242 Education through Nature 



directly, but must be achieved by a process of slow 

 growth and laborious mental effort; (8) that memory 

 is largely organic, and the result of experience in 

 modifying the reactions of protoplasm; (9) that a 

 gradual emancipation from authority, the sure even 

 though slow winning of freedom, is a consummation to 

 be desired. 



Original and Borrowed Ideas. The old psychology 

 was primarily an attempt to vindicate the humanistic 

 standpoint. One conspicuous feature of it was its 

 bookishness. Bookishness means authority. 



The man who aspired to authority was usually 

 he who could borrow most from others. Hence the 

 whole system became one of borrowed ideas. New 

 books were only old books rewritten. The test of a 

 good book was that it pay due respect to tradition. 

 Herein lay the danger; for it closed the avenues to 

 progress, as it closed the mind to new truths. He 

 who ventured to utter ideas not conforming to this 

 test was declared a heretic; hence additional induce- 

 ment was extended to the borrower, and considerable 

 prestige was thus secured by the very ones who least 

 deserved it, with due allowance for conservatism in 

 even the original thinker. The struggle for existence 

 thus resulted in the survival of the weakest, the depend- 

 ents, rather than the strongest, those capable of self- 

 help. Thus again was the law of nature reversed. 

 The original thinker, the one who had knowledge at 

 first hand, was often made the victim of persecutions; 

 and the parasite, who merely conformed to the authori- 

 ties of the past, was made his master and his mentor. 

 Herein lay the secret of that inevitable decay which 

 such artificial systems engender. 



But what are original and what are borrowed ideas ? 

 The German poet, Schiller, has uttered these words: 

 " Dost thou aspire to the highest and the noblest, the 

 plant can teach it thee. What it is, involuntarily, be 



