THE HUMAN WILL 



function of telling me how best to achieve my end; 

 the pilot is neither the breeze nor the chooser of 

 the port, but he suggests how best to use the one 

 in order to gain the other. This is the function of 

 reason. 



The common delusion, however, is that men are 

 determined by their reason. It is thought that 

 you have only to instil rational considerations 

 into people and they will act rationally. When 

 they do not, we say indignantly that man is not 

 a rational animal not understanding what to ex 

 pect of the reason. We conduct education on this 

 principle. We take no heed for the emotional nat 

 ure, the main-spring of action, but spend all our 

 energies on the development of the intellect, as if to 

 know the right were to follow it. Nor do we learn 

 by our mistakes. We teach a boy that it is wrong 

 to steal. He fully appreciates this concept, but 

 nevertheless he steals ; whereat we are disappointed, 

 and descant upon the anomalous fashion in which 

 our instruction has miscarried. When the ele 

 ments of psychology are common knowledge, cur 

 rent even in our legislature, we may direct our 

 primary educational efforts to the emotions and 

 not to the reason, it being better to steer an un 

 skilful course to a worthy goal than to take the 

 shortest and quickest road to perdition. The rea 

 son is absolutely neutral, absolutely non-moral. 

 Supposing that education of the reason could 

 endow every one with the intellectual capacity of 

 a Napoleon, who would be the happier or better 



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