Philosophy and the Social Problem

by Will Durant

And so we have our physicians and our professors,—say all physicians and professors who have taught or practised three years in institutions, or as the graduates of institutions, of recognized standing. And now let us dream our dream.

II
The Organization of Intelligence

THESE men, through meetings and correspondence, organize themselves into a “Society for Social Research”; they begin at once to look for an “inspired millionaire” to finance the movement for six months or so; they advertise themselves diligently in the press, and make known their intention to get together the best brains of the country to study the facts and possibilities of the social problem. And then—a difficult point—they face the task of arranging some more or less impersonal method of deciding who are the intelligent people and who not. They ask themselves just what kind of information a man should be expected to have, to fit him for competent handling of social questions; and after long discussions they conclude that such a man should be well trained in one—and acquainted with the general findings of the others—of what we may call the social disciplines: biology, psychology, sociology, history, economics, law, politics, philosophy, and perhaps more. They formulate a long and varied test for the discovery of fitness in these fields; and they arrange that every university in the country shall after plentiful advertisement and invitation to all and sundry, give these tests, and pay the expenses incurred by any needy candidate who shall emerge successful from the trial. In this way men whose studies have been private, and unadorned with academic degree, are to find entrance to the Society.

It is recognized that the danger of such a test lies in the premium which it sets on the bookish as against the practical man: on the man whose knowledge has come to him in the classroom or the study, as against the man who has won his knowledge just by living face to face with life. There are philosophers who have never heard of Kant, and psychologists who have been Freudians for decades without having ever read a book. A society recruited by such a test will be devoid of artists and poets, may finally eliminate all but fact-gathering dryasdusts, and so end deservedly in nothing. And yet some test there must be, to indicate, however crudely, one’s fitness or unfitness to take part in this work; the alternative would be the personal choice of the initial few, whose prejudices and limitations would so become the constitution and by-laws of the society. Perhaps, too, some way may appear of using the artists and poets, and the genius who knows no books.

Well: the tests are given; the original nucleus of physicians and professors submit themselves to these tests, and some, failing, are eliminated; other men come, from all fields of work, and from them a number survive the ordeal and pass into the Society. So arises a body of say 5000 men, divided into local groups but working in unison so far as geographical separateness will permit; and to them now come, impressed with their earnestness, a wealthy man, who agrees to finance the Society for such time as may be needed to test its usefulness.

Now what does our Society do?

It seeks information. That, and not a programme, is the fruitful beginning of reform. “Men are willing to investigate only the small things of life,” says Samuel Butler; this Society for Social Research is prepared and resolved to investigate anything that has vital bearing on the social problem; it stands ready to make enemies, ready to soil its hands. It appoints committees to gather and formulate all that biologists can tell of human origin and the innate impulses of men; all that psychology in its varied branches can tell of human behavior; all that sociology knows of how and why human societies and institutions rise and fall; all that medicine can tell of social ills and health; it appoints committees to go through all science with the loadstone of the social purpose, picking up this fact here and that one there; committees to study actual and proposed forms of government, administrative and electoral methods; committees to investigate marriage, eugenics, prostitution, poverty, and the thousand other aspects and items of the social problem; committees to call for and listen to responsible expressions of every kind of opinion; committees to examine and analyze social experiments, profit-sharing plans, Oneida communities; even a committee on Utopia, before which persons with schemes and ’isms and perfect cities in their heads may freely preach their gospel. In short this Society becomes the organized eye and ear of the community, ready and eager to seek out all the facts of human life and business that may enlighten human will.

And having found the facts it publishes them. Its operations show real earnestness, sincerity, and ability; and in consequence it wins such prestige that its reports find much heralding, synopsis, and comment in the press. But in addition to that it buys, for the first day of every month, a half-page of space in several of the more widely circulated periodicals and journals of the country, and publishes its findings succinctly and intelligibly. It gives full references for all its statements of fact; it makes verification possible for all doubters and deniers. It includes in each month’s report a reliable statement of the year’s advances in some one of the social disciplines, so that its twelve reports in any year constitute a record of the socially vital scientific findings of the year. It limits itself strictly to verifiable information, and challenges demonstration of humanly avoidable partiality. And it takes great care that its reports are couched not in learned and technical language but in such phraseology as will be intelligible to the graduates of an average grammar school. That is central.

III
Information of Panacea

WITHOUT some such means of getting and spreading information there is no hope for fundamental social advance. We have agreed, have we not, that to make men happier and more capable we must divert their socially injurious impulses into beneficent channels; that we can do this only by studying those impulses and controlling the stimuli which arouse them; that we can control those stimuli only by studying the varied factors of the environment and the means of changing them; in short, that at the bottom of the direction of impulse lies the necessity of knowledge, of information spread to all who care to receive it. Autocracy may improve the world without spreading enlightenment; but democracy cannot. Delenda est ignorantia.[303]