generous manner that the process of sexual excitement--the nature of which certainly remains quite mysterious to us--should be set in motion. The factor making this provision in a more or less direct way is the excitation of the sensible surfaces of the skin and sensory organs, while the most immediate exciting influences are exerted on certain parts which are designated as erogenous zones. The criterion in all these sources of sexual excitement is really the quality of the stimuli, though the factor of intensity (in pain) is not entirely unimportant. But in addition to this there are arrangements in the organism which induce sexual excitement as a subsidiary action in a large number of inner processes as soon as the intensity of these processes has risen above certain quantitative limits. What we have designated as the partial impulses of sexuality are either directly derived from these inner sources of sexual excitation or composed of contributions from such sources and from erogenous zones. It is possible that nothing of any considerable significance occurs in the organism that does not contribute its components to the excitement of the sexual impulse. It seems to me at present impossible to shed more light and certainty on these general propositions, and for this I hold two factors responsible; first, the novelty of this manner of investigation, and secondly, the fact that the nature of the sexual excitement is entirely unfamiliar to us. Nevertheless, I will not forbear speaking about two points which promise to open wide prospects in the future. *Diverse Sexual Constitutions.*--(_a_) We have considered above the possibility of establishing the manifold character of congenital sexual constitutions through the diverse formation of the erogenous zones; we may now attempt to do the same in dealing with the indirect sources of sexual excitement. We may assume that, although these different sources furnish contributions in all individuals, they are not all equally strong in all persons; and that a further contribution to the differentiation of the diverse sexual constitution will be found in the preferred developments of the individual sources of sexual excitement. *The Paths of Opposite Influences.*--(_b_) Since we are now dropping the figurative manner of expression hitherto employed, by which we spoke of _sources_ of sexual excitement, we may now assume that all the connecting ways leading from other functions to sexuality must also be passable in the reverse direction. For example, if the lip zone, the common possession of both functions, is responsible for the fact that the sexual gratification originates during the taking of nourishment, the same factor offers also an explanation for the disturbances in the taking of nourishment if the erogenous functions of the common zone are disturbed. As soon as we know that concentration of attention may produce sexual excitement, it is quite natural to assume that acting on the same path, but in a contrary direction, the state of sexual excitement will be able to influence the availability of the voluntary attention. A good part of the symptomatology of the neuroses which I trace to disturbance of sexual processes manifests itself in disturbances of the other nonsexual bodily functions, and this hitherto incomprehensible action becomes less mysterious if it only represents the counterpart of the influences controlling the production of the sexual excitement. However the same paths through which sexual disturbances encroach uponthe other functions of the body must in health be supposed to serve another important function. It must be through these paths that the attraction of the sexual motive-powers to other than sexual aims, the sublimation of sexuality, is accomplished. We must conclude with the admission that very little is definitely known concerning the paths beyond the fact that they exist, and that they are probably passable in both directions. CAUSES OF LOVE AND HATE It is altogether impossible to give any definition of the passions of love and hatred; and that because they produce merely a simple impression, without any mixture or composition. This would be as unnecessary to attempt any description of them, drawn from their nature, origin, causes and objects; and that both because these are the subjects of our present enquiry, and because these passions of themselves are sufficiently known from our common feeling and experience. This we have already observed concerning pride and humility, and here repeat it concerning love and hatred; and indeed there is so great a resemblance betwixt these two sets of passions, that we shall be obliged to begin with a kind of abridgment of our reasonings concerning the former, in order to explain the latter. As the immediate object of pride and humility is self or that identical person, of whose thoughts, actions, and sensations we are intimately conscious; so the object of love and hatred is some other person, of whose thoughts, actions, and sensations we are not conscious. This is sufficiently evident from experience. Our love and hatred are always directed to some sensible being external to us; and when we talk of self-love, it is not in a proper sense, nor has the sensation it produces any thing in common with that tender emotion which is excited by a friend or mistress. It is the same case with hatred. We may be mortified by our own faults and follies; but never feel any anger or hatred. Except from the injuries of others. But though the object of love and hatred be always some other person, it is plain that the object is not, properly speaking, the cause of these passions, or alone sufficient to excite them. For since love and hatred are directly contrary in their sensation, and have the same object in common, if that object were also their cause, it would produce these opposite passions in an equal degree; and as they must, from the very first moment, destroy each other, none of them would ever be able to make its appearance. There must, therefore, be some cause different from the object. If we consider the causes of love and hatred, we shall find they are very much diversified, and have not many things in common. The virtue, knowledge, wit, good sense, good humor of any person, produce love and esteem; as the opposite qualities, hatred and contempt. The same passions arise from bodily accomplishments, such as beauty, force, swiftness, dexterity; and from their contraries; as likewise from the external advantages and disadvantages of family, possession, clothes, nation and climate. There is not one of these objects, but what by its different qualities may produce love and esteem, or hatred and contempt From the view of these causes we may derive a new distinction betwixt the quality that operates, and the subject on which it is placed. A prince, that is possessed of a stately palace, commands the esteem of the people upon that account; and that first, by the beauty of the palace, and secondly, by the relation of property, which connects it with him. The removal of either of these destroys the passion; which evidently proves that the cause Is a compounded one. It would be tedious to trace the passions of love and hatred, through all the observations which we have formed concerning pride and humility, and which are equally applicable to both sets of passions. This will be sufficient to remark in general, that the object of love and hatred is evidently some thinking person; and that the sensation of the former passion is always agreeable, and of the latter uneasy. We may also suppose with some show of probability, THAT THE CAUSE OF BOTH THESE PASSIONS IS ALWAYS RELATED TO A THINKING BEING, AND THAT THE CAUSE OF THE FORMER PRODUCE A SEPARATE PLEASURE, AND OF THE LATTER A SEPARATE UNEASINESS. One of these suppositions, via, that the cause of love and hatred must be related to a person or thinking being, in order to produce these passions, is not only probable, but too evident to be contested. Virtue and vice, when considered in the abstract; beauty and deformity, when placed on inanimate objects; poverty and riches when belonging to a third person, excite no degree of love or hatred, esteem or contempt towards those, who have no relation to them. A person looking out at a window, sees me in the street, and beyond me a beautiful palace, with which I have no concern: I believe none will pretend, that this person will pay me the same respect, as if I were owner of the palace. It is not so evident at first sight, that a relation of impressions is requisite to these passions, and that because in the transition the one impression is so much confounded with the other, that they become in a manner undistinguishable. But as in pride and humility, we have easily been able to make the separation, and to prove, that every cause of these passions, produces a separate pain or pleasure, I might here observe the same method with the same success, in examining particularly the several causes of love and hatred. But as I hasten a full and decisive proof of these systems, I delay this examination for a moment: And in the mean time shall endeavor to convert to my present purpose all my reasoning’s concerning pride and humility, by an argument that is founded on unquestionable examples. There are few persons, that are satisfied with their own character, or genius, or fortune, who are nor desirous of showing themselves to the world, and of acquiring the love and approbation of mankind. Now it is evident, that the very same qualities and circumstances, which are the causes of pride or self-esteem, are also the causes of vanity or the desire of reputation; and that we always put to view those particulars with which in ourselves we are best satisfied. But if love and esteem were not produced by the same qualities as pride, according as these qualities are related to ourselves or others, this method of proceeding would be very absurd, nor could men expect a correspondence in the sentiments of every other person, with those themselves have entertained. It is true, few can form exact systems of the passions, or make reflections on their general nature and resemblances. But without such a progress in philosophy, we are not subject to many mistakes in this particular, but are sufficiently guided by common experience, as well as by a kind of presentation; which tells us what will operate on others, by what we feel immediately in ourselves. Since then the same qualities that produce pride or humility, cause love or hatred; all the arguments that have been employed to prove, that the causes of the former passions excite a pain or pleasure independent of the passion, will be applicable with equal evidence to the causes of the latter. EXPERIMENTS TO CONFIRM THIS SYSTEM. Upon duly weighing these arguments, no one will make any scruple to assent to that conclusion I draw from them, concerning the transition along related impressions and ideas, especially as it is a principle, in itself, so easy and natural. But that we may place this system beyond doubt both with regard to love and hatred, pride and humility, it will be proper to make some new experiments upon all these passions, as well as to recall a few of these observations, which I have formerly touched upon. In order to make these experiments, let us suppose I am in company with a person, whom I formerly regarded without any sentiments either of friendship or enmity. Here I have the natural and ultimate object of all these four passions placed before me. Myself am the proper object of pride or humility; the other person of love or hatred. Regard now with attention the nature of these passions, and their situation with respect to each other. It is evident here are four affections, placed, as it were, in a square or regular connection with, and distance from each other. The passions of pride and humility, as well as those of love and hatred, are connected together by the identity of their object, which to the first set of passions is self, to the second some other person. These two lines of communication or connection form two opposite sides of the square. Again, pride and love are agreeable passions; hatred and humility uneasy. This similitude of sensation betwixt pride and love, and that betwixt humility and hatred form a new connection, and may be considered as the other two sides of the square. Upon the whole, pride is connected with humility, love with hatred, by their objects or ideas: Pride with love, humility with hatred, by their sensations or impressions. I say then, that nothing can produce any of these passions without bearing it a double relation, via, of ideas to the object of the passion, and of sensation to the passion itself. This we must prove by our experiments. First Experiment. To proceed with the greater order in these experiments, let us first suppose, that being placed in the situation above-mentioned, via, in company with some other person, there is an object presented, that has no relation either of impressions or ideas to any of these passions. Thus suppose we regard together an ordinary stone, or other common object, belonging to neither of us, and causing of itself no emotion, or independent pain and pleasure: It is evident such an object will produce none of these four passions. Let us try it upon each of them successively. Let us apply it to love, to hatred, to humility, to pride; none of them ever arises in the smallest degree imaginable. Let us change the object, as oft as we please; provided still we choose one, that has neither of these two relations. Let us repeat the experiment in all the dispositions, of which the mind is susceptible. No object, in the vast variety of nature, will, in any disposition, produce any passion without these relations. Second Experiment. Since an object, that wants both these relations can never produce any passion, let us bestow on it only one of these relations; and see what will follow. Thus suppose, I regard a stone or any common object, that belongs either to me or my companion, and by that means acquires a relation of ideas to the object of the passions: It is plain, that to consider the matter a priori, no emotion of any kind can reasonably be expected. For besides, that a relation of ideas operates secretly and calmly on the mind, it bestows an equal impulse towards the opposite passions of pride and humility, love and hatred, according as the object belongs to ourselves or others; which opposition of the passions must destroy both, and leave the mind perfectly free from any affection or emotion. This reasoning a priori is confirmed by experience. No trivial or vulgar object, that causes not a pain or pleasure, independent of the passion, will ever, by its property or other relations either to ourselves or others, be able to produce the affections of pride or humility, love or hatred. Third Experiment. It is evident, therefore, that a relation of ideas is not able alone to give rise to these affections. Let us now remove this relation, and in its stead place a relation of impressions, by presenting an object, which is agreeable or disagreeable, but has no relation either to our self or companion; and let us observe the consequences. To consider the matter first a priori, as in the preceding experiment; we may conclude, that the object will have a small, but an uncertain connection with these passions. For besides, that this relation is not a cold and imperceptible one, it has not the inconvenience of the relation of ideas, nor directs us with equal force to two contrary passions, which by their opposition destroy each other. But if we consider, on the other hand, that this transition from the sensation to the affection is not forwarded by any principle, that produces a transition of ideas; but, on the contrary, that though the one impression be easily transfused into the other, yet the change of objects is supposed contrary to all the principles, that cause a transition of that kind; we may from thence infer, that nothing will ever be a steady or durable cause of any passion, that is connected with the passion merely by a relation of impressions. What our reason would conclude from analogy, after balancing these arguments, would be, that an object, which produces pleasure or uneasiness, but has no manner of connection either with ourselves or others, may give such a turn to the disposition, as that may naturally fall into pride or love, humility or hatred, and search for other objects, upon which by a double relation, it can found these affections; but that an object, which has only one of these relations, though the most advantageous one, can never give rise to any constant and established passion. Most fortunately all this reasoning is found to be exactly conformable to experience, and the phenomena of the passions. Suppose I were traveling with a companion through a country, to which we are both utter strangers; it is evident, that if the prospects be beautiful, the roads agreeable, and the inns commodious, this may put me into good humor both with myself and fellow-traveler. But as we suppose, that this country has no relation either to myself or friend. it can never be the immediate cause of pride or love; and therefore if I found not the passion on some other object, that bears either of us a closer relation, my emotions are rather to be considered as the overflowing of an elevate or humane disposition, than as an established passion. The case is the same where the object produces uneasiness. Fourth Experiment. Having found, that neither an object without any relation of ideas or impressions, nor an object, that has only one relation, can ever cause pride or humility, love or hatred; reason alone may convince us, without any farther experiment, that whatever has a double relation must necessarily excite these passions; since it is evident they must have some cause. But to leave as little room for doubt as possible, let us renew our experiments, and see whether the event in this case answers our expectation. I choose an object, such as virtue, that causes a separate satisfaction: On this object I bestow a relation to self; and find, that from this disposition of affairs, there immediately arises a passion. But what passion? That very one of pride, to which this object bears a double relation. Its idea is related to that of self, the object of the passion: The sensation it causes resembles the sensation of the passion. That I may be sure I am not mistaken in this experiment, I remove first one relation; then another; and find, that each removal destroys the passion, and leaves the object perfectly indifferent. But I am not content with this. I make a still farther trial; and instead of removing the relation, I only change it for one of a different kind. I suppose the virtue to belong to my companion, not to myself; and observe what follows from this alteration. I immediately perceive the affections wheel to about, and leaving pride, where there is only one relation, via, of impressions, fall to the side of love, where they are attracted by a double relation of impressions and ideas. By repeating the same experiment, in changing anew the relation of ideas, I bring the affections back to pride; and by a new repetition I again place them at love or kindness. Being fully convinced of the influence of this relation, I try the effects of the other; and by changing virtue for vice, convert the pleasant impression, which arises from the former, into the disagreeable one, which proceeds from the latter. The effect still answers expectation. Vice, when placed on another, excites, by means of its double relations, the passion of hatred, instead of love, which for the same reason arises from virtue. To continue the experiment, I change anew the relation of ideas, and suppose the vice to belong to myself. What follows? What is usual. A subsequent change of the passion from hatred to humility. This humility I convert into pride by a new change of the impression; and find after all that I have completed the round, and have by these changes brought back the passion to that very situation, in which I first found it. But to make the matter still more certain, I alter the object; and instead of vice and virtue, make the trial upon beauty and deformity, riches and poverty, power and servitude. Each of these objects runs the circle of the passions in the same manner, by a change of their relations: And in whatever order we proceed, whether through pride, love, hatred, humility, or through humility, hatred, love, pride, the experiment is not in the least diversified. Esteem and contempt, indeed, arise on some occasions instead of love and hatred; but these are at the bottom the same passions, only diversified by some causes, which we shall explain afterwards. Fifth Experiment. To give greater authority to these experiments, let us change the situation of affairs as much as possible, and place the passions and objects in all the different positions, of which they are susceptible. Let us suppose, beside the relations above-mentioned, that the person, along with whom I make all these experiments, is closely connected with me either by blood or friendship. He is, we shall suppose, my son or brother, or is united to me by a long and familiar acquaintance. Let us next suppose, that the cause of the passion acquires a double relation of impressions and ideas to this person; and let us see what the effects are of all these complicated attractions and relations. Before we consider what they are in fact, let us determine what they ought to be, conformable to my hypothesis. It is plain, that, according as the impression is either pleasant or uneasy, the passion of love or hatred must arise towards the person, who is thus connected to the cause of the impression by these double relations, which I have all along required. The virtue of a brother must make me love him; as his vice or infamy must excite the contrary passion. But to judge only from the situation of affairs, I should not expect, that the affections would rest there, and never transfuse themselves into any other impression. As there is here a person, who by means of a double relation is the object of my passion, the very same reasoning leads me to think the passion will be carried farther. The person has a relation of ideas to myself, according to the supposition; the passion, of which he is the object, by being either agreeable or uneasy, has a relation of impressions to pride or humility. It is evident, then, that one of these passions must arise from the love or hatred. This is the reasoning I form in conformity to my hypothesis; and am pleased to find upon trial that every thing answers exactly to my expectation. The virtue or vice of a son or brother not only excites love or hatred, but by a new transition, from similar causes, gives rise to pride or humility. Nothing causes greater vanity than any shining quality in our relations; as nothing mortifies us more than their vice or infamy. This exact conformity of experience to our reasoning is a convincing proof of the solidity of that hypothesis, upon which we reason. Sixth Experiment. This evidence will be still augmented, if we reverse the experiment, and preserving still the same relations, begin only with a different passion. Suppose, that instead of the virtue or vice of a son or brother, which causes first love or hatred, and afterwards pride or humility, we place these good or bad qualities on ourselves, without any immediate connection with the person, who is related to us: Experience shows us, that by this change of situation the whole chain is broke, and that the mind is not conveyed from one passion to another, as in the preceding instance. We never love or hate a son or brother for the virtue or vice we discern in ourselves; though it is evident the same qualities in him give us a very sensible pride or humility. The transition from pride or humility to love or hatred is not so natural as from love or hatred to pride or humility. This may at first sight be esteemed contrary to my hypothesis; since the relations of impressions and ideas are in both cases precisely the same. Pride and humility are impressions related to love and hatred. Myself am related to the person. It should, therefore, be expected, that like causes must produce like effects, and a perfect transition arise from the double relation, as in all other cases. This difficulty we may easily solve by the following reflections. It is evident, that as we are at all times intimately conscious of ourselves, our sentiments and passions, their ideas must strike upon us with greater vivacity than the ideas of the sentiments and passions of any other person. But every thing, that strikes upon us with vivacity, and appears in a full and strong light, forces itself, in a manner, into our consideration, and becomes present to the mind on the smallest hint and most trivial relation. For the same reason, when it is once present, it engages the attention, and keeps it from wandering to other objects, however strong may be their relation to our first object. The imagination passes easily from obscure to lively ideas, but with difficulty from lively to obscure. In the one case the relation is aided by another principle: In the other case, it is opposed by it. Now I have observed, that those two faculties of the mind, the imagination and passions, assist each other in their operations when their propensities are similar, and when they act upon the same object. The mind has always a propensity to pass from a passion to any other related to it; and this propensity is forwarded when the object of the one passion is related to that of the other. The two impulses concur with each other, and render the whole transition more smooth and easy. But if it should happen, that while the relation of ideas, strictly speaking, continues the same, its influence, in causing a transition of the imagination, should no longer take place, it is evident its influence on the passions must also cease, as being dependent entirely on that transition. This is the reason why pride or humility is not transfused into love or hatred with the same ease, that the latter passions are changed into the former. If a person be my brother I am his likewise: but though the relations be reciprocal they have very different effects on the imagination. The passage is smooth and open from the consideration of any person related to us to that of our self, of whom we are every moment conscious. But when the affections are once directed to our self. The fancy passes not with the same facility from that object to any other person, how closely so ever connected with us. This easy or difficult transition of the imagination operates upon the passions, and facilitates or retards their transition, which is a clear proof, that these two faculties of the passions and imagination are connected together, and that the relations of ideas have an influence upon the affections. Besides innumerable experiments that prove this, we here find, that even when the relation remains; if by any particular circumstance its usual effect upon the fancy in producing an association or transition of ideas, is prevented; its usual effect upon the passions, in conveying us from one to another, is in like manner prevented. Some may, perhaps, find a contradiction betwixt this phenomenon and that of sympathy, where the mind passes easily from the idea of ourselves to that of any other object related to us. But this difficulty will vanish, if we consider that in sympathy our own person is not the object of any passion, nor is there any thing, that fixes our attention on ourselves; as in the present case, where we are supposed to be actuated with pride or humility. Our self, independent of the perception of every other object, is in reality nothing: For which reason we must turn our view to external objects; and it is natural for us to consider with most attention such as lie contiguous to us, or resemble us. But when self is the object of a passion, it is not natural to quit the consideration of it, till the passion be exhausted: in which case the double relations of impressions and ideas can no longer operate. Seventh Experiment. To put this whole reasoning to a farther trial, let us make a new experiment; and as we have already seen the effects of related passions and ideas, let us here suppose an identity of passions along with a relation of ideas; and let us consider the effects of this new situation. It is evident a transition of the passions from the one object to the other is here in all reason to be expected; since the relation of ideas is supposed still to continue, and identity of impressions must produce a stronger connection, than the most perfect resemblance, that can be imagined. If a double relation, therefore, of impressions and ideas is able to produce a transition from one to the other, much more an identity of impressions with a relation of ideas. Accordingly we find, that when we either love or hate any person, the passions seldom continue within their first bounds; but extend themselves towards all the contiguous objects, and comprehend the friends and relations of him we love or hate. Nothing is more natural than to bear a kindness to one brother on account of our friendship for another, without any farther examination of his character. A quarrel with one person gives us a hatred for the whole family, though entirely innocent of that, which displeases us. Instances of this kind are every where to be met with. There is only one difficulty in this experiment, which it will be necessary to account for, before we proceed any farther. It is evident, that though all passions pass easily from one object to another related to it, yet this transition is made with greater facility, where the more considerable object is first presented, and the lesser follows it, than where this order is reversed, and the lesser takes the precedence. Thus it is more natural for us to love the son upon account of the father, than the father upon account of the son; the servant for the master, than the master for the servant; the subject for the prince, than the prince for the subject. In like manner we more readily contract a hatred against a whole family, where our first quarrel is with the head of it, than where we are displeased with a son, or servant, or some inferior member. In short, our passions, like other objects, descend with greater facility than they ascend. That we may comprehend, wherein consists the difficulty of explaining this phenomenon, we must consider, that the very same reason, which determines the imagination to pass from remote to contiguous objects, with more facility than from contiguous to remote, causes it likewise to change with more ease, the less for the greater, than the greater for the less. Whatever has the greatest influence is most taken notice of; and whatever is most taken notice of, presents itself most readily to the imagination. We are more apt to over-look in any subject, what is trivial, than what appears of considerable moment; but especially if the latter takes the precedence, and first engages our attention. Thus if any accident makes us consider the Satellites of JUPITER, our fancy is naturally determined to form the idea of that planet; but if we first reflect on the principal planet, it is more natural for us to overlook its attendants. The mention of the provinces of any empire conveys our thought to the seat of the empire; but the fancy returns not with the same facility to the consideration of the provinces. The idea of the servant makes us think of the master; that of the subject carries our view to the prince. But the same relation has not an equal influence in conveying us back again. And on this is founded that reproach of Cornelia to her sons, that they ought to be ashamed she should be more known by the title of the daughter of Scipio than by that of the mother of the Gracchi. This was, in other words, exhorting them to render themselves as illustrious and famous as their grandfather, otherwise the imagination of the people, passing from her who was intermediate, and placed in an equal relation to both, would always leave them, and denominate her by what was more considerable and of greater moment. On the same principle is founded that common custom of making wives bear the name of their husbands, rather than husbands that of their wives; as also the ceremony of giving the presidency to those, whom we honor and respect. We might find many other instances to confirm this principle, were it not already sufficiently evident. Now since the fancy finds the same facility in passing from the lesser to the greater, as from remote to contiguous, why does not this easy transition of ideas assist the transition of passions in the former case, as well as in the latter? The virtues of a friend or brother produce first love, and then pride; because in that case the imagination passes from remote to contiguous, according to its propensity. Our own virtues produce not first pride, and then love to a friend or brother; because the passage in that case would be from contiguous to remote, contrary to its propensity. But the love or hatred of an inferior causes not readily any passion to the superior, though that be the natural propensity of the imagination: While the love or hatred of a superior, causes a passion to the inferior, contrary to its propensity. In short, the same facility of transition operates not in the same manner upon superior and inferior as upon contiguous and remote. These two phenomena appear contradictory, and require some attention to be reconciled. As the transition of ideas is here made contrary to the natural propensity of the imagination, that faculty must be overpowered by some stronger principle of another kind; and as there is nothing ever present to the mind but impressions and ideas, this principle must necessarily lie in the impressions. Now it has been observed, that impressions or passions are connected only by their resemblance, and that where any two passions place the mind in the same or in similar dispositions, it very naturally passes from the one to the other: As on the contrary, a repugnance in the dispositions produces a difficulty in the transition of the passions. But it is observable, that this repugnance may arise from a difference of degree as well as of kind; nor do we experience a greater difficulty in passing suddenly from a small degree of love to a small degree of hatred, than from a small to a great degree of either of these affections. A man, when calm or only moderately agitated, is so different, in every respect, from himself, when disturbed with a violent passion, that no two persons can be more unlike; nor is it easy to pass from the one extreme to the other, without a considerable interval betwixt them. The difficulty is not less, if it be not rather greater, in passing from the strong passion to the weak, than in passing from the weak to the strong, provided the one passion upon its appearance destroys the other, and they do not both of them exist at once. But the case is entirely altered, when the passions unite together, and actuate the mind at the same time. A weak passion, when added to a strong, makes not so considerable a change in the disposition, as a strong when added to a weak; for which reason there is a closer connection betwixt the great degree and the small, than betwixt the small degree and the great. The degree of any passion depends upon the nature of its object; and an affection directed to a person, who is considerable in our eyes, fills and possesses the mind much more than one, which has for its object a person we esteem of less consequence. Here then the contradiction betwixt the propensities of the imagination and passion displays itself. When we turn our thought to a great and a small object, the imagination finds more facility in passing from the small to the great, than from the great to the small; but the affections find a greater difficulty: And as the affections are a more powerful principle than the imagination, no wonder they prevail over it, and draw the mind to their side. In spite of the difficulty of passing from the idea of great to that of little, a passion directed to the former, produces always a similar passion towards the latter; when the great and little are related together. The idea of the servant conveys our thought most readily to the master; but the hatred or love of the master produces with greater facility anger or good-will to the servant. The strongest passion in this case takes the precedence; and the addition of the weaker making no considerable change on the disposition, the passage is by that means rendered more easy and natural betwixt them. As in the foregoing experiment we found, that a relation of ideas, which, by any particular circumstance, ceases to produce its usual effect of facilitating the transition of ideas, ceases likewise to operate on the passions; so in the present experiment we find the same property of the impressions. Two different degrees of the same passion are surely related together; but if the smaller be first present, it has little or no tendency to introduce the greater; and that because the addition of the great to the little, produces a more sensible alteration on the temper, than the addition of the little to the great. These phenomena, when duly weighed, will be found convincing proofs of this hypothesis. And these proofs will be confirmed, if we consider the manner in which the mind here reconciles the contradiction, I have observed betwixt the passions and the imagination. The fancy passes with more facility from the less to the greater, than from the greater to the less: But on the contrary a violent passion produces more easily a feeble, than that does a violent. In this opposition the passion in the end prevails over the imagination; but it is commonly by complying with it, and by seeking another quality, which may counter-balance that principle, from whence the opposition arises. When we love the father or master of a family, we little think of his children or servants. But when these are present with us, or when it lies any ways in our power to serve them, the nearness and contiguity in this case increases their magnitude, or at least removes that opposition, which the fancy makes to the transition of the affections. If the imagination finds a difficulty in passing from greater to less, it finds an equal facility in passing from remote to contiguous, which brings the matter to an equality, and leaves the way open from the one passion to the other. Eighth Experiment. I have observed that the transition from love or hatred to pride or humility, is more easy than from pride or humility to love or hatred; and that the difficulty, which the imagination finds in passing from contiguous to remote, is the cause why we scarce have any instance of the latter transition of the affections. I must, however, make one exception, via, when the very cause of the pride and humility is placed in some other person. For in that case the imagination is necessitated to consider the person, nor can it possibly confine its view to ourselves. Thus nothing more readily produces kindness and affection to any person, than his approbation of our conduct and character: As on the other hand, nothing inspires us with a stronger hatred, than his blame or contempt. Here it is evident, that the original passion is pride or humility, whose object is self; and that this passion is transfused into love or hatred, whose object is some other person, notwithstanding the rule I have already established, THAT THE IMAGINATION PASSES WITH DIFFICULTY FROM CONTIGUOUS TO REMOTE. But the transition in this case is not made merely on account of the relation betwixt ourselves and the person; but because that very person is the real cause of our first passion, and of consequence is intimately connected with it. It is his approbation that produces pride; and disapprobation, humility. No wonder, then, the imagination returns back again attended with the related passions of love and hatred. This is not a contradiction, but an exception to the rule; and an exception that arises from the same reason with the rule itself. Such an exception as this is, therefore, rather a confirmation of the rule. And indeed, if we consider all the eight experiments I have explained, we shall find that the same principle appears in all of them, and that it is by means of a transition arising from a double relation of impressions and ideas, pride and humility, love and hatred are produced. An object without [First Experiment.] a relation, or [Second and Third Experiments] with but one, never produces either of these passions; and it is [Fourth Experiment.] found that the passion always varies in conformity to the relation. Nay we may observe, that where the relation, by any particular circumstance, has not its usual effect of producing a transition either of [Sixth Experiment.] ideas or of impressions, it ceases to operate upon the passions, and gives rise neither to pride nor love, humility nor hatred. This rule we find still to hold good [Seventh and Eighth Experiments.] even under the appearance of its contrary; and as relation is frequently experienced to have no effect; which upon examination is found to proceed from some particular circumstance, that prevents the transition; so even in instances, where that circumstance, though present, prevents not the transition, it is found to arise from some other circumstance, which counter-balances it. Thus not only the variations resolve themselves into the general principle, but even the variations of these variations. DIFFICULTIES SOLVED. After so many and such undeniable proofs drawn from daily experience and observation, it may seem superfluous to enter into a particular examination of all the causes of love and hatred. I shall, therefore, employ the sequel of this part, First, In removing some difficulties, concerning particular causes of these passions. Secondly, In examining the compound affections, which arise from the mixture of love and hatred with other emotions. Nothing is more evident, than that any person acquires our kindness, or is exposed to our ill-will, in proportion to the pleasure or uneasiness we receive from him, and that the passions keep pace exactly with the sensations in all their changes and variations. Whoever can find the means either by his services, his beauty, or his flattery, to render himself useful or agreeable to us, is sure of our affections: As on the other hand, whoever harms or displeases us never fails to excite our anger or hatred. When our own nation is at war with any other, we detest them under the character of cruel, perfidious, unjust and violent: But always esteem ourselves and allies equitable, moderate, and merciful. If the general of our enemies be successful, it is with difficulty we allow him the figure and character of a man. He is a sorcerer: He has a communication with daemons; as is reported of OLIVER CROMWELL, and the DUKE OF LUXEMBOURG: He is bloody-minded, and takes a pleasure in death and destruction. But if the success be on our side, our commander has all the opposite good qualities, and is a pattern of virtue, as well as of courage and conduct. His treachery we call policy: His cruelty is an evil inseparable from war. In short, every one of his faults we either endeavor to extenuate, or dignify it with the name of that virtue, which approaches it. It is evident the same method of thinking runs through common life. There are some, who add another condition, and require not only that the pain and pleasure arise from the person, but likewise that it arise knowingly, and with a particular design and intention. A man, who wounds and harms us by accident, becomes not our enemy upon that account, nor do we think ourselves bound by any ties of gratitude to one, who does us any service after the same manner. By the intention we judge of the actions, and according as that is good or bad, they become causes of love or hatred. But here we must make a distinction. If that quality in another, which pleases or displeases, be constant and inherent in his person and character, it will cause love or hatred independent of the intention: But otherwise a knowledge and design is requisite, in order to give rise to these passions. One that is disagreeable by his deformity or folly is the object of our aversion, though nothing be more certain, than that he has not the least intention of displeasing us by these qualities. But if the uneasiness proceed not from a quality, but an action, which is produced and annihilated in a moment, it is necessary, in order to produce some relation, and connect this action sufficiently with the person. that it be derived from a particular fore-thought and design. It is not enough, that the action arise from the person, and have him for its immediate cause and author. This relation alone is too feeble and inconstant to be a foundation for these passions. It reaches not the sensible and thinking part, and neither proceeds from any thing durable in him, nor leaves any thing behind it; but passes in a moment, and is as if it had never been. On the other hand, an intention shows certain qualities, which remaining after the action is performed, connect it with the person, and facilitate the transition of ideas from one to the other. We can never think of him without reflecting on these qualities; unless repentance and a change of life have produced an alteration in that respect: In which case the passion is likewise altered. This therefore is one reason, why an intention is requisite to excite either love or hatred. But we must farther consider, that an intention, besides its strengthening the relation of ideas, is often necessary to produce a relation of impressions, and give rise to pleasure and uneasiness. For it is observable, that the principal part of an injury is the contempt and hatred, which it shows in the person, that injures us; and without that, the mere harm gives us a less sensible uneasiness. In like manner, a good office is agreeable, chiefly because it flatters our vanity, and is a proof of the kindness and esteem of the person, who performs it. The removal of the intention, removes the mortification in the one case, and vanity in the other, and must of course cause a remarkable diminution in the passions of love and hatred. I grant, that these effects of the removal of design, in diminishing the relations of impressions and ideas, are not entire, nor able to remove every degree of these relations. But then I ask, if the removal of design be able entirely to remove the passion of love and hatred? Experience, I am sure, informs us of the contrary, nor is there any thing more certain, than that men often fall into a violent anger for injuries, which they themselves must own to be entirely involuntary and accidental. This emotion, indeed, cannot be of long continuance; but still is sufficient to show, that there is a natural connection betwixt uneasiness and anger, and that the relation of impressions will operate upon a very small relation of ideas. But when the violence of the impression is once a little abated, the defect of the relation begins to be better felt; and as the character of a person is no wise interested in such injuries as are casual and involuntary, it seldom happens that on their account, we entertain a lasting enmity. To illustrate this doctrine by a parallel instance, we may observe, that not only the uneasiness, which proceeds from another by accident, has but little force to excite our passion, but also that which arises from an acknowledged necessity and duty. One that has a real design of harming us, proceeding not from hatred and ill-will, but from justice and equity, draws not upon him our anger, if we be in any degree reasonable; notwithstanding he is both the cause, and the knowing cause of our sufferings. Let us examine a little this phenomenon. It is evident in the first place, that this circumstance is not decisive; and though it may be able to diminish the passions, it is seldom it can entirely remove them. How few criminals are there, who have no ill-will to the person, that accuses them, or to the judge, that condemns them, even though they be conscious of their own deserts? In like manner our antagonist in a law-suit, and our competitor for any office, are commonly regarded as our enemies; though we must acknowledge, if we would but reflect a moment, that their motive is entirely as justifiable as our own. Besides we may consider, that when we receive harm from any person, we are apt to imagine him criminal, and it is with extreme difficulty we allow of his justice and innocence. This is a clear proof, that, independent of the opinion of iniquity, any harm or uneasiness has a natural tendency to excite our hatred, and that afterwards we seek for reasons upon which we may justify and establish the passion. Here the idea of injury produces not the passion, but arises from it. Nor is it any wonder that passion should produce the opinion of injury; since otherwise it must suffer a considerable diminution, which all the passions avoid as much as possible. The removal of injury may remove the anger, without proving that the anger arises only from the injury. The harm and the justice are two contrary objects, of which the one has a tendency to produce hatred, and the other love; and it is according to their different degrees, and our particular turn of thinking, that either of the objects prevails, and excites its proper passion. OF THE LOVE OF RELATIONS. Having given a reason, why several actions, that cause a real pleasure or uneasiness, excite not any degree, or but a small one, of the passion of love or hatred towards the actors; it will be necessary to show, wherein consists the pleasure or uneasiness of many objects, which we find by According to the preceding system there is always required a double relation of impressions and ideas betwixt the cause and effect, in order to produce either love or hatred. But though this be universally true, it is remarkable that the passion of love may be excited by only one relation of a different kind, via, betwixt ourselves and the object; or more properly speaking, that this relation is always attended with both the others. Whoever is united to us by any connection is always sure of a share of our love, proportioned to the connection, without enquiring into his other qualities. Thus the relation of blood produces the strongest tie the mind is capable of in the love of parents to their children, and a lesser degree of the same affection, as the relation lessens. Nor has consanguinity alone this effect, but any other relation without exception. We love our country-men, our neighbors, those of the same trade, profession, and even name with ourselves. Every one of these relations is esteemed some tie, and gives a title to a share of our affection. There is another phenomenon, which is parallel to this, via, that acquaintance, without any kind of relation, gives rise to love and kindness. When we have contracted a habitude and intimacy with any person; though in frequenting his company we have not been able to discover any very valuable quality, of which he is possessed; yet we cannot forebear preferring him to strangers, of whose superior merit we are fully convinced. These two phenomena of the effects of relation and acquaintance will give mutual light to each other, and may be both explained from the same principle. Those, who take a pleasure in declaiming against human nature, have observed, that man is altogether insufficient to support himself; and that when you loosen all the holds, which he has of external objects, he immediately drops down into the deepest melancholy and despair. From this, say they, proceeds that continual search after amusement in gaming, in hunting, in business; by which we endeavor to forget ourselves, and excite our spirits from the languid state, into which they fall, when not sustained by some brisk and lively emotion. To this method of thinking I so far agree, that I own the mind to be insufficient, of itself, to its own entertainment, and that it naturally seeks after foreign objects, which may produce a lively sensation, and agitate the spirits. On the appearance of such an object it awakes, as it were, from a dream: The blood flows with a new tide: The heart is elevated: And the whole man acquires a vigor, which he cannot command in his solitary and calm moments. Hence company is naturally so rejoicing, as presenting the liveliest of all objects, via, a rational and thinking Being like ourselves, who communicates to us all the actions of his mind; makes us privy to his inmost sentiments and affections; and lets us see, in the very instant of their production, all the emotions, which are caused by any object. Every lively idea is agreeable, but especially that of a passion, because such an idea becomes a kind of passion, and gives a more sensible agitation to the mind, than any other image or conception. This being once admitted, all the rest is easy. For as the company of strangers is agreeable to us for a short time, by enlivening our thought; so the company of our relations and acquaintance must be peculiarly agreeable, because it has this effect in a greater degree, and is of more durable influence. Whatever is related to us is conceived in a lively manner by the easy transition from ourselves to the related object. Custom also, or acquaintance facilitates the entrance, and strengthens the conception of any object. The first case is parallel to our reasoning’s from cause and effect; the second to education. And as reasoning and education concur only in producing a lively and strong idea of any object; so is this the only particular, which is common to relation and acquaintance. This must, therefore, be the influencing quality, by which they produce all their common effects; and love or kindness being one of these effects, it must be from the force and liveliness of conception, that the passion is derived. Such a conception is peculiarly agreeable, and makes us have an affectionate regard for every thing, that produces it, when the proper object of kindness and goodwill. It is obvious, that people associate together according to their particular tempers and dispositions, and that men of gay tempers naturally love the gay; as the serious bear an affection to the serious. This not only happens, where they remark this resemblance betwixt themselves and others, but also by the natural course of the disposition, and by a certain sympathy, which always arises betwixt similar characters. Where they remark the resemblance, it operates after the manner of a relation, by producing a connection of ideas. Where they do not remark it, it operates by some other principle; and if this latter principle be similar to the former, it must be received as a confirmation of the foregoing reasoning. The idea of ourselves is always intimately present to us, and conveys a sensible degree of vivacity to the idea of any other object, to which we are related. This lively idea changes by degrees into a real impression; these two kinds of perception being in a great measure the same, and differing only in their degrees of force and vivacity. But this change must be produced with the greater ease, that our natural temper gives us a propensity to the same impression, which we observe in others, and makes it arise upon any slight occasion. In that case resemblance converts the idea into an impression, not only by means of the relation, and by transfusing the original vivacity into the related idea; but also by presenting such materials as take fire from the least spark. And as in both cases a love or affection arises from the resemblance, we may learn that a sympathy with others is agreeable only by giving an emotion to the spirits, since an easy sympathy and correspondent emotions are alone common to RELATION, ACQUAINTANCE, and RESEMBLANCE. The great propensity men have to pride may be considered as another similar phenomenon. It often happens, that after we have lived a considerable time in any city; however at first it might be disagreeable to us; yet as we become familiar with the objects, and contact an acquaintance, though merely with the streets and buildings, the aversion diminishes by degrees, and at last changes into the opposite passion. The mind finds a satisfaction and ease in the view of objects, to which it is accustomed, and naturally prefers them to others, which, though, perhaps, in themselves more valuable, are less known to it. By the same quality of the mind we are seduced into a good opinion of ourselves, and of all objects, that belong to us. They appear in a stronger light; are more agreeable; and consequently fitter subjects of pride and vanity, than any other. It may not be amiss, in treating of the affection we bear our acquaintance and relations, to observe some pretty curious phenomena, which attend it. It is easy to remark in common life, that children esteem their relation to their mother to be weakened, in a great measure, by her second marriage, and no longer regard her with the same eye, as if she had continued in her state of widow-hood. Nor does this happen only, when they have felt any inconveniences from her second marriage, or when her husband is much her inferior; but even without any of these considerations, and merely because she has become part of another family. This also takes place with regard to the second marriage of a father; but in a much less degree: And it is certain the ties of blood are not so much loosened in the latter case as by the marriage of a mother. These two phenomena are remarkable in themselves, but much more so when compared. In order to produce a perfect relation betwixt two objects, it is requisite, not only that the imagination be conveyed from one to the other by resemblance, contiguity or causation, but also that it return back from the second to the first with the same ease and facility. At first sight this may seem a necessary and unavoidable consequence. If one object resemble another, the latter object must necessarily resemble the former. If one object be the cause of another, the second object is effect to its cause. It is the same case with contiguity: And therefore the relation being always reciprocal, it may be thought, that the return of the imagination from the second to the first must also, in every case, be equally natural as its passage from the first to the second. But upon farther examination we shall easily discover our mistake. For supposing the second object, beside its reciprocal relation to the first, to have also a strong relation to a third object; in that case the thought, passing from the first object to the second, returns not back with the same facility, though the relation continues the same; but is readily carried on to the third object, by means of the new relation, which presents itself, and gives a new impulse to the imagination. This new relation, therefore, weakens the tie betwixt the first and second objects. The fancy is by its very nature wavering and inconstant; and considers always two objects as more strongly related together, where it finds the passage equally easy both in going and returning, than where the transition is easy only in one of these motions. The double motion is a kind of a double tie, and binds the objects together in the closest and most intimate manner. The second marriage of a mother breaks not the relation of child and parent; and that relation suffices to convey my imagination from myself to her with the greatest ease and facility. But after the imagination is arrived at this point of view, it finds its object to be surrounded with so many other relations, which challenge its regard, that it knows not which to prefer, and is at a loss what new object to pitch upon. The ties of interest and duty bind her to another family, and prevent that return of the fancy from her to myself, which is necessary to support the union. The thought has no longer the vibration, requisite to set it perfectly at ease, and indulge its inclination to change. It goes with facility, but returns with difficulty; and by that interruption finds the relation much weakened from what it would be were the passage open and easy on both sides. Now to give a reason, why this effect follows not in the same degree upon the second marriage of a father: we may reflect on what has been proved already, that though the imagination goes easily from the view of a lesser object to that of a greater, yet it returns not with the same facility from the greater to the less. When my imagination goes from myself to my father, it passes not so readily from him to his second wife, nor considers him as entering into a different family, but as continuing the head of that family, of which I am myself a part. His superiority prevents the easy transition of the thought from him to his spouse, but keeps the passage still open for a return to myself along the same relation of child and parent. He is not sunk in the new relation he acquires; so that the double motion or vibration of thought is still easy and natural. By this indulgence of the fancy in its inconstancy, the tie of child and parent still preserves its full force and influence. A mother thinks not her tie to a son weakened, because it is shared with her husband: Nor a son his with a parent, because it is shared with a brother. The third object is here related to the first, as well as to the second; so that the imagination goes and comes along all of them with the greatest facility.