NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1922

Copyright, 1922,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

First Printing, Jan., 1922
Second Printing, Mar., 1922
Third Printing, June, 1922
Fourth Printing, Aug., 1922
Fifth Printing, Nov., 1922
Sixth Printing, April, 1923

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY

PREFACE

In the spring of 1918 I was invited by Leland Stanford Junior University to give a series of three lectures upon the West Memorial Foundation. One of the topics included within the scope of the Foundation is Human Conduct and Destiny. This volume is the result, as, according to the terms of the Foundation, the lectures are to be published. The lectures as given have, however, been rewritten and considerably expanded. An Introduction and Conclusion have been added. The lectures should have been published within two years from delivery. Absence from the country rendered strict compliance difficult; and I am indebted to the authorities of the University for their indulgence in allowing an extension of time, as well as for so many courtesies received during the time when the lectures were given.

Perhaps the sub-title requires a word of explanation. The book does not purport to be a treatment of social psychology. But it seriously sets forth a belief that an understanding of habit and of different types of habit is the key to social psychology, while the operation of impulse and intelligence gives the key to individualized mental activity. But they are secondary to habit so that mind can be understood in the concrete only as a system of beliefs, desires and purposes which are formed in the interaction of biological aptitudes with a social environment.J. D.

February, 1921

CONTENTS

•  PAGE
• INTRODUCTION 1
• Contempt for human nature; pathology of goodness; freedom; value of science.

PART ONE

THE PLACE OF HABIT IN CONDUCT

• Section I: Habits as Social Functions 14
• Habits as functions and arts; social complicity; subjective factor.
• Section II: Habits and Will 24
• Active means; ideas of ends; means and ends; nature of character.
• Section III: Character and Conduct 43
• Good will and consequences; virtues and natural goods; objective and subjective morals.
• Section IV: Custom and Habit 58
• Human psychology is social; habit as conservative; mind and body.
• Section V: Custom and Morality 75
• Customs as standards; authority of standards; class conflicts.
• Section VI: Habit and Social Psychology 84
• Isolation of individuality; newer movements.

PART TWO

THE PLACE OF IMPULSE IN CONDUCT

• Section I: Impulses and Change of Habits 89
• Present interest in instincts; impulses as re-organizing.
• Section II: Plasticity of Impulse 95
• Impulse and education; uprush of impulse; fixed codes.
• Section III: Changing Human Nature 106
• Habits the inert factor; modification of impulses; war a social function; economic regimes as social products; nature of motives.
• Section IV: Impulse and Conflict of Habits 125
• Possibility of social betterment; conservatism.
• Section V: Classification of Instincts 131
• False simplifications; "self-love"; will to power; acquisitive and creative.
• Section VI: No Separate Instincts 149
• Uniqueness of acts; possibilities of operation; necessity of play and art; rebelliousness.
• Section VII: Impulse and Thought 169

PART THREE

THE PLACE OF INTELLIGENCE IN CONDUCT

• Section I: Habit and Intelligence 172
• Habits and intellect; mind, habit and impulse.
• Section II: The Psychology of Thinking 181
• The trinity of intellect; conscience and its alleged separate subject-matter.
• Section III: The Nature of Deliberation 189
• Deliberation as imaginative rehearsal; preference and choice; strife of reason and passion; nature of reason.
• Section IV: Deliberation and Calculation 199
• Error in utilitarian theory; place of the pleasant; hedonistic calculus; deliberation and prediction.
• Section V: The Uniqueness of Good 210
• Fallacy of a single good; applied to utilitarianism; profit and personality; means and ends.
• Section VI: The Nature of Aims 223
• Theory of final ends; aims as directive means; ends as justifying means; meaning well as an aim; wishes and aims.
• Section VII: The Nature of Principles 238
• Desire for certainty; morals and probabilities; importance of generalizations.
• Section VIII: Desire and Intelligence 248
• Object and consequence of desire; desire and quiescence; self-deception in desire; desire needs intelligence; nature of idealism; living in the ideal.
• Section IX: The Present and Future 265
• Subordination of activity to result; control of future; production and consummation; idealism and distant goals.

PART FOUR

CONCLUSION

• Section I: The Good of Activity 278
• Better and worse; morality a process; evolution and progress; optimism; Epicureanism; making others happy.
• Section II: Morals are Human 295
• Humane morals; natural law and morals; place of science.
• Section III: What is Freedom? 303
• Elements in freedom; capacity in action; novel possibilities; force of desire.
• Section IV: Morality Is Social 314
• Conscience and responsibility; social pressure and opportunity; exaggeration of blame; importance of social psychology; category of right; the community as religious symbol.