"Sure. But for psychological empiricism. That is--an argument for refusing to take for granted any human descriptions of the nature of mind, personality, spirit, psyche, soul--call it what you will--until the descriptions have been pragmatically checked. Take my proposition that all ideas of personal survival after death are misconstructions of an instinct designed to apply to the psychological and biological future of men on earth. Then look over some people who, as a group, reject the idea of Heaven. The communists, I mean. "I've pointed out--and brighter men have pointed out before me--that when the materialist dialectic was applied on a mass of people, it became a religion. Reason and logic departed. Dogma, orthodoxy, emotion, creed, saints, apostles, holy orders, a Bible with gospels--the whole, compulsive paraphernalia of religion burst into being. What was intended as an abstract, atheistic, scientific, materialistic pattern for living turned into the most fanatical evangelism, the most bigoted crusade, the least logical movement the earth has seen for ages. Lately, where the facts of the science of genetics have proven contrary to communist dogma, the Soviet has abolished science. The Roman Catholic Church never did anything more religious, in the worst sense of that word--more superstitious--more compulsive--or more absurd." "What are you driving at?" "Just this. What happened, psychologically, in Russia is one more great proof of instinct. Until and unless you find out pragmatically what instinct is, and what its laws are, no theory of government or system for living will be anything but a set of compulsive simulations of instinct. A religion. Communism was dialectical materialism so long as men just talked about it; when they tried to put it in effect, it became another faith, with the complete trappings of a faith. Dialectical materialism not merely denies that men are instinctual--it ignores the very possibility; as a result, its application drives instinct entirely into the unconscious mind. You can see the proof of that by reading in the daily papers what's happening in Russia or by noting the Russian technique of debate. Pure theology. Pure nonsense." "I wish you'd written more along those lines," Tom said. "I'd planned to. I'd even started the first chapters. The calm, collected, documented description of what instinct is and how it works. It was going to be a scientific contribution. Jung explained to the Freudians. Wylie explained to the Jungians." Tom sat stiff for a minute or so. "Essays?" "Peaceful ones. Scholarly. No brass and no balloons." "Golly." "Why 'golly'?" "We need that tome." "Not really. Too soon. Jung wrote me, once, that he thought it would take about five hundred years before people began to understand generally the ideas he elicited." "More books might help shorten the interval."