CONTENTS

CONTENTS

I

PREFACE 1. ON THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME 2. THREE DISAPPOINTED METHODS OF REFORM II 3. ON VARIOUS KINDS OF THINKING 4. RATIONALIZING 5. HOW CREATIVE THOUGHT TRANSFORMS THE WORLD III 6. OUR ANIMAL HERITAGE. THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATION 7. OUR SAVAGE MIND IV 8. BEGINNING OF CRITICAL THINKING 9. INFLUENCE OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE V 10. ORIGIN OF MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION 11. OUR MEDIAEVAL INTELLECTUAL INHERITANCE

VI

12. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 13. HOW SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE HAS THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE VII 14. "THE SICKNESS OF AN ACQUISITIVE SOCIETY" 15. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAFETY AND SANITY VIII 16. SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF REPRESSION 17. WHAT OF IT? APPENDIX

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I.

PREFACE

This is an essay—not a treatise—on the most important of all matters of human concern. Although it has cost its author a great deal more thought and labor than will be apparent, it falls, in his estimation, far below the demands of its implacably urgent theme. Each page could readily be expanded into a volume. It suggests but the beginning of the beginning now being made to raise men's thinking onto a plain which may perhaps enable them to fend off or reduce some of the dangers which lurk on every hand.

J. H. R.

NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH, NEW YORK CITY, August, 1921.