der them. I have heard professors reply that
it wasn't their business to discuss human nature but to record and
interpret economic and political facts. Yet if you probe those
"interpretations" there is no escaping the conclusion that they rest upon
some notion of what man is like. "The student of politics," writes Mr.
Wallas, "must, consciously or unconsciously, form a conception of human
nature, and the less conscious he is of his conception the more likely he
is to be dominated by it." For politics is an interest of men--a tool
which they fabricate and use--and no comment has much value if it tries
to get along without mankind. You might as well try to describe food by
ignoring the digestion.

Mr. Wallas has called a halt. I think we may say that his is the
distinction of having turned the study of politics back to the humane
tradition of Plato and Machiavelli--of having made man the center of
political investigation. The very title of his book--"Human Nature in
Politics"--is significant. Now in making that statement, I am aware that
it is a sweeping one, and I do not mean to imply that Mr. Wallas is the
only modern man who has tried to think about politics psychologically.
Here in America alone we have two splendid critics, a man and a woman,
whose thought flows from an interpretation of human character. Thorstein
Veblen's brilliant descriptions penetrate deeply into our mental life,
and Jane Addams has given new hope to many of us by her capacity for
making ideals the goal of natural desire.

Nor is it just to pass by such a suggestive thinker as Gabriel Tarde,
even though we may feel that his psychology is too simple and his
conclusions somewhat overdriven by a favorite theory. The work of Gustav
Le Bon on "crowds" has, of course, passed into current thought, but I
doubt whether anyone could say that he had even prepared a basis for a
new political psychology. His own aversion to reform, his fondness for
vast epochs and his contempt for current effort have left most of his
"psychological laws" in the region of interesting literary comment. There
are, too, any number of "social psychologies," such as those of Ross and
McDougall. But the trouble with them is that the "psychology" is weak and
uninformed, distorted by moral enthusiasms, and put out without any
particular reference to the task of statesmanship. When you come to
special problems, the literature of the subject picks up. Crime is
receiving valuable attent