liberty,
justice or equality--and to deduce institutions from these high-sounding
words. It did not succeed because human nature was contrary and restive.
The new effort proposes to fit creeds and institutions to the wants of
men, to satisfy their impulses as fully and beneficially as possible.

And yet we do not begin to know our desires or the art of their
satisfaction. Mr. Wallas's book and the special literature of the subject
leave no doubt that a precise political psychology is far off indeed. The
human nature we must put at the center of our statesmanship is only
partially understood. True, Mr. Wallas works with a psychology that is
fairly well superseded. But not even the advance-guard to-day, what we
may call the Freudian school, would claim that it had brought knowledge
to a point where politics could use it in any very deep or comprehensive
way. The subject is crude and fragmentary, though we are entitled to call
it promising.

Yet the fact had better be faced: psychology has not gone far enough, its
results are still too vague for our purposes. We know very little, and
what we know has hardly been applied to political problems. That the last
few years have witnessed a revolution in the study of mental life is
plain: the effects are felt not only in psychotherapy, but in education,
morals, religion, and no end of cultural interests. The impetus of Freud
is perhaps the greatest advance ever made towards the understanding and
control of human character. But for the complexities of politics it is
not yet ready. It will take time and endless labor for a detailed study
of social problems in the light of this growing knowledge.

What then shall we do now? Must we continue to muddle along in the old
ruts, gazing rapturously at an impotent ideal, until the works of the
scientists are matured?

CHAPTER IV

THE GOLDEN RULE AND AFTER

It would indeed be an intolerably pedantic performance for a nation to
sit still and wait for its scientists to report on their labors. The
notion is typical of the pitfalls in the path of any theorist who does
not correct his logic by a constant reference to the movement of life. It
is true that statecraft must make human nature its basis. It is true that
its chief task is the invention of forms and institutions which satisfy
the inner needs of mankind. And it is true that our knowledge of those
needs and the technique of their satisfaction is hazy, unorganized and
blunderi