The classic example of subjectivity is Don Quixote. The first time he made a helmet, he tested its capacity for resisting blows, and battered it out of shape; next time he did not test it, but “deemed” it to be a very good helmet. This habit of “deeming” dominated his life. But every refusal to face unpleasant facts is of the same kind: we are all Don Quixotes more or less. Don Quixote would not have done as he did if he had been taught at school to make a really good helmet, and if he had been surrounded by companions who refused to “deem” whatever he wished to believe. The habit of living in fancies is normal and right in early childhood, because young children have an impotence which is not pathological. But as adult life approaches, there must be a more and more vivid realization that dreams are only valuable in so far as they can be translated, sooner or later, into fact. Boys are admirable in correcting the purely personal claims of other boys; in a school, it is difficult to cherish illusions as to one’s power in relation to schoolfellows. But the myth-making faculty remains active in other directions, often with the co-operation of the masters. One’s own school is the best in the world; one’s country is always right and always victorious; one’s social class (if one is rich) is better than any other class. All these are undesirable myths. They lead us to deem that we have a good helmet, when in fact some one else’s sword could cut it in two. In this way they promote laziness and lead ultimately to disaster. To cure this habit of mind, it is necessary, as in many other cases, to replace fear by rational prevision of misfortune. Fear makes people unwilling to face real dangers. A person afflicted with subjectivity, if awakened in the middle of the night by the cry of “fire”, might decide that it must be his neighbour’s house, since the truth would be too terrifying; he might thus lose the moment when escape was still possible. This, of course, could only occur in a pathological case; but in politics the analogous behaviour is normal. Fear, as an emotion, is disastrous in all cases where the right course can only be discovered by thinking; we want, therefore, to be able to foresee possibilities of evil without feeling fear, and to use our intelligence for the purpose of avoiding what is not inevitable. Evils which are really inevitable have to be treated with sheer courage; but it is not of them that I am speaking.