An illustration of the principle is easily found in industrial conflicts. In most contests between capital and labor, each party occupies a fixed base of assumed self-interest. Now and then, it is true, a declaration is heard that the interest of the employer and the interest of the worker are at bottom one; but this is interpreted as meaning, according to one’s starting point, either that high profits for the employer carry with them benefits for the worker in the way of wages, or that high wages for the worker increase the prosperity of the investor by stabilizing labor and by enabling workers to buy goods. Meantime, evidence accumulates that something is wrong with the assumptions that underlie this type of thought. Are not the interests of capital and the interests of labor, as they are here understood, fundamentally antagonistic to each other and to the common weal? Clearly, the great task of thought and of conference between these two--rather three--interests is to face unflinchingly the true nature of the ends that each party seeks, and to evaluate them all by weighing them in the same scales. A parallel instance is the habit of excluding from conferences between nations questions of “vital interest,” “national honor,” “purely domestic concern,” or a specified topic such as the Monroe Doctrine. What is the implication of such reservations? Is it that we desire the privilege of acting arbitrarily? Or, is it that we possess a rationality that others do not possess? Or, finally, is it that we distrust thought as a guide where our emotions are most intense? How is cooperative thinking related to debating? Undoubtedly debate, which proceeds by settled rules, is a splendid step on the road from squabbling to peace. The rules of order for deliberative assemblies are a mighty achievement of reason. They make mere force take a back seat. For they make it possible for the last man to be heard. They provide for pause, a second thought, amendment and postponement; they enable minorities actually to modify the thinking of majorities, and they are one instrument of a genuinely common will--a will proved to be common by the loyal acquiescence of minorities in final decisions by vote. Nevertheless, debate is only a half-way house. For it is a clash between conclusions already held rather than a seeking for deeper insight. Moreover, because it has the form and uses a method of conflict, it is not favorable to friendly and candid examination of motives. It is not a method of self-criticism, nor of help to others in self-criticism.