258 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



religious actions are profoundly affected by association. 

 In the eighteenth century a general intellectualistic 

 theory of politics and religion was developed by social 

 philosophers, and in the nineteenth it was applied 

 freely in practice. Man was (so they assured us) or 

 should be save as to human imperfection governed 

 exclusively by the cool light of reason. Passion and 

 prejudice were transient storms that merely ruffled 

 the surface of the normally unclouded mind. A crowd 

 was but a number of individuals, each a potential 

 philosopher with the torch of Reason in his hand. 

 The " People," could their real will be ascertained, 

 would govern not only themselves but each other 

 with the calm wisdom of the sage, the intellectual 

 acumen of the statesman, and the irresistible claims 

 to righteousness of a numerical majority. 



Now this a priori intellectualism has been shattered 

 by the patient study of facts. Men are not and never 

 have been governed by reason. The number of things 

 about which we, even the best of us, consciously 

 reason is very small. Economy of thought is as 

 important to success as economy of wealth. For the 

 most part, education and training are but practice 

 in association, either of ideas with ideas or of ideas 

 with action. Indeed, as Dr Whitehead tells us, 

 " civilization advances by extending the number of 

 important operations which we can perform without 

 thinking about them. Operations of thought are 

 like cavalry charges in a battle they are strictly 

 limited in number, they require fresh horses, and 

 must only be made at decisive moments." The 

 simple association of twice two with four, the complex 

 series of associations which enables a mathematician 



