orld in which we live.
The religion and art, the literature and life of the past broaden
the meaning and the background of our lives. They are valuable
just because they do enrich the lives of those who are
exposed to their influence. If studying the great literature
and the art of the past did not clarify the mind and emancipate
the spirit, enabling men to live more richly in the present,
they would hardly be as studiously cherished and transmitted
as they are. We are, after all, living in the present.
The culture of the past either does or does not illuminate it.
If it does not it is a competing environment, a shadow world
in which we may play truant from actuality, but which
brings neither "sweetness nor light" to the actual world in
which we live.

PART II

THE CAREER OF REASON

The foregoing analysis of human behavior might thus be
briefly summarized. We found that man is born a creature
with certain tendencies to act in certain definite ways,
tendencies which he largely possesses in common with the lower animals.
We found also that man could learn by trial and error,
that his original instinctive equipment could be modified.
Thus far in his mental life man is indistinguishable from the
beasts. But man's peculiar capacity, it appeared, lay in his
ability to think, to control his actions in the light of a future,
to choose one response rather than another because of its
consequences, which he could foresee and prefer. This capacity
for reflection, for formulating a purpose and being able to
obtain it, we found to be practical in its origins, but persisting
on its own account in the disinterested inquiry of philosophy
and science and the free imaginative construction of art. And
in all man's behavior, whether on the plane of instinct, habit,
or reflection, we found action to be accompanied by emotion,
by love and hate, anger and awe, which might at once impede
action by confusing it, or sustain it by giving it a vivid and
compelling motive.

The second part of the book was devoted to an analysis of
the various specific traits which human beings display and the
consequences that these have in men's relations with one
another. Under certain conditions, one or another of these
may become predominant; in particular historical conditions,
one or another of them may have a high social value or the
reverse. These traits vary in different individuals; in any of
them, a man may be totally defective or abnorm