Human Nature and Reason ix 



Such, with variations and adaptations, will be 

 the "criticism" to which books of this character 

 are subjected. 



It is not necessary, of course, to read a book to 

 dismiss it in this manner; it suffices that it is 

 supposed to have an idealistic tendency. And 

 yet one has only to vary the formula a little 

 to see how this sort of criticism stands self-con- 

 demned. Let us make a variation and see the 

 result : 



Man is a blood-thirsty and unthinking creature. 

 His civilization is but skin-deep, and beneath this thin 

 varnish lie impulses of animalism reaching back to an 

 ancestry which stretches over asons of time. This 

 savage is only held in check by perceptions, under- 

 standings, and second thoughts so frail and dubious 

 that at any moment he is likely to get the better of 

 them and destroy the moral labour of toiling genera- 

 tions. Don't let us therefore bother to strengthen 

 those things. It is only by virtue of understanding, 

 of clearly realizing certain truths of human co-opera- 

 tion that we can make our civilization secure; there- 

 fore, do not let us trouble to understand those truths. 

 It is not practical. The practical thing is to have 

 plenty of "force" — and to place its employment in 

 the hands of men who don't realize in the least how it 

 should be used. Men are at bottom illogical, unseeing, 

 incapable of weighing the result of their acts; in that 

 case don't worry with sobering and rationalizing 

 influences ; the practical thing is to place unrestrictedly 

 at their disposal force of immeasurable destructive- 

 ness. Civilization will then be secure. 



