ancien régime
by
the encyclopedists. But the struggle will be harder because the mode of existence brought
to us by technology is as pleasant as the habit of taking alcohol, opium, or cocaine. The
few in-
dividuals who are animated by the spirit of revolt might organize in secret groups. At
present, the protection of children is almost impossible. The influence of the school,
private as well as public, cannot be counterbalanced. The young who have been freed by
intelligent parents from the usual medical, pedagogical, and social superstitions, relapse
through the example of their comrades. All are obliged to conform to the habits of the
herd. The renovation of the individual demands his affiliation with a group sufficiently
numerous to separate from others and to possess its own schools. Under the impulse of
the centers of new thought, some universities may perhaps be led to abandon the classical
forms of education and prepare youth for the life of tomorrow with the help of disciplines
based on the true nature of man.
A group, although very small, is capable of eluding the harmful influence of the society
of its epoch by imposing upon its members rules of conduct modeled on military or
monastic discipline. Such a method is far from being new. Humanity has already lived
through periods when communities of men or women separated from others and adopted
strict regulations, in order to attain their ideals. Such groups were responsible for the
development of our civilization during the Middle Ages. There were the monastic orders,
the orders of chivalry, and the corporations of artisans. Among the religious
organizations, some took refuge in monasteries, while others remained in the world. But
all submitted to strict physiological and mental discipline. The knights complied with
rules varying according to the aims of the different orders. In certain circumstances, they
were obliged to sacrifice their lives. As for the artisans, their relations between
themselves and with the public were determined by exacting legislation. Each corporation
had its customs, its ceremonies, and its religious celebrations. In short, the members of
these communities renounced the ordinary forms of existence. Are we not capable of
repeating, in a different form, the accomplishments of the monks, the knights, and the
artisans of the Middle Ages? Two essential conditions for the progress of the individual
are relative isolation and discipline. Each individual, even in the new city, can submit
himself to these conditions. One has the power of refusing to go to certain plays or
cinemas, to send one's children to certain schools, to listen to radio programs, to read
certain newspapers, certain books, etc. But it is chiefly through intellectual and moral
discipline, and the rejection of the habits of the herd, that we can reconstruct ourselves.
Sufficiently large groups could lead a still more personal life. The Doukhobors of Canada
have demonstrated that those whose will is strong can secure complete independence,
even in the midst of modern civilization.
The dissenting groups would not need to be very numerous to bring about profound
changes in modern society. It is a well-established fact that discipline gives great strength
to men. An ascetic and mystic minority would rapidly acquire an irresistible power over
the dissolute and degraded majority. Such a minority would be in a position to impose, by
persuasion or perhaps by force, other ways of life upon the majority. None of the dogmas
of modern society are immutable. Gigantic factories, office buildings rising to the sky,
inhuman cities, industrial morals, faith in mass production, are not indispensable to
civilization. Other modes of existence and of thought are possible. Culture without
comfort, beauty without luxury, machines without enslaving factories, science without
the worship of matter, would restore to man his intelligence, his moral sense, his virility,
and lead him to the summit of his development.
6
A choice must be made among the multitude of civilized human beings. We have
mentioned that natural selection has not played its part for a long while. That many
inferior individuals have been conserved through the efforts of hygiene and medicine.
But we cannot prevent the reproduction of the weak when they are neither insane nor
criminal. Or destroy sickly or defective children as we do the weaklings in a litter of
puppies. The only way to obviate the disastrous predominance of the weak is to develop
the strong. Our efforts to render normal the unfit are evidently useless. We should, then,
turn our attention toward promoting the optimum growth of the fit. By making the strong
still stronger, we could effectively help the weak; For the herd always profits by the ideas
and inventions of the elite. Instead of leveling organic and mental inequalities, we should
amplify them and construct greater men.
We must single out the children who are endowed with high potentialities, and develop
them as completely as possible. And in this manner give to the nation a non-hereditary
aristocracy. Such children may be found in all classes of society, although distinguished
men appear more frequently in distinguished families than in others. The descendants of
the founders of American civilization may still possess the ancestral qualities. These
qualities are generally hidden under the cloak of degeneration. But this degeneration is
often superficial. It comes chiefly from education, idleness, lack of responsibility and
moral discipline. The sons of very rich men, like those of criminals, should be removed
while still infants from their natural surroundings. Thus separated from their family, they
could manifest their hereditary strength. In the aristocratic families of Europe there are
also individuals of great vitality. The issue of the Crusaders is by no means extinct. The
laws of genetics indicate the probability that the legendary audacity and love of adventure
can appear again in the lineage of the feudal lords. It is possible also that the offspring of
the great criminals who had imagination, courage, and judgment, of the heroes of the
French or Russian Revolutions, of the high-handed business men who live among us,
might be excellent building stones for an enterprising minority. As we know, criminality
is not hereditary if not united with feeble-mindedness or other mental or cerebral defects.
High potentialities are rarely encountered in the sons of honest, intelligent, hard-working
men who have had ill luck in their careers, who have failed in business or have muddled
along all their lives in inferior positions. Or among peasants living on the same spot for
centuries. However, from such people sometimes spring artists, poets, adventurers, saints.
A brilliantly gifted and well-known New York family came from peasants who cultivated
their farm in the south of France from the time of Charlemagne to that of Napoleon.
Boldness and strength suddenly appear in families where they have never before been
observed. Mutations may occur in man, just as they do in other animals and in plants.
Nevertheless, one should not expect to find among peasants and proletarians many
subjects endowed with great developmental possibilities. In fact, the separation of the
population of a free country into different classes is not due to chance or to social
conventions. It rests on a solid biological basis, the physiological and mental peculiarities
of the individuals. In democratic countries, such as the United States and France, for
example, any man had the possibility during the last century of rising to the position his
capacities enabled him to hold. Today, most of the members of the proletarian class owe
their situation to the hereditary weakness of their organs and their mind. Likewise, the
peasants have remained attached to the soil since the Middle Ages, because they possess
the courage, judgment, physical resistance, and lack of imagination and daring which
render them apt for this type of life. These unknown farmers, anonymous soldiers,
passionate lovers of the soil, the backbone of the European nations, were, despite their
great qualities, of a weaker organic and psychological constitution than the medieval
barons who conquered the land and defended it victoriously against all invaders.
Originally, the serfs and the chiefs were really born serfs and chiefs. Today, the weak
should not be artificially maintained in wealth and power. It is imperative that social
classes should be synonymous with biological classes. Each individual must rise or sink
to the level for which he is fitted by the quality of his tissues and of his soul. The social
ascension of those who possess the best organs and the best minds should be aided. Each
one must have his natural place. Modern nations will save themselves by developing the
strong. Not by protecting the weak.
7
Eugenics is indispensable for the perpetuation of the strong. A great race must
propagate its best elements. However, in the most highly civilized nations reproduction is
decreasing and yields inferior products. Women voluntarily deteriorate through alcohol
and tobacco. They subject themselves to dangerous dietary regimens in order to obtain a
conventional slenderness of their figure. Besides, they refuse to bear children. Such a
defection is due to their education, to the progress of feminism, to the growth of short-
sighted selfishness. It also comes from economic conditions, nervous unbalance,
instability of marriage, and fear of the burden imposed upon parents by the weakness or
precocious corruption of children. The women belonging to the oldest stock, whose
children would, in all probability, be of good quality, and who are in a position to bring
them up intelligently, are almost sterile. It is the newcomers, peasants and proletarians
from primitive European countries, who beget large families. But their offspring are far
from having the value of those who came from the first settlers of North America. There
is no hope for an increase in the birth rate before a revolution takes place in the habits of
thinking and living, and a new ideal rises above the horizon.
Eugenics may exercise a great influence upon the destiny of the civilized races. Of
course, the reproduction of human beings cannot be regulated as in animals. The
propagation of the insane and the feeble-minded, nevertheless, must be prevented. A
medical examination should perhaps be imposed on people about to marry, as for
admission into the army or the navy, or for employees in hotels, hospitals, and
department stores. However, the security given by medical examination is not at all
positive. The contradictory statements made by experts before the courts of justice
demonstrate that these examinations often lack any value. It seems that eugenics, to be
useful, should be voluntary. By an appropriate education, each one could be made to
realize what wretchedness is in store for those who marry into families contaminated by
syphilis, cancer, tuberculosis, insanity, or feeble-mindedness. Such families should be
considered by young people at least as undesirable as those which are poor. In truth, they
are more dangerous than gangsters and murderers. No criminal causes so much misery in
a human group as the tendency to insanity. Voluntary eugenics is not impossible. Indeed,
love is supposed to blow as freely as the wind. But the belief in this peculiarity of love is
shaken by the fact that many young men fall in love only with rich girls, and vice versa.
If love is capable of listening to money, it may also submit to a consideration as practical
as that of health. None should marry a human being suffering from hidden hereditary
defects. Most of man's misfortunes are due to his organic and mental constitution and, in
a large measure, to his heredity. Obviously, those who are afflicted with a heavy ancestral
burden of insanity, feeblemindedness, or cancer should not marry. No human being has
the right to bring misery to another human being. Still less, that of procreating children
destined to misery. Thus, eugenics asks for the sacrifice of many individuals. This
necessity, with which we meet for the second time, seems to be the expression of a
natural law. Many living beings are sacrificed at every instant by nature to other living
beings. We know the social and individual importance of renunciation. Nations have
always paid the highest honors to those who gave up their lives to save their country. The
concept of sacrifice, of its absolute social necessity, must be introduced into the mind of
modern man.
Although eugenics may prevent the weakening of the strong, it is insufficient to
determine their unlimited progress. In the purest races, individuals do not rise beyond a
certain level. However, among men, as among thoroughbred horses, exceptional beings
appear from time to time. The determining factors of genius are entirely unknown. We
are incapable of inducing a progressive evolution of germ-plasm, of bringing about by
appropriate mutations the appearance of superior men. We must be content with
facilitating the union of the best elements of the race through education and certain
economic advantages. The progress of the strong depends on the conditions of their
development and the possibility left to parents of transmitting to their offspring the
qualities which they have acquired in the course of their existence. Modern society must,
therefore, allow to all a certain stability of life, a home, a garden, some friends. Children
must be reared in contact with things which are the expression of the mind of their
parents. It is imperative to stop the transformation of the farmer, the artisan, the artist, the
professor, and the man of science into manual or intellectual proletarians, possessing
nothing but their hands or their brains. The development of this proletariat will be the
everlasting shame of industrial civilization. It has contributed to the disappearance of the
family as a social unit, and to the weakening of intelligence and moral sense. It is
destroying the remains of culture. All forms of the proletariat must be suppressed. Each
individual should have the security and the stability required for the foundation of a
family. Marriage must cease being only a temporary union. The union of man and
woman, like that of the higher anthropoids, ought to last at least until the young have no
further need of protection. The laws relating to education, and especially to that of girls,
to marriage, and divorce should, above all, take into account the interest of children.
Women should receive a higher education, not in order to become doctors, lawyers, or
professors, but to rear their offspring to be valuable human beings.
The free practice of eugenics could lead not only to the development of stronger
individuals, but also of strains endowed with more endurance, intelligence, and courage.
These strains should constitute an aristocracy, from which great men would probably
appear. Modern society must promote, by all possible means, the formation of better
human stock. No financial or moral rewards should be too great for those who, through
the wisdom of their marriage, would engender geniuses. The complexity of our
civilization is immense. No one can master all its mechanisms. However, these
mechanisms have to be mastered. There is need today of men of larger mental and moral
size, capable of accomplishing such a task. The establishment of a hereditary biological
aristocracy through voluntary eugenics would be an important step toward the solution of
our present problems.
8
Although our knowledge of man is still very incomplete, nevertheless it gives us the
power to intervene in his formation, and to help him unfold all his potentialities. To shape
him according to our wishes, provided these wishes conform to natural laws. Three
different procedures are at our disposal. The first comprises the physical and chemical
factors, which cause definite changes in the constitution of the tissues, humors, and mind.
The second sets in motion, through proper modifications in the environment, the adaptive
mechanisms regulating all human activities. The third makes use of psychological
factors, which influence organic development or induce the individual to build himself up
by his own efforts. The handling of these agencies is difficult, empirical, and uncertain.
We are not as yet well acquainted with them. They do not limit their effects to a single
aspect of the individual. They act slowly, even during childhood and youth. But they
always produce profound modifications of the body and of the mind.
The physical and chemical peculiarities of the climate, the soil, and the food can be
used as instruments for modeling the individual. Endurance and strength generally
develop in the mountains, in the countries where seasons are extreme, where mists are
frequent and sunlight rare, where hurricanes blow furiously, where the land is poor and
sown with rocks. The schools devoted to the formation of a hard and spirited youth
should be established in such countries, and not in southern climates where the sun
always shines and the temperature is even and warm. Florida and the French Riviera are
suitable for weaklings, invalids, and old people, or normal individuals in need of a short
rest. Moral energy, nervous equilibrium, and organic resistance are increased in children
when they are trained to withstand heat and cold, dryness and humidity, burning sun and
chilling rain, blizzards and fog--in short, the rigors of the seasons in northern countries.
The resourcefulness and hardihood of the Yankee were probably due, in a certain
measure, to the harshness of a climate where, under the sun of Spain, there are
Scandinavian winters. But these climatic factors have lost their efficiency since civilized
men are protected from inclemencies of the weather by the comfort and the sedentariness
of their life.
The effect of the chemical compounds contained in food upon physiological and mental
activities is far from being thoroughly known. Medical opinion on this point is of little
value, for no experiments of sufficient duration have been made upon human beings to
ascertain the influence of a given diet. There is no doubt that consciousness is affected by
the quantity and the quality of the food. Those who have to dare, dominate, and create
should not be fed like manual workers, or like contemplative monks who, in the solitude
of monasteries, endeavor to repress in their inner self the turmoil of the secular passions.
We have to discover what food is suitable for human beings vegetating in offices and
factories. What chemical substances could give intelligence, courage, and alertness to the
inhabitants of the new city. The race will certainly not be improved merely by supplying
children and adolescents with a great abundance of milk, cream, and all known vitamines.
It would be most useful to search for new compounds which, instead of uselessly
increasing the size and weight of the skeleton and of the muscles, would bring about
nervous strength and mental agility. Perhaps some day a scientist will discover how to
manufacture great men from ordinary children, in the same manner that bees transform a
common larva into a queen by the special food which they know how to prepare. But it is
probable that no chemical agent alone is capable of greatly improving the individual. We
must assume that the superiority of any organic and mental form is due to a combination
of hereditary and developmental conditions. And that, during development, chemical
factors are not to be separated from psychological and functional factors.
9
We know that adaptive processes stimulate organs and functions, that the more
effective way of improving tissues and mind is to maintain them in ceaseless activity.
The mechanisms, which determine in certain organs a series of reactions ordered toward
an end, can easily be set in motion. As is well known, a muscular group develops by
appropriate drill. If we wish to strengthen not only the muscles, but also the apparatuses
responsible for their nutrition and the organs which enable the body to sustain a
prolonged effort, exercises more varied than classical sports are indispensable. These
exercises are the same as were practiced daily in a more primitive life. Specialized
athletics, as taught in schools and universities, do not give real endurance. The efforts
requiring the help of muscles, vessels, heart, lungs, brain, spinal cord, and mind--that is,
of the entire organism--are necessary in the construction of the individual. Running over
rough ground, climbing mountains, wrestling, swimming, working in the forests and in
the fields, exposure to inclemencies, early moral responsibility, and a general harshness
of life bring about the harmony of the muscles, bones, organs, and consciousness.
In this manner, the organic systems enabling the body to adapt itself to the outside
world are trained and fully developed. The climbing of trees or rocks stimulates the
activity of the apparatuses regulating the composition of plasma, the circulation of the
blood, and the respiration. The organs responsible for the manufacture of red cells and
hemoglobin are set in motion by life at high altitudes. Prolonged running and the
necessity of eliminating acid produced by the muscles release processes extending over
the entire organism. Unsatisfied thirst drains water from the tissues. Fasting mobilizes the
proteins and fatty substances from the organs. Alternation from heat to cold and from
cold to heat sets at work the multiple mechanisms regulating the temperature. The
adaptive systems may be stimulated in many other ways. The whole body is improved
when they are brought into action. Ceaseless work renders all integrating apparatuses
stronger, more alert, and better fitted to carry out their many duties.
The harmony of our organic and psychological functions is one of the most important
qualities that we may possess. It can be acquired by means varying according to the
specific characteristics of each individual. But it always demands a voluntary effort.
Equilibrium is obtained in a large measure by intelligence and self-control. Man naturally
tends toward the satisfaction of his physiological appetites and artificial needs, such as a
craving for alcohol, speed, and ceaseless change. But he degenerates when he satisfies
these appetites completely. He must, then, accustom himself to dominate his hunger, his
need of sleep, his sexual impulses, his laziness, his fondness for muscular exercise, for
alcohol, etc. Too much sleep and food are as dangerous as too little. It is first by training
and later by a progressive addition of intellectual motives to the habits gained by training,
that individuals possessing strong and well-balanced activities may be developed. A
man's value depends on his capacity to face adverse situations rapidly and without effort.
Such alertness is attained by building up many kinds of reflexes and instinctive reactions.
The younger the individual, the easier is the establishment of reflexes. A child can
accumulate vast treasures of unconscious knowledge. He is easily trained, incomparably
more so than the most intelligent shepherd dog. He can be taught to run without tiring, to
fall like a cat, to climb, to swim, to stand and walk harmoniously, to observe everything
exactly, to wake quickly and completely, to speak several languages, to obey, to attack, to
defend himself, to use his hands dexterously in various kinds of work, etc. Moral habits
are created in an identical manner. Dogs themselves learn not to steal. Honesty, sincerity,
and courage are developed by the same procedures as those used in the formation of
reflexes-- that is, without argument, without discussion, without explanation. In a word,
children must be conditioned.
Conditioning, according to the terminology of Pavlov, is nothing but the establishment
of associated reflexes. It repeats in a scientific and modern form the procedures employed
for a long time by animal trainers. In the construction of these reflexes, a relation is
established between an unpleasant thing and a thing desired by the subject. The ringing of
a bell, the report of a gun, even the crack of a whip become for a dog the equivalent of
the food he likes. A similar phenomenon takes place in man. One does not suffer from
being deprived of food and sleep in the course of an expedition into an unknown country.
Physical pain and hardship are easily supported if they accompany the success of a
cherished enterprise. Death itself may smile when it is associated with some great
adventure, with the beauty of sacrifice, or with the illumination of the soul that becomes
immersed in God.
10
The psychological factors of development have a mighty influence on the individual, as
is well known. They can be used at will for giving both to the body and to the mind their
ultimate shape. We have mentioned how, by constructing proper reflexes in a child, one
may prepare that child to face certain situations advantageously. The individual who
possesses many acquired, or conditioned, reflexes reacts successfully to a number of
foreseen stimuli. For instance, if attacked, he can instantaneously draw his pistol. But he
is not prepared to respond properly to unforeseen stimuli, to unpredictable circumstances.
The aptitude for improvising a fitting response to all situations depends on precise
qualities of the nervous system, the organs, and the mind. These qualities can be
developed by definite psychological agencies. We know that mental and moral
disciplines, for instance, bring about a better equilibrium of the sympathetic system, a
more complete integration of all organic and mental activities. These agencies can be
divided into two classes: those acting from without, and those acting from within. To the
first class belong all reflexes and states of consciousness imposed on the subject by other
individuals or by his social environment. Insecurity or security, poverty or wealth, effort,
struggle, idleness, responsibility, create certain mental states capable of molding human
beings in an almost specific manner. The second class comprises the factors which
modify the subject from within, such as meditation, concentration, will to power,
asceticism, etc.
The use of mental factors in the making of man is delicate. We can, however, easily
direct the intellectual shaping of a child. Proper teachers, suitable books, introduce into
his inner world the ideas destined to influence the evolution of his tissues and his mind.
We have already mentioned that the growth of other mental activities, such as moral,
esthetic and religious senses, is independent of intelligence and formal teaching. The
psychological factors instrumental in training these activities are parts of the social
environment. The subjects, therefore, have to be placed in a proper setting. This includes
the necessity of surrounding them with a certain mental atmosphere. It is extremely
difficult today to give children the advantages resulting from privation, struggle,
hardship, and real intellectual culture. And from the development of a potent
psychological agency, the inner life. This private, hidden, not-to-be-shared, undemocratic
thing appears to the conservatism of many educators to be a damnable sin. However, it
remains the source of all originality. Of all great actions. It permits the individual to
retain his personality, his poise, and the stability of his nervous system in the confusion
of the new city.
Mental factors influence each individual in a different manner. They must be applied
only by those who fully understand the psychological and organic peculiarities which
distinguish human beings. The subjects who are weak or strong, sensitive or insensitive,
selfish or unselfish, intelligent or unintelligent, alert or apathetic, etc., react in their own
way to every psychological agency. There is no possibility of a wholesale application of
these delicate procedures for the construction of the mind and the body. However, there
are certain general conditions, both social and economic, which may act in a beneficial,
or harmful, way on each individual in a given community. Sociologists and economists
should never plan any change in the conditions of life without taking into consideration
the mental effects of this change. It is a primary datum of observation that man does not
progress in complete poverty, in prosperity, in peace, in too large a community, or in
isolation. He would probably reach his optimum development in the psychological
atmosphere created by a moderate amount of economic security, leisure, privation, and
struggle. The effects of these conditions differ according to each race and to each
individual. The events that crush certain people will drive others to revolt and victory.
We have to mold on man his social and economic world. To provide him with the
psychological surroundings capable of keeping his organic systems in full activity.
These factors are, of course, far more effective in children and adolescents than in
adults. They should constantly be used during this plastic period. But their influence,
although less marked, remains essential during the entire course of life. At the epoch of
maturity, when the value of time decreases, their importance becomes greater. Their
activity is most beneficial to aging people. Senescence seems to be delayed when body
and mind are kept working. In middle and old age, man needs a stricter discipline than in
childhood. The early deterioration of numerous individuals is due to self-indulgence. The
same factors that determine the shaping of the young human being are able to prevent the
deformation of the old. A wise use of these psychological influences would retard the
decay of many men, and the loss of intellectual and moral treasures, which sink
prematurely into the abyss of senile degeneration.
11
There are, as we know, two kinds of health, natural, and artificial. Scientific medicine
has given to man artificial health, and protection against most infectious diseases. It is a
mar-velous gift. But man is not content with health that is only lack of malady and
depends on special diets, chemicals, endocrine products, vitamines, periodical medical
examinations, and the expensive attention of hospitals, doctors, and nurses. He wants
natural health, which comes from resistance to infectious and degenerative diseases, from
equilibrium of the nervous system. He must be constructed so as to live without thinking
about his health. Medicine will achieve its greatest triumph when it discovers the means
of rendering the body and the mind naturally immune to diseases, fatigue, and fear. In
remaking modern human beings we must endeavor to give them the freedom and the
happiness engendered by the perfect soundness of organic and mental activities.
This conception of natural health will meet with strong opposition because it disturbs
our habits of thought. The present trend of medicine is toward artificial health, toward a
kind of directed physiology. Its ideal is to intervene in the work of tissues and organs
with the help of pure chemicals, to stimulate or replace deficient functions, to increase the
resistance of the organism to infection, to accelerate the reaction of the humors and the
organs to pathogenic agencies, etc. We still consider a human being to be a poorly
constructed machine, whose parts must be constantly reenforced or repaired. In a recent
address, Henry Dale has celebrated with great candor the triumphs of chemical
therapeutics during the last forty years, the discovery of antitoxic sera and bacterial
products, hormones, insulin, adrenalin, thyroxin, etc., of organic compounds of arsenic,
vitamines, substances controlling sexual functions, of a number of new compounds
synthetized in the laboratory for the relief of pain or the stimulation of some flagging
natural activity. And the advent of the gigantic industrial laboratories where these
substances are manufactured. There is no doubt that those achievements of chemistry and
physiology are extremely important, that they throw much light on the hidden
mechanisms of the body. But should they be hailed as great triumphs of humanity in its
striving toward health? This is far from being certain. Physiology cannot be compared
with economics. Organic, humoral, and mental processes are infinitely more complex
than economic and sociological phenomena. While directed economics may ultimately be
a success, directed physiology is a failure and will probably remain so.
Artificial health does not suffice for human happiness. Medical examinations, medical
care, are troublesome and often ineffectual. Drugs and hospitals are expensive. Men and
women are constantly in need of small repairs, although they appear to be in good health.
They are not well and strong enough to play their part of human beings fully. The
growing dissatisfaction of the public with the medical profession is, in some measure,
due to the existence of this evil. Medicine cannot give to man the kind of health he needs
without taking into consideration his true nature. We have learned that organs, humors,
and mind are one, that they are the result of hereditary tendencies, of the conditions of
development, of the chemical, physical, physiological, and mental factors of the
environment. That health depends on a definite chemical and structural constitution of
each part and on certain properties of the whole. We must help this whole to perform its
functions efficiently rather than intervene ourselves in the work of each organ. Some
individuals are immune to infections and degenerative diseases, and to the decay of
senescence. We have to learn their secret. It is the knowledge of the inner mechanisms
responsible for such endurance that we must acquire. The possession of natural health
would enormously increase the happiness of man.
The marvelous success of hygiene in the fight against infectious diseases and great
epidemics allows biological research to turn its attention partly from bacteria and viruses
to physiological and mental processes. Medicine, instead of being content with masking
organic lesions, must endeavor to prevent their occurence, or to cure them. For instance,
insulin brings about the disappearance of the symptoms of diabetes. But it does not cure
the disease. Diabetes can be mastered only by the discovery of its causes and of the
means of bringing about the repair or the replacement of the degenerated pancreatic cells.
It is obvious that the mere administration to the sick of the chemicals which they need is
not sufficient. The organs must be rendered capable of normally manufacturing these
chemicals within the body. But the knowledge of the mechanisms responsible for the
soundness of glands is far more profound than that of the products of these glands. We
have so far followed the easiest road. We now have to switch to rough ground and enter
uncharted countries. The hope of humanity lies in the prevention of degenerative and
mental diseases, not in the mere care of their symptoms. The progress of medicine will
not come from the construction of larger and better hospitals, of larger and better
factories for pharmaceutical products. It depends entirely on imagination, on observation
of the sick, on meditation and experimentation in the silence of the laboratory. And,
finally, on the unveiling, beyond the proscenium of chemical structures, of the
organismal and mental mysteries.
12
We now have to reestablish, in the fullness of his personality, the human being
weakened and standardized by modem life. Sexes have again to be clearly defined. Each
individual should be either male or female, and never manifest the sexual tendencies,
mental characteristics, and ambitions of the opposite sex. Instead of resembling a
machine produced in series, man should, on the contrary, emphasize his uniqueness. In
order to reconstruct personality, we must break the frame of the school, factory, and
office, and reject the very principles of technological civilization.
Such a change is by no means impracticable. The renovation of education requires
chiefly a reversal of the respective values attributed to parents and to school-teachers in
the formation of the child. We know that it is impossible to bring up individuals
wholesale, that the school cannot be considered as a substitute for individual education.
Teachers often fulfill their intellectual function well. But affective, esthetic, and religious
activities also need to be developed. Parents have to realize clearly that their part is
indispensable. They must be fitted for it. Is it not strange that the educational program for
girls does not contain in general any detailed study of infants and children, of their
physiological and mental characteristics? Her natural function, which consists not only of
bearing, but also of rearing, her young, should be restored to woman.
Like the school, the factory and the office are not intangible institutions. There have
been, in the past, industrial organizations which enabled the workmen to own a house and
land, to work at home when and as they willed, to use their intelligence, to manufacture
entire objects, to have the joy of creation. At the present time this form of industry could
be resumed. Electrical power and modern machinery make it possible for the light
industries to free themselves from the curse of the factory. Could not the heavy industries
also be decentralized? Or would it not be possible to use all the young men of the country
in those factories for a short period, just as for military service? In this or another way the
proletariat could be progressively abolished. Men would live in small communities
instead of in immense droves. Each would preserve his human value within his group.
Instead of being merely a piece of machinery, he would become a person. Today, the
position of the proletarian is as low as was that of the feudal serf. Like the serf, he has no
hope of escaping from his bondage, of being independent, of holding authority over
others. The artisan, on the contrary, has the legitimate hope that some day he may
become the head of his shop. Likewise, the peasant owning his land, the fisherman
owning his boat, although obliged to work hard, are, nevertheless, masters of themselves
and of their time. Most industrial workers could enjoy similar independence and dignity.
The white-collar people lose their personality just as factory hands do. In fact, they
become proletarians. It seems that modern business organization and mass production are
incompatible with the full development of the human self. If such is the case, then
industrial civilization, and not civilized man, must go.
In recognizing personality, modern society has to accept its disparateness. Each
individual must be utilized in accordance with his special characteristics. In attempting to
establish equality among men, we have suppressed individual peculiarities which were
most useful. For happiness depends on one being exactly fitted to the nature of one's
work. And there are many varied tasks in a modern nation. Human types, instead of being
standardized, should be diversified, and these constitutional differences maintained and
exaggerated by the mode of education and the habits of life. Each type would find its
place. Modern society has refused to recognize the dissimilarity of human beings and has
crowded them into four classes--the rich, the proletarian, the farmer, and the middle class.
The clerk, the policeman, the clergyman, the scientist, the school-teacher, the university
professor, the shopkeeper, etc., who constitute the middle class, have practically the same
standard of living. Such ill-assorted types are herded together according to their financial
position and not in conformity with their individual characteristics. Obviously, they have
nothing in common. The best, those who could grow, who try to develop their mental
potentialities, are atrophied by the narrowness of their life. In order to promote human
progress, it is not enough to hire architects, to buy bricks and steel, and to build schools,
universities, laboratories, libraries, art institutes, and churches. It would be far more
important to provide those who devote themselves to the things of the mind with the
means of developing their personality according to their innate constitution and to their
spiritual purpose. Just as, during the Middle Ages, the church created a mode of existence
suitable to asceticism, mysticism, and philosophical thinking.
The brutal materialism of our civilization not only opposes the soaring of intelligence,
but also crushes the affective, the gentle, the weak, the lonely, those who love beauty,
who look for other things than money, whose sensibility does not stand the struggle of
modern life. In past centuries, the many who were too refined, or too incomplete, to fight
with the rest were allowed the free development of their personality. Some lived within
themselves. Others took refuge in monasteries, in charitable or contemplative orders,
where they found poverty and hard work, but also dignity, beauty, and peace. Individuals
of this type should be given, instead of the inimical conditions of modern society, an
environment more appropriate to the growth and utilization of their specific qualities.
There remains the unsolved problem of the immense number of defectives and
criminals. They are an enormous burden for the part of the population that has remained
normal. As already pointed out, gigantic sums are now required to maintain prisons and
insane asylums and protect the public against gangsters and lunatics. Why do we preserve
these useless and harmful beings? The abnormal prevent the development of the normal.
This fact must be squarely faced. Why should society not dispose of the criminals and the
insane in a more economical manner? We cannot go on trying to separate the responsible
from the irresponsible, punish the guilty, spare those who, although having committed a
crime, are thought to be morally innocent. We are not capable of judging men. However,
the community must be protected against troublesome and dangerous elements. How can
this be done? Certainly not by building larger and more comfortable prisons, just as real
health will not be promoted by larger and more scientific hospitals. Criminality and
insanity can be prevented only by a better knowledge of man, by eugenics, by changes in
education and in social conditions. Meanwhile, criminals have to be dealt with
effectively. Perhaps prisons should be abolished. They could be replaced by smaller and
less expensive institutions. The conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some
more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to
insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or
machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public
in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small
euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gases. A similar treatment could be
advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts. Modern society should not
hesitate to organize itself with reference to the normal individual. Philosophical systems
and sentimental prejudices must give way before such a necessity. The development of
human personality is the ultimate purpose of civilization.
13
The restoration of man to the harmony of his physiological and mental self will
transform his universe. We should not forget that the universe modifies its aspects
according to the conditions of our body. That it is nothing but the response of our nervous
system, our sensory organs, and our techniques to an unknown and probably unknowable
reality. That all our states of consciousness, all our dreams, those of the mathematicians
as well as those of the lovers, are equally true. The electromagnetic waves, which express
a sunset to the physicist, are no more objective than the brilliant colors perceived by the
painter. The esthetic feeling engendered by those colors, and the measurement of the
length of their component lightwaves, are two aspects of ourselves and have the same
right to existence. Joy and sorrow are as important as planets and suns. But the world of
Dante, Emerson, Bergson, or G. E. Hale is larger than that of Mr. Babbitt. The beauty of
the universe will necessarily grow with the strength of our organic and psychological
activities.
We must liberate man from the cosmos created by the genius of physicists and
astronomers, that cosmos in which, since the Renaissance, he has been imprisoned.
Despite its stupendous immensity, the world of matter is too narrow for him. Like Ms
economic and social environment, it does not fit him. We cannot adhere to the faith in its
exclusive reality. We know that we are not altogether comprised within its dimensions,
that we extend somewhere else, outside the physical continuum. Man is simultaneously a
material object, a living being, a focus of mental activities. His presence in the prodigious
void of the intersidereal spaces is totally negligible. But he is not a stranger in the realm
of inanimate matter. With the aid of mathematical abstractions his mind apprehends the
electrons as well as the stars. He is made on the scale of the terrestrial mountains, oceans,
and rivers. He appertains to the surface of the earth, exactly as trees, plants, and animals
do. He feels at ease in their company. He is more intimately bound to the works of art,
the monuments, the mechanical marvels of the new city, the small group of his friends,
those whom he loves. But he also belongs to another world. A world which, although
enclosed within himself, stretches beyond space and time. And of this world, if his will is
indomitable, he may travel over the infinite cycles. The cycle of Beauty, contemplated by
scientists, artists, and poets. The cycle of Love, that inspires heroism and renunciation.
The cycle of Grace, ultimate reward of those who passionately seek the principle of all
things. Such is our universe.
14
The day has come to begin the work of our renovation. We will not establish any
program. For a program would stifle living reality in a rigid armor. It would prevent the
bursting forth of the unpredictable, and imprison the future within the limits of our mind.
We must arise and move on. We must liberate ourselves from blind technology and
grasp the complexity and the wealth of our own nature. The sciences of life have shown
to humanity its goal and placed at its disposal the means of reaching it. But we are still
immersed in the world created by the sciences of inert matter without any respect for the
laws of our development. In a world that is not made for us, because it is born from an
error of our reason and from the ignorance of our true self. To such a world we cannot
become adapted. We will, then, revolt against it. We will transform its values and
organize it with reference to our true needs. Today, the science of man gives us the power
to develop all the potentialities of our body. We know the secret mechanisms of our
physiological and mental activities and the causes of our weakness. We know how we
have transgressed natural laws. We know why we are punished, why we are lost in
darkness. Nevertheless, we faintly perceive through the mists of dawn a path which may
lead to our salvation.
For the first time in the history of humanity, a crumbling civilization is capable of
discerning the causes of its decay. For the first time, it has at its disposal the gigantic
strength of science. Will we utilize this knowledge and this power? It is our only hope of
escaping the fate common to all great civilizations of the past. Our destiny is in our
hands. On the new road, we must now go forward.
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