ople everywhere are swinging away from great
vague capitalized causes toward a cooler and clearer view of life.

"It's analogous to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, which also
followed a period of turmoil between conflicting fanaticisms. A belief
in reason is growing up even in the popular mind, a spirit of
moderation and tolerance. There's a wait-and-see attitude toward
everything, including the sciences and particularly the new
half-finished science of psychodynamics. The world wants to rest for
awhile.

"Well, such a state of mind has its own drawbacks. It produces
wonderful structures of thought but there's something cold about them.
There is so little real passion, so much caution--the arts, for
instance, are becoming ever more stylized. Old symbols like religion
and the sovereign state and a particular form of government, for which
men once died, are openly jeered at. We can formulate the semantic
condition at the Institute in a very neat equation.

"And you don't like it. Your kind of man needs something big. And mere
concrete bigness isn't enough. You could give your lives to the
sciences or to inter-planetary colonization or to social correction,
as many people are cheerfully doing--but those aren't for you. Down
underneath you miss the universal father-image.

"You want an almighty Church or an almighty State or an almighty
_anything_, a huge misty symbol which demands everything you've got
and gives in return only a feeling of belonging." Dalgetty's voice was
harsh. "In short, you can't stand on your own psychic feet. You can't
face the truth that man is a lonely creature and that his purpose must
come from within himself."

Bancroft scowled. "I didn't come here to be lectured," he said.

"Have it your way," answered Dalgetty. "I thought you wanted to know
what I knew of Actionism. That's it in unprecise verbal language.
Essentially you want to be a Leader in a Cause. Your men, such as
aren't merely hired, want to be Followers. Only there isn't a Cause
around, these days, except the common-sense one of improving human
life."

The woman, Casimir, leaned over the desk. There was a curious
intensity in her eyes. "You just pointed out the drawbacks yourself,"
she said. "This _is_ a decadent period."

"No," said Dalgetty. "Unless you insist on loaded connotations. It's a
necessary period of rest. Recoil time for a whole society--well, it
all works out neatly in Tighe's formulation. The present state