acteristics are, as is natural in character-formation, both cause
and effect. It becomes an easy prophecy within behaviorism to forecast
that American universities will continue regular and mediocre in mental
activity and reasonably devoid of intellectual bent toward experimental
thinking."
Perhaps here is where I may quote a letter Carl received just before
leaving Berkeley, and his answer to it. This correspondence brings up
several points on which Carl at times received criticism, and I should
like to give the two sides, each so typical of the point of view it
represents.
_February 28_, 1917
MY DEAR CARLETON PARKER,--
When we so casually meet it is as distressing as it is amusing to me, to
know that the God I intuitively defend presents to you the image of the
curled and scented monster of the Assyrian sculpture.
He was never that to me, and the visualization of an imaginative child
is a remarkable thing. From the first, the word "God," spoken in the
comfortable (almost smug) atmosphere of the old Unitarian congregation,
took my breath and tranced me into a vision of a great flood of
vibrating light, and _only_ light.
I wonder if, in your childhood, some frightening picture in some old
book was not the thing that you are still fighting against? So that,
emancipated as you are, you are still a little afraid, and must
perforce--with a remainder of the brave swagger of youth--set up a
barrier of authorities to fight behind, and, quite unconsciously, you
are thus building yourself into a vault in which no flowers can
bloom--because you have sealed the high window of the imagination so
that the frightening God may not look in upon you--this same window
through which simple men get an illumination that saves their lives, and
in the light of which they communicate kindly, one with the other, their
faith and hopes?
I am impelled to say this to you, first, because of the responsibility
which rests upon you in your relation to young minds; and, second, I
like you and your eagerness and the zest for Truth that you transmit.
You are dedicated to the pursuit of Truth, and you afford us the
dramatic incidents of your pursuit.
Yet up to this moment it seems to me you are accepting Truth at
second-hand.
I counted seventeen "authorities" quoted, chapter and verse (and then
abandoned the enumeration), in the free talk of the other evening; and
asked myself if this reverence of the student for the master, was a
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