6 THE GLANDS REGULATING PERSONALITY 



dents, no one can tell whether they will turn out true shots or 

 just flashes in the pan. So it looks the better course to stick to 

 the plan of nature, which seems to be the raising of the level of 

 the normals, and the gradual increase of their faculties and 

 powers. 



What the Statesman Is Up Against 



Under the terms of the democratic formula the problems of 

 the statesman seem to become enormously simplified. That is, if 

 one assumes that he has worked out a perfectly clear idea of what 

 a democracy means and what the normal means. Assuming 

 these unassumables, his problem simplifies into the definite object 

 of producing and developing the greatest possible number of 

 normals — or if you will, the greatest happiness of the greatest 

 number of normal lives. 



Furthermore you then begin to have the entirely novel possi- 

 bility in the world: some sort of collective effort for a collective 

 purpose, beyond the personal greeds and fears, factions and 

 hatreds. So the state, instead of fulfilling its old function of 

 serving as the tool of certain powerful individuals, latterly known 

 as the Big Men, might be transformed into an instrument toward 

 freedom. With the ideal of a democracy of the normals ever 

 before him, the statesman could go on to construct and modify 

 his social machinery. That would entail the satisfaction not 

 alone of the animal needs, but also the highest aspirations and 

 therefore the provision of the finest conditions of life for the 

 normal: those most favorable, stimulative, and assistant to crea- 

 tive activity. For what else is the content of the idea of freedom? 



Without committing the intellectual sin which William James 

 named Vicious Abstractionism, the goal of the clearest progres- 

 sive and liberal thought and forces of the twentieth century 

 might be summed up as this freedom in a democracy of normals. 

 A good formula which coincides with the technique of nature in 

 the evolution of species. A fair fight, a free-for-all who are 

 unhandicapped, is the motto of natural selection. Where civiliza- 

 tion shakes hands with natural instinct, what but the happiest 

 of results can be expected? 



Unfortunately, the formula in human society possesses an 

 Achilles' heel. Again it is slavery. Where slavery has become 

 bred into the bone, the standard of the normal becomes reduced 

 so tremendously that the average of normals, the majority, are 



