The suggestibleness of human beings is too great to leave them unaffected by such presentations of the supposed realities of life; this literature certainly is furthering disillusionment. But as a secondary cause. The primary cause is something actual that sets these literary workers going and then provides the popular applause. The applauders have had some sort of experience that makes the picture seem to have some verisimilitude. Thus we are forced back to the question, What makes this literature plausible? What has gotten into our common life that tends to make us think meanly of ourselves, and that causes us, particularly, to take our wants as a continuous and never to be resolved squabble among our desires? Whatever it is, undoubtedly it is the same thing that we came upon in the “I told you so” of the war psychology. In all probability it is so commonplace that ordinarily it is not noticed, or if it is noticed, is taken as a to-be-expected expression of the nature of things. When a world-catastrophe shakes us, we begin to wake up to the assumptions that we have so easily fallen into, and when they appear in a new literature, we say that it is revealing--as it is. But of just what? The professed derivation of this interpretation of life from psychology suggests that we look in this direction for further light upon our problem. VI HAS PSYCHOLOGY UNDERMINED OUR SELF-RESPECT The Sphinx attends a meeting of the Psychological Sodality. The Chairman of the Meeting: Brothers--er, er, Brothers and Sisters: We have the pleasure, I may say even the honor, of having as our guest this evening a most venerable member, if not of our inmost circle (which is not yet venerable itself, having the age of only a generation), yet a member of the long and honorable succession of inquirers into what is, perhaps, the most difficult problem that has engaged the scientific intellect--the problem of the nature of man. I say “perhaps” the most difficult problem, for we who have observed the reactions of the white rat are aware how, under the rub of exact research, man disappears, like vanishing cream, in the pores of “the organism.” I am reminded of this with peculiar force upon the present occasion because our distinguished guest, like our laboratories, combines the human and the sub-human in a single synthesis. Renowned for her cautious judgment, she is yet more illustrious for her skill in the formulation of problems. Let me assure her that the members of this Sodality will have open ears for her questions, and that we shall be glad to focus upon them the combined and unified results of our respective lines of research. Fellow Members, I present The Sphinx! The Sphinx: