CHAPTER IV 



POWER IN CIVILIZATION RESTS ON 

 COLLECTIVE EMOTION, NOT ON REASON 



IN setting out to write the chapters in this 

 section and those which follow, I feel that I 

 am engaging in the presentation in brief 

 outline of the system of knowledge which must in 

 the order of nature become the basis of a new type 

 of civilization. The reason for this conviction 

 will appear presently ; but it is desirable at this 

 point to endeavour to get as clear and firm a grasp 

 as possible of a few fundamental positions which 

 are involved at the outset. 



It will have been noticed in the preceding chapters 

 dealing with the failure of Western knowledge that 

 all the leaders of the great pagan revival in the 

 West have given prominence to one leading idea, 

 namely, that of inborn heredity as the basis of 

 the fabric of civilization. For over half a century 

 this idea has been put forward with great force as 

 the direct opposite of two conceptions previously 

 deeply entrenched in the life of the West and both 



