At the very outset of such researches we are met by an objection which illustrates how different the biological conception of the mind is from that current amongst those whose training has been {93} literary and philosophic. The objection I am thinking of is that of the ordinary intellectualist view of man. According to this we must regard him as essentially a rational creature, subject, it is true, to certain feeble relics of instinctive impulsion, but able to control such without any great expense of will power, irrational at times in an amiable and rather “nice” way, but fundamentally always independent, responsible, and captain of his soul. Most holders of this opinion will of course admit that in a distant and vague enough past man must have been much more definitely an instinctive being, but they regard attempts to trace in modern man any considerable residue of instinctive activities as a tissue of fallacious and superficial analogies, based upon a shallow materialism and an ignorance of the great principles of philosophy or a crudeness which cannot assimilate them. This objection is an expression of the very characteristic way in which mankind over-estimates the practical functioning of reason in his mind and the influence of civilization on his development. In an earlier essay I have tried to show to how great an extent the average educated man is willing to pronounce decided judgments, all of which he believes himself to have arrived at by the exercise of pure reason, upon the innumerable complex questions of the day. Almost all of them concern highly technical matters upon none of which has he the slightest qualification to pronounce. This characteristic, always obvious enough, has naturally during the war shown the exaggeration so apt to occur in all non-rational processes at a time of general stress. It is not necessary to catalogue the various public functions in regard to which the common citizen finds himself in these days moved to advise and exhort. They are numerous, and for the most part highly technical. Generally the {94} more technical a given matter is, the more vehement and dogmatic is the counsel of the utterly uninstructed counsellor. Even when the questions involved are not especially such as can be dealt with only by the expert, the fact that the essential data are withheld from the public by the authorities renders all this amateur statecraft and generalship more than usually ridiculous. Nevertheless, those who find the materials insufficient for dogmatism and feel compelled to a suspense of judgment are apt to fall under suspicion of the crime of failing to “realize” the seriousness of the war. When it is remembered that the duty of the civilian is in no way concerned with these matters of high technique, while he has very important functions to carry out in maintaining the nation’s strength if he could be brought to take an interest in them, it seems scarcely possible to