Human Traits and their Social SignificanceEdman, Irwin
Philosophy
Human Traits and their Social Significance
Edman, Irwin
Social psychology
brings neither "sweetness nor light" to the actual world in
which we live.
PART II
THE CAREER OF REASON
The foregoing analysis of human behavior might thus be
briefly summarized. We found that man is born a creature
with certain tendencies to act in certain definite ways,
tendencies which he largely possesses in common with the lower animals.
We found also that man could learn by trial and error,
that his original instinctive equipment could be modified.
Thus far in his mental life man is indistinguishable from the
beasts. But man's peculiar capacity, it appeared, lay in his
ability to think, to control his actions in the light of a future,
to choose one response rather than another because of its
consequences, which he could foresee and prefer. This capacity
for reflection, for formulating a purpose and being able to
obtain it, we found to be practical in its origins, but persisting
on its own account in the disinterested inquiry of philosophy
and science and the free imaginative construction of art. And
in all man's behavior, whether on the plane of instinct, habit,
or reflection, we found action to be accompanied by emotion,
by love and hate, anger and awe, which might at once impede
action by confusing it, or sustain it by giving it a vivid and
compelling motive.
The second part of the book was devoted to an analysis of
the various specific traits which human beings display and the
consequences that these have in men's relations with one
another. Under certain conditions, one or another of these
may become predominant; in particular historical conditions,
one or another of them may have a high social value or the
reverse. These traits vary in different individuals; in any of
them, a man may be totally defective or abnormally developed.
But taken in general, they constitute the changeless pattern
of human nature, and fix the conditions and the limits of
action.
But while these universal traits determine what man may
do, and fix definitively the boundaries of human possibility,
within these limits the race has a wide choice of ideals and
attainments. The standards of what man will and should do,
within the boundaries of the nature which is his inheritance,
are to be found not in his original impulses, but in his mind
and imagination. The human being is gifted with the ability
to imagine a future more desirable than the present, and to
contrive ingeniously in behalf of anticipated or imagined
goods.
These anticipated goods we call ideals, and these ideals
arise, in the last analysis, out of the initial and inborn hungers
and cravings of men. "Intellect is of the same flesh and blood
with all the instincts, a brother whose superiority lies in his
power to appreciate, harmonize, and save them all." The
function of reason is not to set itself over against men's original
desires, but to envisage ideals and devise instruments
whereby they may all, so far as nature allows, be fulfilled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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