lessened so that we shall no longer feel compelled to take the wisdom
of the ages as the basis of our reforms. My own confidence in what
President Butler calls "the findings of mankind" is gone, and the
process by which it was lost will become obvious as we proceed. I have
no reforms to recommend, except the liberation of Intelligence, which
is the first and most essential one. I propose to review by way of
introduction some of the new ideas which have been emerging during the
past few years in regard to our minds and their operations. Then we
shall proceed to the main theme of the book, a sketch of the manner in
which our human intelligence appears to have come about. If anyone
will follow the story with a fair degree of sympathy and patience he
may, by merely putting together well-substantiated facts, many of
which he doubtless knows in other connections, hope better to
understand the perilous quandary in which mankind is now placed and
the ways of escape that offer themselves.


NOTES.

[1] George Bernard Shaw reaches a similar conclusion when he
contemplates education in the British Isles. "We must teach
citizenship and political science at school. But must we? There is no
must about it, the hard fact being that we must not teach political
science or citizenship at school. The schoolmaster who attempted it
would soon find himself penniless in the streets without pupils, if
not in the dock pleading to a pompously worded indictment for sedition
against the exploiters. Our schools teach the morality of feudalism
corrupted by commercialism, and hold up the military conqueror, the
robber baron, and the profiteer, as models of the illustrious and
successful."--_Back to Methuselah_, xii.