At none of these points does the old confidence in man remain unimpaired. We are not so sure that progress is inherently provided for in the nature of man; we are far more sure of something old, crude, and of pine-stump quality in our make-up. Tacitly, if not overtly, men assume that irrational desires are the dominant forces within us, and that conflict has precedence in human motives. There is a growing skepticism of the worth of the common man. It is becoming almost popular to sneer at democracy. We rely--increasingly, it appears--upon force and cunning, or upon the automatic working of social mechanisms, instead of trusting to open eyes and to reason. We are afraid to use our freedom, or to let others enjoy the liberties that we have guaranteed in our laws and constitutions. We are putting up walls of many kinds to protect ourselves from our fellows. A partly blatant, partly furtive nationalism has displaced the bland and expansive political consciousness of the last generation, and both at home and abroad our policies are governed by an ungenerous caution. In all our history were we ever moved by fears as much as now? Were forward-looking proposals ever so regularly confronted with “Human nature being what it is, you cannot do it”? A child with lots of playthings, but fidgeting, and dissatisfied with himself--here is a motif for a cartoonist who would depict the present condition of the western world. How is this clouding of our sky to be accounted for, and what does it signify concerning the immediate tasks of our civilization? Is this depreciation of man simply a phase of the depression that always follows a great war? Is it a by-product of modern science, which reveals on the one hand the baffling immensity of nature, and on the other hand our blood-relationship with the lowest orders of living things? Is it a consequence of scientific psychology in general; or of behaviorism in particular; or, perchance, of psychoanalysis? Has it been “put over” on the populace by dramatists and fiction-mongers who find it remunerative to exaggerate the selfish and sensual aspects of life in the name of realism? Even if all these have combined to push us in the same direction, are they sufficient to account for what has happened? To what degree are they symptoms, and to what degree causes? May not the everyday conduct of all of us have had some influence in determining what we think of one another? If so, how does it happen that we have so behaved ourselves as to lower our estimate of human motives in general? What have we done to produce the present disillusionment? III WHAT THE WAR DID TO OUR BELIEF IN MAN