Skip to main content <#maincontent>
We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us!
Internet Archive logo A line drawing of the Internet Archive
headquarters building façade.
Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass.
Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass.
Upload icon An illustration of a horizontal line over an up pointing
arrow. Upload
User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up
| Log in
Web icon An illustration of a computer application window
Wayback Machine
Texts icon An illustration of an open book.
Books
Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip.
Video
Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker.
Audio
Software icon An illustration of a 3.5" floppy disk.
Software
Images icon An illustration of two photographs.
Images
Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape
Donate
Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses.
More
Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by
interacting with this icon.
Internet Archive Audio
Live Music Archive Librivox Free
Audio
Featured
* All Audio
* This Just In
* Grateful Dead
* Netlabels
* Old Time Radio
* 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
Top
* Audio Books & Poetry
* Computers, Technology and Science
* Music, Arts & Culture
* News & Public Affairs
* Spirituality & Religion
* Podcasts
* Radio News Archive
Images
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Featured
* All Images
* This Just In
* Flickr Commons
* Occupy Wall Street Flickr
* Cover Art
* USGS Maps
Top
* NASA Images
* Solar System Collection
* Ames Research Center
Software
Internet Arcade Console
Living Room
Featured
* All Software
* This Just In
* Old School Emulation
* MS-DOS Games
* Historical Software
* Classic PC Games
* Software Library
Top
* Kodi Archive and Support File
* Vintage Software
* APK
* MS-DOS
* CD-ROM Software
* CD-ROM Software Library
* Software Sites
* Tucows Software Library
* Shareware CD-ROMs
* Software Capsules Compilation
* CD-ROM Images
* ZX Spectrum
* DOOM Level CD
Books
Books to Borrow Open Library
Featured
* All Books
* All Texts
* This Just In
* Smithsonian Libraries
* FEDLINK (US)
* Genealogy
* Lincoln Collection
Top
* American Libraries
* Canadian Libraries
* Universal Library
* Project Gutenberg
* Children's Library
* Biodiversity Heritage Library
* Books by Language
* Additional Collections
Video
TV News Understanding 9/11
Featured
* All Video
* This Just In
* Prelinger Archives
* Democracy Now!
* Occupy Wall Street
* TV NSA Clip Library
Top
* Animation & Cartoons
* Arts & Music
* Computers & Technology
* Cultural & Academic Films
* Ephemeral Films
* Movies
* News & Public Affairs
* Spirituality & Religion
* Sports Videos
* Television
* Videogame Videos
* Vlogs
* Youth Media
Search the history of over 835 billion web pages
on the Internet.
Search the Wayback Machine
Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass.
Mobile Apps
* Wayback Machine (iOS)
* Wayback Machine (Android)
Browser Extensions
* Chrome
* Firefox
* Safari
* Edge
Archive-It Subscription
* Explore the Collections
* Learn More
* Build Collections
Save Page Now
Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in
the future.
Please enter a valid web address
* About
* Blog
* Projects
* Help
* Donate
* Contact
* Jobs
* Volunteer
* People
* Sign up for free
* Log in
Search metadata
Search text contents
Search TV news captions
Search radio transcripts
Search archived web sites
Advanced Search
* About
* Blog
* Projects
* Help
* Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape
* Contact
* Jobs
* Volunteer
* People
Full text of "Man The Unknown
"
See other formats
The gift of
Anne Grosvenor Robinson
from the library of
Professor Emeritus Dwight E. Robinson
3 44+A2 = SEF
Man, the Unknown
Man
The Unknown
BY
ALEXIS CARREL
CONTAINING A NEW INTRODUCTION
New York and London
HARPER € BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
Copyright, 1935, 1939, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
All rights in this book are reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permis-
sion. For information address
Harper & Brothers
A-H
To My Friends
FREDERIC R. COUDERT
CORNELIUS CLIFFORD
and
BORIS A. BAKHMETEFF
this book is
dedicated
Contents
II
Wil
VIII
Introduċćtion
Preface
The Need of a Bétter Knowledge of Man
The Science of Man
Body and Physiological Activities
Mental A tivities
Inward Time
Adaptive Functions
The Individual
The Remaking of Man
1X
X1X
117
159
191
235
274.
Introduction
THIS BOOK is having the paradoxical destiny of becoming
more timely while it grows older. Since its publication, its
significance has increased continually. For the value of ideas,
as of all things, is relative. It augments or decreases accord-
ing to our state of mind. Under the pressure of the events
that agitate Europe, Asia, and America, our mental attitude
has progressively changed. We are beginning to understand
the meaning of the crisis. We know that it does not consist
simply in the cyclic recurrence of economic disorders. That
neither prosperity nor war will solve the problems of modern
sociéty. Like sheep at the approach of a storm, civilized hu-
manity vaguely feels the presence of danger. And we are
driven by anxiéty toward the ideas that deal with the mystery
of our ills.
This book originated from the observation of a simple
fact—the high development of the sciences of inanimate
matter, and our ignorance of life. Mechanics, chemistry,
and physics have progressed much more rapidly than physi-
ology, psychology, and sociology. Man has gained the mas-
tery of the material world before knowing himself. Thus,
modern sociéty has been built at random, according to the
chance of scientific discoveries and to the fancy of ideolo-
gies, without regard for the laws of our body and soul. We
have been the victims of a disastrous illusion—the illusion
of our ability to emancipate ourselves from natural laws.
We have forgotten that nature never forgives.
[ix]
INTRODUCTION
In order to endure, sociéty, as well as individuals, should
conform to the laws of life. We cannot erect a house with-
out a knowledge of the law of gravity. “In order to be
commanded, nature must be obeyed,” said Bacon. The
essential needs of the human being, the characteristics of
his mind and organs, his relations with his environment
are easily subjected to scientific observation. The juris
diction of science extends to all observable phenomena—
the spiritual as well as the intellectual and the physio
logical. Man in his entiréty can be apprehended by the
scientific method. But the science of man differs from all
other sciences. It must be synthetic as well as analytic, since
man is simultaneously unity and multiplicity. This science
alone is capable of giving birth to a technique for the con-
struction of sociéty. In the future organization of the in-
dividual and collective life of humanity, philosophical and
social doctrines must give precedence to the positive knowl-
edge of ourselves. Science, for the first time in the history
of the world, brings to a tottering civilization the power
to renovate itself and to continue its ascension.
The necessity for this renovation is becoming more evi-
dent each year. Newspapers, magazines, cinema, and radio
ceaselessly spread news illustrating the growing contrast
bétween material progress and social disorder. The tri-
umphs of science in some fields mask its impotence in
others. For the marvels of technology, such as featured, for
example, in the New York World’s Fair, create comfort,
simplify our existence, increase the rapidity of communi-
cations, put at our disposal quantities of new materials,
synthesize chemical products that cure dangerous diseases
[x]
INTRODUCTION
as if by magic. But they fail to bring us economic security,
happiness, moral sense, and peace. These royal gifts of
science have burst like a thunderstorm upon us while we
are Still too ignorant to use them wisely. And they may
become highly destructive. Will they not make war an
unprecedented catastrophe? For they will be responsible
for the death of millions of men who are the flower of
civilization, for the destruction of priceless treasures ac-
cumulated by centuries of culture on the soil of Europe,
and for the ultimate weakening of the white race. Modern
life has brought another danger, more subtle but still more
formidable than war: the extinction of the best elements
of the race. The birth rate is falling in all nations, except
in Germany and Russia. France is becoming depopulated
already. England and Scandinavia will soon be in the same
condition. In the United States, the upper third of the
population reproduces much less rapidly than the lower
third. Europe and the United States are thus undergoing
a qualitative as well as quantitative déterioration. On the
contrary, the Asiatics and Africans, such as the Russians,
the Arabs, the Hindus, are increasing with marked rapidity.
Never have the European races been in such great peril
as today. Even if a suicidal war is avoided, we will be faced
with degeneration because of the sterility of the strongest
and most intelligent stock.
No conquests deserve so much admiration as those made
by physiology and medicine. The civilized nations are now
protected from the great epidemics, such as plague, cholera,
typhus, and other infectious diseases. Owing to hygiene and
to a growing knowledge of nutrition, the inhabitants of the
overpopulated cities are clean, well-nourished, in bétter
[xi]
INTRODUCTION
health, and the average duration of life has increased con-
siderably. Nevertheless, hygiene and medicine, even with
the aid of the schools, have not succeeded in improving the
intellectual and moral quality of the population. Modern
men and women manifest nervous weakness, mental in-
Stability, lack of moral sense. About 15 per cent remain
at the psychologic age of twelve years. There are hosts of
feeble-minded and insane. ‘The number of misfits reaches
perhaps thirty or forty million. Furthermore, criminality
increases. ‘The recent statistics of J. Edgar Hoover show
that this country actually contains nearly five million crim-
inals. The tone of our civilization cannot help being in-
fluenced by the prevalence of mental weakness, dishonesty,
and criminality. It is significant that panic spread through
the population when a radio cast enacted an invasion of the
earth by the inhabitants of Mars. Also, that a former
president of the Stock Exchange of New York was con-
victed of theft, and an eminent Federal judge of selling
his verdicts. At the same time, normal individuals are being
crushed under the weight of those who are incapable of
adapting themselves to life. The majority of the people
lives on the work of the minority. Despite the enormous
sums spent by the government, the economic crisis con-
tinues. In the richest country of the world, millions are
in want. It is evident that human intelligence has not in-
creased simultaneously with the complexity of the prob-
lems to be solved. ‘Today, as much as in the past, civilized
humanity shows itself incapable of directing either its in-
dividual or its collective existence.
As a matter of fact, modern sociéty—that society pro-
[xii]
INTRODUCTION
duced by science and technology—is committing the same
mistake as have all the civilizations of antiquity. It has
created conditions of life wherein life itself becomes im-
possible. It justifies the sally of Dean Inge: “Civilization is
a disease which is almost invariably fatal.” The real sig-
nificance of the events that are taking place in Europe and
in this country is not yet understood by the public. Never-
theless, it is becoming obvious to those few who have the
inclination and the time to think. Our civilization is in
danger. And this danger menaces simultaneously the race,
the nations, and the individuals. Each one of us will be
Struck by the ruin brought about by a European war. Each
one suffers already from the confusion in our life and in
our social institutions, from the general weakening of moral
sense, from economic insecurity, from the burden imposed
upon the community by defectives and criminals. ‘The
crisis is due neither to the presence of Mr. Roosevelt in the
White House, nor to that of Hitler in Germany nor of
Mussolini in Rome. It comes from the very Structure of
civilization. It is a crisis of man. Man is not able to manage
the world derived from the caprice of his intelligence. He
has no other alternative than to remake this world accord-
ing to the laws of life. He must adapt his environment to
the nature of his organic and mental activities, and reno-
vate his habits of existence. Otherwise, modern sociéty will
join ancient Greece and the Roman Empire in the realm
of nothingness. And the basis of this renovation can be
found only in the knowledge of our body and soul.
No lasting civilization will ever be founded upon philo-
sophical and social ideologies. The democratic ideology it-
[xiii |
INTRODUCTION
self, unless reconstructed upon a scientific basis, has no
more chance of surviving than the fascist or marxist ideol-
ogies. For none of these syStems embraces man in his entire
reality. In truth, all political and economic doctrines have
so far ignored the science of man. However, the power of
the scientific méthod is obvious. Science has conquered the
material world. And science will give man, if his will is
indomitable, mastery over life and over himself.
The domain of science comprises the totality of the
observable and of the measurable. That is, all the things
that are located in the spatio-temporal continuum—man, as
well as the ocean, the clouds, the atoms, the stars. As man
is endowed with mental activities, science reaches through
him the world of the mind, that world which Sstrétches
beyond space and time. Observation and experience are the
only means of apprehending reality in a positive manner.
For observation and experience give birth to concepts
which, although incomplete, remain éternally true. These
concepts are operational concepts, as defined by Bridgman.
They proceed directly from the measurement or the accu-
rate observation of things. They are applicable to the
Study of man as well as to that of inanimate objects. For
such a study, they must be constructed in as great a num-
ber as possible, with the aid of all the techniques that
we are capable of developing. In the light of these con-
cepts, man appears as unity and multiplicity—a center of
activities simultaneously material and spiritual, and Strictly
dependent on the physicochemical and psychological en-
vironment in which he is immersed. Considered thus in a
concréte manner, he differs profoundly from the abstract
being dreamed by political and social ideologies. It is upon
[ xiv ]
INTRODUCTION
this concrete man, and not upon abstractions, that sociéty
should be erected. There is no other road open to human
progress than the optimum development of all the physio-
logical, intellectual, and spiritual potentialities of the in-
dividual. Only apprehension of the whole reality can save
modern man. We must, therefore, give up philosophical
systems, and rely exclusively upon scientific concepts.
The natural fate of all civilizations is to rise and to de-
cline—and to vanish into dust. Our civilization may per-
haps escape the common fate, because it has at its disposal
the unlimited resources of science. But science deals ex-
clusively with the forces of intelligence. And intelligence
never urges men to action. Only fear, enthusiasm, self-
sacrifice, hatred, and love can infuse with life the products
of our mind. The youth of Germany and Italy, for example,
are driven by faith to sacrifice themselves for an ideal—
even if that ideal is false. Perhaps the democracies will also
engender men burning with the passion to create. Perhaps,
in Europe and in America, there are such men, still young,
poor, and unknown. But enthusiasm and faith, if not united
to the knowledge of the whole reality, will remain Sterile.
The Russian revolutionists had the will and the strength
to build up a new civilization. They failed because they
relied upon the incompléte vision of Karl Marx, instead
of a truly scientific concept of man. ‘The renovation of mod-
ern sociéty demands, besides a profound spiritual urge, the
knowledge of man in his wholeness.
But the wholeness of man has many different aspects.
These aspects are the object of special sciences, such as
physiology, psychology, sociology, eugenics, pedagogy, medi-
[xv]
INTRODUCTION
cine, and many others. There are specialists for each of
them. But none for man as a whole. Special sciences are
incapable of solving even the most simple human problems.
An architect, a schoolmaster, a physician, for example, are
acquainted in an incompléte manner with the problems
of habitation, education, and health. For each of these
problems concerns all human activities, and transcends the
frontiers of any special science. There is, at this moment,
imperative need for men possessing, like Aristotle, univer-
sal knowledge. But Aristotle himself could not embrace all
modern sciences. We must, therefore, have recourse to com-
posite Aristotles. That is, to small groups of men belonging
to different specialties, and capable of welding their in-
dividual thoughts into a synthétic whole. Such minds can
certainly be found—minds endowed with that universalism
which spreads its tentacles over all things. The technique
of collective thinking requires much intelligence and dis-
interestedness. Few individuals are apt at this type of re-
search. But collective thinking alone will permit human
problems to be solved. Today, mankind should be given
an immortal brain, a permanent focus of thoughts to guide
its faltering steps. Our institutions for scientific research
are not sufficient, because their discoveries are always frag-
mentary. In order to build a science of man, and a tech-
nology of civilization, centers of synthesis must be created
where collective thinking and integration of specialized
data will forge a new knowledge. In this manner, both in-
dividuals and sociéty will be given the immovable founda-
tions of operational concepts, and the power to survive.
To sum up, the events of the last few years have ren-
[xvi]
INTRODUCTION
dered more evident the danger menacing the entire civili-
zation of the Occident. However, the public does not yét
fully understand the significance of the economic crisis, of
the decline in the birth rate, of the moral, nervous, and
mental decay of the individual. It does not conceive how
immense a catastrophe a European war will be for human-
ity—how urgent is our renovation. Nevertheless, in demo-
cratic countries, the initiative for this renovation must
emanate from the people, and not from the leaders. ‘This
is the reason for presenting this book again to the public.
Although, during the four years of its career, it has spread
beyond the frontiers of the English-speaking countries
through all civilized nations, the ideas that it contains have
reached only a few million persons. To contribute, even
in a humble manner, to the construction of the new City,
these ideas must invade the population as the sea infiltrates
the sands of the shore. Our renovation can come only from
the effort of all. “To progress again, man must remake him-
self. And he cannot remake himself without suffering. For
he is both the marble and the sculptor. In order to uncover
his true visage, he must shatter his own substance with
heavy blows of his hammer.”
New York, June 15, 1939
[xvii]
Preface
THE AUTHOR of this book is not a philosopher. He is only
a man of science. He spends a large part of his time in a
laboratory studying living matter. And another part in the
world, watching human beings and trying to understand
them. He does not prétend to deal with things that lie out-
side the field of scientific observation.
In this book he has endeavored to describe the known,
and to separate it clearly from the plausible. Also to recog-
nize the existence of the unknown and the unknowable.
He has considered man as the sum of the observations and
experiences of all times and of all countries. But what he
describes he has either seen with his own eyes or learned
directly from those with whom he associates. It is his good
fortune to be in a position to study, without making any
effort or deserving any credit, the phenomena of life in their
bewildering complexity. He has observed practically every
form of human activity. He is acquainted with the poor
and the rich, the sound and the diseased, the learned and
the ignorant, the weak-minded, the insane, the shrewd, the
criminal, étc. He knows farmers, proletarians, clerks, shop-
keepers, financiers, manufacturers, politicians, statesmen,
soldiers, professors, school-teachers, clergymen, peasants,
bourgeois, and aristocrats. The circumstances of his life have
led him across the path of philosophers, artists, poéts, and
scientists. And also of geniuses, heroes, and saints. At the
same time, he has studied the hidden mechanisms which, in
[xix ]
PREFACE
the depth of the tissues and in the immensity of the brain,
are the substratum of organic and mental phenomena.
He is indebted to the techniques of modern civilization
for the possibility of witnessing such a gigantic spectacle.
These techniques have enabled him simultaneously to give
his attention to several subjects. He lives in the New World,
and also in the Old. He has the privilege of spending most
of his time in the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re-
search, as one of the scientists brought together in that In-
stitute by Simon Flexner. ‘There he has contemplated the
phenomena of life while they were analyzed by incom-
parable experts such as Meltzer, Jacques Loeb, Noguchi,
and many others. Owing to the genius of Flexner, the study
of living things has been undertaken with a broadness of
vision so far unequaled. Matter is investigated in those
laboratories at every level of its organization, of its ascension
toward the making of man. With the help of X-rays, physi-
cists are unveiling the architectonic of the molecules of the
simpler substances of our tissues—that is, the spatial rela-
tions of the atoms constituting those molecules. Chemists and
physical chemists devote themselves to the analysis of the
more complex substances encountered within the body, such
as the hemoglobin of the blood, the proteins of the tissues
and the humors, and the ferments responsible for the un-
ceasing splitting and building up of those enormous aggre-
gates of atoms. Instead of directing their attention to the
molecular edifices themselves, other chemists consider the
relations of those edifices with one another when they en-
ter the fluids of the body. In short, the physicochemical
equilibria that maintain constant the composition of blood
serum in spite of the perpétual changes of the tissues. Thus
[xx ]
PREFACE
are brought to light the chemical aspects of physiological
phenomena. Several groups of physiologists, with the aid of
the most varied techniques, are studying the larger structures
resulting from the aggregation and organization of mole-
cules, the cells of the tissues and of the blood—that 1s, living
matter itself. They examine those cells, their ways of associa-
tion, and the laws governing their relations with their sur-
roundings; the whole made up of the organs and humors;
the influence of the cosmic environment on this whole; and
the effects of chemical substances on tissues and conscious-
ness. Other specialists devote themselves to the investigation
of those small beings, the viruses and bacteria, whose pres-
ence in our tissues is responsible for infectious diseases; of the
marvelous méthods used by the organism in its fight against
them; of the degenerative diseases, such as cancer, heart
lesions, nephritis. Finally, the momentous problem of indi-
viduality and of its chemical basis is being successfully at-
tacked. The writer has had the exceptional opportunity of
listening to great men specialized in these researches, and of
following the results of their experiments. ‘Thus, the effort
of inert matter toward organization, the properties of living
beings, and the harmony of our body and our mind ap-
peared to him in their beauty. In addition, he himself has
Studied the most diverse subjects, from surgery to cell physi-
ology and to métapsychics. ‘This was made possible by fa-
cilities which, for the first time, were put at the disposal of
science for the performance of its task. It seems that the
subtle inspiration of Welch and the practical idealism of
Frederick T. Gates caused new conceptions of biology and
new formulas for research to spring from Flexner’s mind. To
ihe pure spirit of science Flexner gave the help of new
[xxi]
PREFACE
méthods designed to save the workers’ time, to facilitate their
free coöperation, and to create bétter experimental tech-
niques. Owing to these innovations, one cannot only under-
take extensive researches of one’s own, but also acquire a
first-hand knowledge of subjects whose mastery in former
days necessitated the whole lifétime of several scientists.
We now possess such a large amount of information on
human beings that its very immensity prevents us from using
it properly. In order to be of service, our knowledge must be
synthétic and concise. This book, therefore, was not intended
to be a treatise on Man. For such a treatise would run into
dozens of volumes. The author’s intention was merely to
build up an intelligible synthesis of the data which we pos-
sess about ourselves. He has attempted to describe a large
number of fundamental facts in a very simple manner, and
still not to be elementary. Not to indulge in scientific popu-
larization or to offer to the public a weak and childish aspect
of reality. He has written for the scholar as well as for the
layman.
He fully understands the difficulties inherent in the
temerity of his undertaking. He has tried to confine all
knowledge of man within the pages of a small book. Of
course, he has not succeeded. He will not satisfy the spe-
cialists, because they know far more than he does, and they
will regard him as superficial. Neither will he please the
general public, for this volume contains too many technical
détails. However, in order to acquire a synthétic knowledge
of ourselves, it was indispensable to summarize the data of
several sciences, and also to depict with bold and rapid
Strokes the physical, chemical, and physiological mechanisms
hidden under the harmony of our acts and our thoughts.
Cxxii |
PREFACE
We must realize that an attempt, however awkward and
though partly a failure, is bétter than no attempt at all.
The necessity of compressing a large amount of informa-
tion into a short space has important drawbacks. It gives a
dogmatic appearance to propositions which are nothing but
conclusions of observations and experiments. Subjects that
have engrossed physiologists, hygienists, physicians, edu-
cators, economists, sociologists for years have often had to
be described in a few lines or a few words. Almost every
sentence of this book is the expression of the long labor of
a scientist, of his patient researches, sométimes of his entire
lifétime spent in the study of a single problem. For the sake
of conciseness, the writer has been obliged briefly to sum-
marize gigantic masses of observations. Thus, descriptions
of facts have been given the form of assertions. To a similar
cause may be attributed a seeming lack of accuracy. Most
organic and mental phenomena have been treated in a dia-
grammatic manner. ‘Therefore, things that markedly differ
appear to be grouped togéther. As, at a distance, houses,
rocks, and trees are not distinguishable from one another.
It must not be forgotten that in this book the expression
of reality is only approximately accurate. A brief description
of an immense subject involves inevitable defects. But the
skétch of a landscape should not be expected to contain all
the détails of a photograph.
Before beginning this work the author fenied its diff-
culty, its almost impossibility. He undertook it merely be-
cause somebody had to undertake it. Because men cannot
follow modern civilization along its present course, because
they are degenerating. ‘hey have been fascinated by the
beauty of the sciences of inert matter. They have not under-
[ xxiii |
PREFACE
stood that their body and consciousness are subjected to
natural laws, more obscure than, but as inexorable as, the
laws of the sidereal world. Neither have they understood
that they cannot transgress these laws without being pun-
ished. They must, therefore, learn the necessary relations
of the cosmic universe, of their fellow men, and of their
inner selves, and also those of their tissues and their mind.
Indeed, man stands above all things. Should he degenerate,
the beauty of civilization, and even the grandeur of the
physical universe, would vanish. For these reasons this book
was written. It was not written in the peace of the country,
but in the confusion, the noise, and the weariness of New
York. The author has been urged to carry out this work
by his friends, philosophers, scientists, jurists, economists,
with whom he has for years discussed the great problems
of our time. From Frederic R. Coudert, whose penetrating
vision reaches, beyond the horizons of America, those of
Europe, came the impulse responsible for this book. Indeed,
the majority of the nations follow the lead of North
America. ‘Those countries that have blindly adopted the
spirit and the techniques of industrial civilization, Russia
as well as England, France, and Germany, are exposed to
the same dangers as the United States. Humanity’s atten-
tion must turn from the machines and the world of
inanimate matter to the body and the soul of man, to the
organic and mental processes which have created the ma-
chines and the universe of Newton and Einstein.
The only claim of this book is to put at everyone’s dis-
posal an ensemble of scientific data concerning the human
beings of our time. We are beginning to realize the weak-
ness of our civilization. Many want to shake off the dogmas
[xxiv]
PREFACE
imposed upon them by modern sociéty. This book has been
written for them, and also for those who are bold enough
to understand the necessity, not only of mental, political,
and social changes, but of the overthrow of industrial
civilization and of the advent of another conception of
human progress. This book is, therefore, dedicated to all
whose everyday task is the rearing of children, the forma-
tion or the guidance of the individual. To school-teachers,
hygienists, physicians, clergymen, social workers, professors,
judges, army officers, engineers, economists, politicians, in-
dustrial leaders, étc. Also to those who are interested in the
mere knowledge of our body and our mind. In short, to
every man and every woman. It is offered to all as a simple
account of facts revealed about human beings by scientific
observation.
Man, the Unknown
Chapter I
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
1. The sciences of life have progressed more slowly than those of
inert matter. Our ignorance of ourselves. 2. This ignorance is due
to our ancestors’ mode of existence, to the complexity of man, and
to the structure of our mind. 3. How mechanical, physical, and
chemical sciences have modified our environment. 4. The results
of such a change. 5. This change is harmful, having been made
without due consideration of our nature. 6. Need of a more complete
knowledge of ourselves.
I
THERE is a Strange disparity bétween the sciences of inert
matter and those of life. Astronomy, mechanics, and physics
are based on concepts which can be expressed, tersely and
elegantly, in mathematical language. They have built up
a universe as harmonious as the monuments of ancient
Greece. They weave about it a magnificent texture of
calculations and hypotheses. ‘They search for reality beyond
the realm of common thought up to unutterable abstrac-
tions consisting only of equations of symbols. Such is not
the position of biological sciences. Those who investigate
the phenomena of life are as if lost in an inextricable
jungle, in the midst of a magic forest, whose countless trees
unceasingly change their place and their shape. They are
crushed under a mass of facts, which they can describe but
are incapable of defining in algebraic equations. From the
[1]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
things encountered in the material world, whéther atoms
or stars, rocks or clouds, steel or water, certain qualities,
such as weight and spatial dimensions, have been abstracted.
These abstractions, and not the concrete facts, are the mat-
ter of scientific reasoning. The observation of objects con-
stitutes only a lower form of science, the descriptive form.
Descriptive science classifies phenomena. But the unchang-
ing relations bétween variable quantities—that is, the
natural laws, only appear when science becomes more
abstract. It is because physics and chemistry are abstract and
quantitative that they had such great and rapid success.
Although they do not prétend to unveil the ultimate nature
of things, they give us the power to predict future events,
and often to détermine at will their occurrence. In learning
the secret of the constitution and of the properties of mat-
ter, we have gained the mastery of almost everything which
exists on the surface of the earth, excepting ourselves.
The science of the living beings in general, and especially
of the human individual, has not made such great progress.
It Still remains in the descriptive state. Man is an indivisible
whole of extreme complexity. No simple representation of
him can be obtained. There is no méthod capable of appre-
hending him simultaneously in his entiréty, his parts, and
his relations with the outer world. In order to analyze
ourselves, we are obliged to seek the help of various tech-
niques and, therefore, to utilize several sciences. Naturally,
all these sciences arrive at a different conception of their
common object. They abstract only from man what is at-
tainable by their special méthods. And those abstractions,
after they have been added together, are Still less rich than
the concréte fact. They leave behind them a residue, too
[2]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
important to be neglected. Anatomy, chemistry, physiology,
psychology, pedagogy, history, sociology, political economy
do not exhaust their subject. Man, as known to the spe-
cialisis, is far from being the concréte man, the real man.
He is nothing but a schema, consisting of other schemata
built up by the techniques of each science. He is, at the
same time, the corpse dissected by the anatomists, the con-
sciousness observed by the psychologists and the great teach-
ers of the spiritual life, and the personality which intro-
spection shows to everyone as lying in the depth of himself.
He is the chemical substances constituting the tissues and
humors of the body. He is the amazing community of cells
and nutrient fluids whose organic laws are studied by the
physiologists. He is the compound of tissues and conscious-
ness that hygienists and educators endeavor to lead to its
optimum development while it extends into time. He is
the homo e@conomicus who must ceaselessly consume manu-
factured products in order that the machines, of which he
is made a slave, may be kept at work. But he is also the
poet, the hero, and the saint. He is not only the prodigiously
complex being analyzed by our scientific techniques, but
also the tendencies, the conjectures, the aspirations of hu-
manity. Our conceptions of him are imbued with méta-
physics. They are founded on so many and such imprecise
data that the temptation is great to choose among them
those which please us. Therefore, our idea of man varies
according to our feelings and our beliefs. A materialist and
a spiritualist accept the same definition of a crystal of
sodium chloride. But they do not agree with one another
upon that of the human being. A mechanistic physiologist
and a vitalistic physiologist do not consider the organism
[3]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
in the same light. The living being of Jacques Loeb differs
profoundly from that of Hans Driesch. Indeed, mankind
has made a gigantic effort to know itself. Although we
possess the treasure of the observations accumulated by the
scientists, the philosophers, the poéts, and the great mystics
of all times, we have grasped only certain aspects of our-
selves. We do not apprehend man as a whole. We know him
as composed of distinct parts. And even these parts are
created by our méthods. Each one of us is made up of a
procession of phantoms, in the midst of which Strides an
unknowable reality.
In fact, our ignorance is profound. Most of the questions
put to themselves by those who study human beings remain
without answer. Immense regions of our inner world are
still unknown. How do the molecules of chemical sub-
Stances associate in order to form the complex and tem-
porary organs of the cell? How do the genes contained in
the nucleus of a fertilized ovum détermine the character-
istics of the individual deriving from that ovum? How do
cells organize themselves by their own efforts into sociéties,
such as the tissues and the organs? Like the ants and the
bees, they have advance knowledge of the part they are
destined to play in the life of the community. And hidden
mechanisms enable them to build up an organism both
complex and simple. What is the nature of our duration,
of psychological time, and of physiological time? We know
that we are a compound of tissues, organs, fluids, and con-
sciousness. But the relations bétween consciousness and
cerebrum are still a mystery. We lack almost entirely a
knowledge of the physiology of nervous cells. To what ex-
tent does will power modify the organism? How is the mind
influenced by the state of the organs? In what manner can
[4]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
the organic and mental characteristics, which each in-
dividual inherits, be changed by the mode of life, the
chemical substances contained in food, the climate, and the
physiological and moral disciplines?
We are very far from knowing what relations exist be-
tween skeléton, muscles, and organs, and mental and
spiritual activities. We are ignorant of the factors that bring
about nervous equilibrium and resistance to fatigue and to
diseases. We do not know how moral sense, judgment, and
audacity could be augmented. What is the relative impor-
tance of intellectual, moral, and mystical activities? What
is the significance of esthétic and religious sense? What
form of energy is responsible for telepathic communica-
tions? Without any doubt, certain physiological and mental
factors détermine happiness or misery, success or failure.
But we do not know what they are. We cannot artificially
give to any individual the aptitude for happiness. As yét,
we do not know what environment is the most favorable
for the optimum development of civilized man. Is it pos-
sible to suppress struggle, effort, and suffering from our
physiological and spiritual formation? How can we prevent
the degeneracy of man in modern civilization? Many other
questions could be asked on subjects which are to us of the
utmost interest. They would also remain unanswered. It is
quite evident that the accomplishments of all the sciences
having man as an object remain insufficient, and that our
knowledge of ourselves is still most rudimentary.
2
Our ignorance may be attributed, at the same time, to
the mode of existence of our ancestors, to the complexity
{5]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
of our nature, and to the structure of our mind. Before all,
man had to live. And that need demanded the conquest of
the outer world. It was imperative to secure food and
shelter, to fight wild animals and other men. For immense
periods, our forefathers had neither the leisure nor the
inclination to study themselves. ‘They employed their in-
telligence in other ways, such as manufacturing weapons
and tools, discovering fire, training cattle and horses, in-
venting the wheel, the culture of cereals, étc., étc. Long
before becoming interested in the constitution of their body
and their mind, they meditated on the sun, the moon, the
Stars, the tides, and the passing of the seasons. Astronomy
was already far advanced at an epoch when physiology was
totally unknown. Galileo reduced the earth, center of the
world, to the rank of a humble satellite of the sun, while
his contemporaries had not even the most elementary no-
tion of the structure and the functions of brain, liver, or
thyroid gland. As, under the natural conditions of life, the
human organism works satisfactorily and needs no atten-
tion, science progressed in the direction in which it was
led by human curiosity—that is, toward the outer world.
From time to time, among the billions of human beings
who have successively inhabited the earth, a few were born
endowed with rare and marvelous powers, the intuition of
unknown things, the imagination that creates new worlds,
and the faculty of discovering the hidden relations existing
bétween certain phenomena. These men explored the
physical universe. This universe is of a simple constitution.
Therefore, it rapidly gave in to the attack of the scientists
and yielded the secrét of certain of its laws. And the
knowledge of these laws enabled us to utilize the world of
[6]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAM
matter for our own profit. The practical applications of
scientific discoveries are lucrative for those who promote
them. They facilitate the existence of all. They please the
public, whose comfort they augment. Everyone became, of
course, much more interested in the inventions that lessen
human effort, lighten the burden of the toiler, accelerate
the rapidity of communications, and soften the harshness
of life, than in the discoveries that throw some light on
the intricate problems relating to the constitution of our
body and of our consciousness. The conquest of the mate-
rial world, which has ceaselessly absorbed the attention and
the will of men, caused the organic and the spiritual world
to fall into almost complete oblivion. In fact, the knowledge
of our surroundings was indispensable, but that of our own
nature appeared to be much less immediately useful. How-
ever, disease, pain, death, and more or less obscure aspira-
tions toward a hidden power transcending the visible uni-
verse, drew the attention of men, in some measure, to the
inner world of their body and their mind. At first, medicine
contented itself with the practical problem of relieving the
sick by empiric recipes. It realized only in recent times that
the most effective méthod of preventing or curing illness
is to acquire a complete understanding of the normal and
diseased body—that is, to construct the sciences that are
called anatomy, biological chemistry, physiology, and pa-
thology. However, the mystery of our existence, the moral
sufferings, the craving for the unknown, and the méta-
psychical phenomena appeared to our ancestors as more
important than bodily pain and diseases. The study of
spiritual life and of philosophy attracted greater men than
the study of medicine. The laws of mysticity became known
[7]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
before those of physiology. But such laws were brought to
light only when mankind had acquired sufficient leisure to
turn a little of his attention to other things than the con-
quest of the outer world.
There is another reason for the slow progress of the knowl.
edge of ourselves. Our mind is so constructed as to delight
in contemplating simple facts. We feel a kind of repugnance
in attacking such a complex problem as that of the con-
stitution of living beings and of man. The intellect, as
Bergson wrote, is characterized by a natural inability to
comprehend life. On the contrary, we love to discover in
the cosmos the geométrical forms that exist in the depths
of our consciousness. ‘The exactitude of the proportions of
our monuments and the precision of our machines express
a fundamental character of our mind. Geométry does not
exist in the earthly world. It has originated in ourselves. The
methods of nature are never so precise as those of man. We
do not find in the universe the clearness and accuracy of our
thought. We attempt, therefore, to abstract from the com-
plexity of phenomena some simple systems whose com-
ponents bear to one another certain relations susceptible of
being described mathematically. This power of abstraction
of the human intellect is responsible for the amazing progress
of physics and chemistry. A similar success has rewarded the
physicochemical study of living beings. The laws of chemistry
and of physics are identical in the world of living things
and in that of inanimate matter, as Claude Bernard thought
Jong ago. This fact explains why modern physiology has dis-
covered, for example, that the constancy of the alkalinity of
the blood and of the water of the ocean is expressed by
identical laws, that the energy spent by the contracting
[8]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
muscle is supplied by the fermentation of sugar, étc. The
physicochemical aspects of human beings are almost as easy
to investigate as those of the other objects of the terrestrial
world. Such is the task which general physiology succeeds in
accomplishing.
The study of the truly physiological phenomena—that is,
of those resulting from the organization of living matter—
mects with more important obstacles. On account of the ex-
treme smallness of the things to be analyzed, it is impossible
to use the ordinary techniques of physics and of chemistry.
What method could bring to light the chemical constitution
of the nucleus of the sexual cells, of its chromosomes, and
of the genes that compose these chromosomes? Nevertheless,
those very minute aggregates of chemicals are of capital im-
portance, because they contain the future of the individual
and of the race. The fragility of certain tissues, such as the
nervous substance, is so great that to study them in the living
state is almost impossible. We do not possess any technique
capable of penetrating the mysteries of the brain, and of the
harmonious association of its cells. Our mind, which loves
the simple beauty of mathematical formulas, is bewildered
when it contemplates the stupendous mass of cells, humors,
and consciousness which make up the individual. We try,
therefore, to apply to this compound the concepts that have
proved useful in the realm of physics, chemistry, and me.
chanics, and in the philosophical and religious disciplines,
Such an attempt does not meét with much success, because
we can be reduced neither to a physicochemical system
nor to a spiritual entity. Of course, the science of man has
to use the concepts of all the other sciences. But it must also
[9 |
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
develop its own. For it is as fundamental as the sciences of
the molecules, the atoms, and the electrons.
In short, the slow progress of the knowledge of the human
being, as compared with the splendid ascension of physics,
astronomy, chemistry, and mechanics, is due to our ancestors’
lack of leisure, to the complexity of the subject, and to the
Structure of our mind. Those obstacles are fundamental.
There is no hope of eliminating them. They will always have
to be overcome at the cost of strenuous effort. The knowl-
edge of ourselves will never attain the elegant simplicity, the
abstractness, and the beauty of physics. The factors that have
rétarded its development are not likely to vanish. We must
realize clearly that the science of man is the most difficult
of all sciences.
3
The environment which has molded the body and the
soul of our ancestors during many millenniums has now
been replaced by another. This silent revolution has taken
place almost without our noticing it. We have not realized
its importance. Nevertheless, it is one of the most dramatic
events in the history of humanity. For any modification in
their surroundings inevitably and profoundly disturbs all
living beings. We must, therefore, ascertain the extent of
the transformations imposed by science upon the ancestral
mode of life, and consequently upon ourselves.
Since the advent of industry, a large part of the population
has been compelled to live in restricted areas. The workmen
are herded together, either in the suburbs of the large cities
or in villages built for them. They are occupied in the fac-
[10]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
tories during fixed hours, doing easy, monotonous, and well-
paid work. The cities are also inhabited by office workers,
employees of stores, banks, and public administrations,
physicians, lawyers, school-teachers, and the multitude of
those who, directly or indirectly, draw their livelihood from
commerce and industry. Factories and offices are large, well
lighted, clean. Their temperature is uniform. Modern heat-
ing and refrigerating apparatuses raise the temperature dur-
ing the winter and lower it during the summer. The sky-
scrapers of the great cities have transformed the streéts into
gloomy canyons. But inside of the buildings, the light of the
sun is replaced by electric bulbs rich in ultra-violét rays. In-
Stead of the air of the streét, polluted by gasoline fumes, the
offices and workshops receive pure air drawn in from the up-
per atmosphere by ventilators on the roof. The dwellers of the
modern city are protected against all inclemencies of the
weather. But they are no longer able to live as did our an-
cestors, near their workshops, their stores, or their offices.
The wealthier inhabit the gigantic buildings of the main
avenues. At the top of dizzy towers, the kings of the business
world possess delightful homes, surrounded by trees, grass,
and flowers. They live there, as sheltered from noise, dust,
and all disturbances, as if they dwelt on the summit of a
mountain. They are more completely isolated from the com-
mon herd than were the feudal lords behind the walls and
the moats of their fortified castles. ‘The less wealthy, even
those with quite modest means, lodge in apartments whose
comfort surpasses that which surrounded Louis XIV or
Frederick the Great. Many have their residence far from the
city. Each evening, express trains transport innumerable
crowds to suburbs, where broad roads running bétween green
[11]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
Strips of grass and rows of trees are bordered with prétty and
comfortable houses. ‘The workmen and the humblest em-
ployees live in dwellings bétter appointed than those of the
rich of former times. The heating apparatuses that auto-
matically regulate the temperature of the houses, the bath-
rooms, the refrigerators, the electric stoves, the domestic ma-
chinery for preparing food and cleaning rooms, and the
garages for the automobiles, give to the abode of everybody,
not only in the city and the suburbs, but also in the country,
a degree of comfort which previously was found only in that
of very few privileged individuals.
Simultaneously with the habitat, the mode of life has been
transformed. This transformation is due chiefly to the in-
crease in the rapidity of communications. Indeed, it is evi-
dent that modern trains and steamers, airplanes, automobiles,
telegraph, telephone, and wireless have modified the relations
of men and of nations all over the world. Each individual
does a great many more things than formerly. He takes part
in a much larger number of events. Every day he comes into
contact with more people. Quiét and unemployed moments
are exceptional in his existence. The narrow groups of the
family and of the parish have been dissolved. Intimacy no
longer exists. For the life of the small group has been sub-
Stituted that of the herd. Solitude is looked upon as a punish-
ment or as a rare luxury. The frequent attendance at cinema,
theatrical, or athlétic performances, the clubs, the meétings
of all sorts, the gigantic universities, factories, department
Stores, and hotels have engendered in all the habit of living
in common. The telephone, the radio, and the gramophone
records carry unceasingly the vulgarity of the crowd, as well
as its pleasures and its psychology, into everyone’s house,
[12]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
even in the most isolated and remote villages. Each in-
dividual is always in direct or indirect communication with
other human beings, and keeps himself constantly informed
about the small or important events taking place in his town,
or his city, or at the other end of the world. One hears the
chimes of Westminster in the most rétired houses of the
French countryside. Any farmer in Vermont, if it pleases
him to do so, may listen to orators speaking in Berlin, Lon-
don, or Paris.
Everywhere, in the cities, as well as in the country, in
private houses as in factories, in the workshop, on the roads,
in the fields, and on the farms, machines have decreased the
intensity of human effort. Today, it is not necessary to walk.
Elevators have replaced stairs. Everybody rides in buses,
motors, or street cars, even when the distance to be covered
is very short. Natural bodily exercises, such as walking and
running over rough ground, mountain-climbing, tilling the
land by hand, clearing forests with the ax, working while
exposed to rain, sun, wind, cold, or heat, have given place
to well-regulated sports that involve almost no risk, and to
machines that abolish muscular effort. Everywhere there are
tennis-courts, golf-links, artificial skating-rinks, heated
swimming-pools, and sheltered arenas where athlétes train
and fight while protected against the inclemencies of the
weather. In this manner all can develop their muscles with-
out being subjected to the fatigue and the hardships involved
in the exercises pertaining to a more primitive form of life.
The aliments of our ancestors, which consisted chiefly of
coarse flour, meat, and alcoholic drinks, have been replaced
by much more delicate and varied food. Beef and mutton
are no longer the staple foods. The principal elements of
[13]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
modern diét are milk, cream, butter, cereals refined by the
elimination of the shells of the grain, fruits of tropical as
well as of temperate countries, fresh or canned vegétables,
salads, large quantities of sugar in the form of pies, candies,
and puddings. Alcohol alone has kept its place. The food
of children has undergone a profound change. It is now very
artificial and abundant. The same may be said of the diét of
adults. The regularity of the working-hours in offices and
factories has entailed that of the meals. Owing to the wealth
which was general until a few years ago, and to the decline in
the religious spirit and in the observance of ritualistic fasts,
human beings have never been fed so punctually and un-
interruptedly.
It is also to the wealth of the post-war period that the
enormous diffusion of education is due. Everywhere, schools,
colleges, and universities have been erected, and immediately
invaded by vast crowds of students. Youth has understood
the rôle of science in the modern world. “Knowledge is
power,” wrote Bacon. All institutions of learning are devoted
to the intellectual development of children and young peo-
ple. At the same time, they give great attention to their
physical condition. It is obvious that the main interest of
these educational establishments consists in the promotion
of mental and muscular strength. Science has demonstrated
its usefulness in such an evident manner that it has obtained
the first place in the curriculum. A great many young men
and women submit themselves to its disciplines. Scientific
institutions, universities, and industrial corporations have
built so many laboratories that every scientific worker has a
chance to make use of his particular knowledge.
The mode of life of modern men is profoundly influenced
[14]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
by hygiene and medicine and the principles resulting from
the discoveries of Pasteur. The promulgation of the Pastorian
doctrines has been an event of the highest importance to
humanity. Their application rapidly led to the suppression
of the great infectious diseases which periodically ravaged
the civilized world, and of those endemic in each country.
The necessity for cleanliness was demonstrated. Infantile
mortality at once decreased. The average duration of life
has augmented to an amazing extent and has reached fifty-
nine years in the United States, and sixty-five years in New
Zealand. People do not live longer, but more people live to
be old. Hygiene has considerably increased the quantity of
human beings. At the same time, medicine, by a bétter con-
ception of the nature of diseases and a judicious application
of surgical techniques, has extended its beneficent influence
to the weak, the defective, those predisposed to microbial
infections, to all who formerly could not endure the condi-
tions of a rougher life. It has permitted civilization to multi-
ply its human capital enormously. It has also given to each
individual much greater security against pain and disease.
The intellectual and moral surroundings in which we are
immersed have equally been molded by science. There is a
profound difference bétween the world that permeates the
mind of modern men and the world wherein our ancestors
lived. Before the intellectual victories that have brought us
wealth and comfort, moral values have naturally given
ground. Reason has swept away religious beliefs. The knowl-
edge of the natural laws, and the power given us by this
knowledge over the material world, and also over human
beings, alone are of importance. Banks, universities, labora-
tories, medical schools, hospitals, have become as beautiful
[15]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
as the Greek temples, the Gothic cathedrals, and the palaces
of the Popes. Until the recent economic crisis, bank or rail-
road presidents were the ideals of youth. The president of
a great university still occupies a very high place in the esteem
of the public because he dispenses science. And science is
the mother of wealth, comfort, and health. However, the
intellectual atmosphere, in which modern men live, rapidly
changes. Financial magnates, professors, scientists, and eco-
nomic experts are losing their hold over the public. The
people of today are sufficiently educated to read newspapers
and magazines, to listen to the speeches broadcasted by poli-
ticians, business men, charlatans, and apostles. They are
saturated with commercial, political, or social propaganda,
whose techniques are becoming more and more perfect. At
the same time they read articles and books wherein science
and philosophy are popularized. Our universe, through the
great discoveries of physics and astronomy, has acquired a
marvelous grandeur. Each individual is able, if it so pleases
him, to hear about the theories of Einstein, or to read the
books of Eddington and of Jeans, the articles of Shapley and
of Millikan. The public is as interested in the cosmic rays
as in cinema stars and baseball-players. Everyone is aware
that space is curved, that the world is composed of blind and
unknown forces, that we are nothing but infinitely small
particles on the surface of a grain of dust lost in the im-
mensity of the cosmos, and that this cosmos is totally deprived
of life and consciousness. Our universe is exclusively me-
chanical. It cannot be otherwise, since it has been created
from an unknown substratum by the techniques of physics
and astronomy. Just as are all the surroundings of modern
[16]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
men, it is the expression of the amazing development of the
sciences of inert matter.
4
The profound changes imposed on the habits of men by
the applications of science have occurred recently. In fact,
we are Still in the midst of the industrial revolution. It is
difficult, therefore, to know exactly how the substitution of
an artificial mode of existence for the natural one and a com-
pléte modification of their environment have acted upon
civilized human beings. There is, however, no doubt that
such an action has taken place. For every living thing de-
pends intimately on its surroundings, and adapts itself to
any modification of these surroundings by an appropriate
change. We mutt, therefore, ascertain in what manner we
have been influenced by the mode of life, the customs, the
diét, the education, and the intellectual and moral habits
imposed on us by modern civilization. Have we benefited
by such progress? This momentous question can be answered
only after a careful examination of the state of the nations
which were the first to profit by the application of scientific
discoveries.
It is evident that men have joyfully welcomed modern
civilization. They have abandoned the countryside and
flocked to the cities and the factories. ‘They eagerly adopt
the mode of life and the ways of acting and of thinking of
the new era. They lay aside their old habits without hesita-
tion, because these habits demand a greater effort. It is less
fatiguing to work in a factory or an office than on a farm.
But even in the country, new techniques have relieved the
[17]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
harshness of existence. Modern houses make life easier for
everybody. By their comfort, their warmth, and their pleas-
ant lighting, they give their inmates a feeling of rest and
contentment. Their up-to-date appointments considerably
decrease the labor that, in bygone days, housekeeping de-
manded from women. Besides the lessening of muscular ef-
fort and the possession of comfort, human beings have ac-
cepted cheerfully the privilege of never being alone, of
enjoying the innumerable distractions of the city, of living
among huge crowds, of never thinking. They also appreciate
being released, through a purely intellectual education, from
the moral restraint imposed upon them by Puritan discipline
and religious principles. In truth, modern life has sét them
free. It incites them to acquire wealth by any and every pos-
sible means, provided that these means do not lead them to
jail. It opens to them all the countries of the earth. It has
liberated them from all superstitions. It allows them the fre-
quent excitation and the easy satisfaction of their sexual
appetites. It does away with constraint, discipline, effort,
everything that is inconvenient and laborious. The people,
especially those belonging to the lower classes, are happier
from a material standpoint than in former times. However,
some of them progressively cease to appreciate the distrac-
tions and the vulgar pleasures of modern life. Occasionally,
their health does not permit them to continue indefinitely
the alimentary, alcoholic, and sexual excesses to which they
are led by the suppression of all discipline. Besides, they are
haunted by the fear of losing their employment, their means
of subsistence, their savings, their fortune. They are unable
to satisfy the need for security that exists in the depth of each
of us. In spite of social insurances, they feel uneasy about
[18]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
their future. Those who are capable of thinking become
discontented.
It is certain, nevertheless, that health is improving. Not
only has mortality decreased, but each individual is hand-
somer, larger, and stronger. Today, children are much taller
than their parents. An abundance of good food and physical
exercises have augmented the size of the body and its mus-
cular strength. Often the best athlétes at the international
games come from the United States. In the athlétic teams
of the American universities, there are many individuals
who are really magnificent specimens of human beings. Un-
der the present educational conditions, bones and muscles
develop perfectly. America has succeeded in reproducing the
most admirable forms of ancient beauty. However, the
longevity of the men proficient in all kinds of sports and
enjoying every advantage of modern life is not greater than
that of their ancestors. It may even be less. ‘Their resistance
to fatigue and worry seems to have decreased. It appears that
the individuals accustomed to natural bodily exercise, to
hardships, and to the inclemencies of the weather, as were
their fathers, are capable of harder and more sustained efforts
than our athlétes. We know that the products of modern
education need much sleep, good food, and regular habits.
Their nervous system is delicate. They do not endure the
mode of existence in the large cities, the confinement in
offices, the worries of business, and even the everyday difh-
culties and sufferings of life. They easily break down. Per-
haps the triumphs of hygiene, medicine, and modern educa-
tion are not so advantageous as we are led to believe.
We should also ask ourselves whéther there are no in-
conveniences attached to the great decrease in the death rate
[19]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
during infancy and youth. In fact, the weak are saved as well
as the Strong. Natural selection no longer plays its part. No
one knows what will be the future of a race so well pro-
tected by medical sciences. But we are confronted with much
graver problems, which demand immediate solution. While
infantile diarrhea, tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid fever,
étc., are being eliminated, they are replaced by degenerative
diseases. There are also a large number of affections of the
nervous system and of the mind. In certain states the mul-
titude of the insane confined in the asylums exceeds that of
the patients kept in all other hospitals. Like insanity, nerv-
ous disorders and intellectual weakness seem to have become
more frequent. They are the most active factors of individual
misery and of the destruction of families. Mental déteriora-
tion is more dangerous for civilization than the infectious
diseases to which hygienists and physicians have so far ex-
clusively devoted their attention.
In spite of the immense sums of money expended on the
education of the children and the young people of the United
States, the intellectual élite does not seem to have increased.
The average man and woman are, without any doubt, better
educated and, superficially at least, more refined. The taste
for reading is greater. More reviews and books are bought
by the public than in former times. ‘The number of people
who are interested in science, létters, and art has grown. But
most of them are chiefly attracted by the lowest form of liter-
ature and by the imitations of science and of art. It seems that
the excellent hygienic conditions in which children are
reared, and the care lavished upon them in school, have not
raised their intellectual and moral standards. There may
possibly be some antagonism bétween their physical develop-
[20]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
ment and their mental size. After all, we do not know whéther
a larger Stature in a given race expresses a State of progress,
as is assumed today, or of degeneracy. There is no doubt that
children are much happier in the schools where compulsion
has been suppressed, where they are allowed exclusively to
study the subjects in which they are interested, where in-
tellectual effort and voluntary attention are not exacted.
What are the results of such an education? In modern civiliza-
tion, the individual is characterized chiefly by a fairly great
activity, entirely directed toward the practical side of life,
by much ignorance, by a certain shrewdness, and by a kind
of mental weakness which leaves him under the influence of
the environment wherein he happens to be placed. It appears
that intelligence itself gives way when character weakens.
For this reason, perhaps, this quality, characteristic of
France in former times, has so markedly failed in that coun-
try. In the United States, the intellectual standard remains
low, in spite of the increasing number of schools and uni-
versities.
Modern civilization seems to be incapable of producing
people endowed with imagination, intelligence, and cour-
age. In practically every country there is a decrease in the
intellectual and moral caliber of those who carry the re-
sponsibility of public affairs. The financial, industrial, and
commercial organizations have reached a gigantic size. They
are influenced not only by the conditions of the country
where they are established, but also by the State of the neigh-
boring countries and of the entire world. In all nations,
economic and social conditions undergo extremely rapid
changes. Nearly everywhere the existing form of government
is again under discussion. The great democracies find them-
[21]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
selves face to face with formidable problems—problems con-
cerning their very existence and demanding an immediate
solution. And we realize that, despite the immense hopes
which humanity has placed in modern civilization, such a
civilization has failed in developing men of sufficient intelli-
gence and audacity to guide it along the dangerous road on
which it is Stumbling. Human beings have not grown so
rapidly as the institutions sprung from their brains. It is
chiefly the intellectual and moral deficiencies of the political
leaders, and their ignorance, which endanger modern na-
tions.
Finally, we must ascertain how the new mode of life will
influence the future of the race. ‘The response of the women
to the modifications brought about in the ancestral habits
by industrial civilization has been immediate and decisive.
The birth rate has at once fallen. This event has been felt
most precociously and seriously in the social classes and in
the nations which were the first to benefit from the progress
brought about, directly or indirectly, by the applications of
scientific discoveries. Voluntary sterility 1s not a new thing in
the history of the world. It has already been observed in a
certain period of past civilizations. It is a classical symptom.
We know its significance.
It is evident, then, that the changes produced in our en-
vironment by technology have influenced us profoundly.
Their effects assume an unexpected character. They are
Strikingly different from those which were hoped for and
which could legitimately be expected from the improve-
ments of all kinds brought to the habitat, the mode of life,
the diét, the education, and the intellectual atmosphere of
[22]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
human beings. How has such a paradoxical result been
obtained?
5
A simple answer could be given to this question. Modern
civilization finds itself in a difficult position because it does
not suit us. It has been erected without any knowledge of
our real nature. It was born from the whims of scientific
discoveries, from the appétites of men, their illusions, their
theories, and their desires. Although constructed by our ef-
forts, it is not adjusted to our size and shape.
Obviously, science follows no plan. It develops at random.
Its progress depends on fortuitous conditions, such as the
birth of men of genius, the form of their mind, the direction
taken by their curiosity. It is not at all actuated by a desire
to improve the state of human beings. The discoveries re-
sponsible for industrial civilization were brought forth at
the fancy of the scientists’ intuitions and of the more or less
casual circumstances of their careers. If Galileo, Newton,
or Lavoisier had applied their intellectual powers to the
Study of body and consciousness, our world probably would
be different today. Men of science do not know where they
are going. They are guided by chance, by subtle reasoning,
by a sort of clairvoyance. Each one of them is a world apart,
governed by his own laws. From time to time, things obscure
to others become clear to him. In general, discoveries are
developed without any prevision of their consequences.
These consequences, however, have revolutionized the
world and made our civilization what it is.
From the wealth of science we have selected certain parts.
[23]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
And our choice has in no way been influenced by a considera-
tion of the higher interests of humanity. It has simply fol-
lowed the direction of our natural tendencies. The prin-
ciples of the greatest convenience and of the least effort, the
pleasure procured by speed, change, and comfort, and also
the need of escaping from ourselves, are the détermining
factors in the success of new inventions. But no one has ever
asked himself how we would stand the enormous accelera-
tion of the rhythm of life resulting from rapid transportation,
telegraph, telephone, modern business méthods, machines
that write and calculate, and those that do all the housekeep-
ing drudgery of former times. The tendency responsible for
the universal adoption of the airplane, the automobile, the
cinema, the telephone, the radio, and, in the near future,
of television, is as natural as that which, in the night of
the ages, led our ancestors to drink alcohol. Steam-heated
houses, electric lighting, elevators, biological morals, and
chemical adulteration of foodstuffs have been accepted solely
because those innovations were agreeable and convenient.
But no account whatever has been taken of their probable
effect on human beings.
In the organization of industrial life the influence of the
factory upon the physiological and mental state of the work-
ers has been completely neglected. Modern indusiry is based
on the conception of the maximum production at lowest cost,
in order that an individual or a group of individuals may
earn as much money as possible. It has expanded without
any idea of the true nature of the human beings who run
the machines, and without giving any consideration to the
effects produced on the individuals and on their descendants
by the artificial mode of existence imposed by the factory. The
[24]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
great cities have been built with no regard for us. The shape
and dimensions of the skyscrapers depend entirely on the
necessity of obtaining the maximum income per square foot
of ground, and of offering to the tenants offices and apart-
ments that please them. This caused the construction of
gigantic buildings where too large masses of human beings
are crowded togéther. Civilized men like such a way of liv-
ing. While they enjoy the comfort and bznal luxury of their
dwelling, they do not realize that they are deprived of the
necessities of life. The modern city consists of monstrous
edifices and of dark, narrow Streéts full of gasoline fumes,
coal dust, and toxic gases, torn by the noise of the taxicabs,
trucks, and trolleys, and thronged ceaselessly by great crowds.
Obviously, it has not been planned for the good of its inhabi-
tants.
Our life is influenced in a large measure by commercial
advertising. Such publicity is undertaken only in the interest
of the advertisers and not of the consumers. For example,
the public has been made to believe that white bread is
bétter than brown. Then, flour has been bolted more and
more thoroughly and thus deprived of its most useful com-
ponents. Such treatment permits its preservation for longer
periods and facilitates the making of bread. The millers and
the bakers earn more money. The consumers eat an inferior
product, believing it to be a superior one. And in the coun-
tries where bread is the principal food, the population
degenerates. Enormous amounts of money are spent for pub-
licity. As a result, large quantities of alimentary and pharma-
ceutical products, at the least useless, and often harmful,
have become a necessity for civilized men. In this manner
the greediness of individuals, sufficiently shrewd to create a
[25]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
popular demand for the goods that they have for sale, plays
a leading part in the modern world.
However, the propaganda that directs our ways of living
is not always inspired by selfish motives. Instead of being
prompted by the financial interests of individuals or of
groups of individuals, it often aims at the common good. But
its effect may also be harmful when it emanates from people
having a false or incompléte conception of the human being.
For example, should physicians, by prescribing special foods,
as most of them do, accelerate the growth of young children?
In such an instance, their action is based on an incomplete
knowledge of the subject. Are larger and heavier children
bétter than smaller ones? Intelligence, alertness, audacity,
and resistance to disease do not depend on the same factors
as the weight of the body. The education dispensed by schools
and universities consists chiefly in a training of the memory
and of the muscles, in certain social manners, in a worship of
athlétics. Are such disciplines really suitable for modern men
who need, above all other things, mental equilibrium, nerv-
ous Stability, sound judgment, audacity, moral courage, and
endurance? Why do hygienists behave as though human
beings were exclusively liable to infectious diseases, while
they are also exposed to the attacks of nervous and mental
disorders, and to the weakening of the mind? Although
physicians, educators, and hygienists most generously lavish
their efforts for the benefit of mankind, they do not attain
their goal. For they deal with schemata containing only a
part of the reality. The same may be said of all those who
substitute their desires, their dreams, or their doctrines for
the concrete human being. These theorists build up civiliza-
[26]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
tions which, although designed by them for man, fit only
an incompléte or monstrous image of man. The systems
of government, entirely constructed in the minds of doc-
trinaires, are valueless. ‘The principles of the French Revolu-
tion, the visions of Marx and Lenin, apply only to abstract
men. It must be clearly realized that the laws of human re-
lations are still unknown. Sociology and economics are con-
jectural sciences—that is, pseudo-sciences.
Thus, it appears that the environment, which science and
technology have succeeded in developing for man, does not
suit him, because it has been constructed at random, with-
out regard for his true self.
6
To summarize. The sciences of inert matter have made
immense progress, while those of living beings remain in a
rudimentary state. The slow advance of biology is due to
the conditions of human existence, to the intricacy of the
phenomena of life, and to the form of our intelligence,
which delights in mechanical constructions and mathematical
abstractions. The applications of scientific discoveries have
transformed the material and mental worlds. These trans-
formations exert on us a profound influence. Their un-
fortunate effect comes from the fact that they have been
made without consideration for our nature. Our ignorance
of ourselves has given to mechanics, physics, and chemistry
the power to modify at random the ancestral forms of life.
Man should be the measure of all. On the contrary, he is
a Stranger in the world that he has created. He has been in-
[27]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
capable of organizing this world for himself, because he did
not possess a practical knowledge of his own nature. Thus,
the enormous advance gained by the sciences of inanimate
matter over those of living things is one of the greatest catas-
trophes ever suffered by humanity. The environment born
of our intelligence and our inventions is adjusted neither to
our stature nor to our shape. We are unhappy. We degener-
ate morally and mentally. The groups and the nations in
which industrial civilization has attained its highest develop-
ment are precisely those which are becoming weaker. And
whose return to barbarism is the most rapid. But they do
not realize it. They are without protection against the hostile
surroundings that science has built about them. In truth,
our civilization, like those preceding it, has created certain
conditions of existence which, for reasons still obscure, ren-
der life itself impossible. The anxiéty and the woes of the
inhabitants of the modern city arise from their political,
economic, and social institutions, but, above all, from their
own weakness. We are the victims of the backwardness of
the sciences of life over those of matter.
The only possible remedy for this evil is a much more
profound knowledge of ourselves. Such a knowledge will
enable us to understand by what mechanisms modern exist-
ence affects our consciousness and our body. We shall thus
learn how to adapt ourselves to our surroundings, and how to
change them, should a revolution become indispensable. In
bringing to light our true nature, our potentialities, and the
way to actualize them, this science will give us the explana-
tion of our physiological weakening, and of our moral and
intellectual diseases. We have no other means of learning the
inexorable rules of our organic and spiritual activities, of
[28]
THE NEED OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
distinguishing the prohibited from the lawful, of realizing
that we are not free to modify, according to our fancy, our
environment, and ourselves. Since the natural conditions of
existence have been destroyed by modern civilization, the
science of man has become the moŝt necessary of all sciences.
[2g]
Chapter II
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
1. Necessity of a choice among the heterogeneous data concerning
man. The operational concept of Bridgman. Its application to living
beings. Confusion of concepts. Rejection of philosophical and
scientific systems. Function of conjectures. 2. The need of a com-
plete survey. Every aspect of man to receive attention. No exag-
gerated importance to be given to any one part. Simple phenomena
not to be preferred to complex ones. Unexplainable facts not to
be ignored. Man in his entirety is within the jurisdiction of
science. 3. The science of man is more important than all other
sciences. Its analytic and synthetic character. 4. The analysis of
man requires various techniques. Those techniques create body
and soul, structure and functions, and divide the body into parts.
The specialists. The need for non-specialized scientists. How to
promote human biological research. 5. Technical difficulties en-
countered in the study of man. Utilization of animals of high
intelligence. How experiments of long duration should be or-
ganized. 6. The character of a utilizable synthesis of our data
about man.
I
Our ignorance of ourselves is of a peculiar nature. It does
not arise from difficulty in procuring the necessary informa-
tion, from its inaccuracy, or from its scarcity. On the con-
trary, it is due to the extreme abundance and confusion of
the data accumulated about itself by humanity during the
course of the ages. Also to the division of man into an almost
infinite number of fragments by the sciences that have en-
[30]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
deavored to Study his body and his consciousness. This knowl-
edge, to a large extent, has not been utilized. In fact, it is
barely utilizable. Its sterility manifests itself in the meager-
ness of the classical abstractions, of the schemata that are the
basis of medicine, hygiene, education, sociology, and politi-
cal economy. There is, however, a living and rich reality
buried in the enormous mass of definitions, observations,
doctrines, desires, and dreams representing man’s efforts
toward a knowledge of himself. In addition to the systems
and speculations of scientists and philosophers, we have the
positive results of the experience of past generations, and
also a multitude of observations carried out with the spirit
and, occasionally, with the techniques of science. But we
must make a judicious choice from these héterogeneous
things.
Among the numerous concepts relating to the human
being, some are mere logical constructs of our mind. We do
not find in the outer world any being to whom they apply.
The others are purely and simply the result of experience.
They have been called by Bridgman operational concepts.
An operational concept is equivalent to the operation or to
the sét of operations involved in its acquisition. Indeed, all
positive knowledge demands the use of a certain technique,
of certain physical or mental operations. When we say that
an object is one méter long, we mean that it has the same
length as a rod of wood or of métal, whose dimension is, in
its turn, equal to that of the standard méter kept at the Inter-
national Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris. It is
quite evident that the things we can observe are the only
ones we really know. In the foregoing example, the concept
of length is synonymous with the measurement of such
[31]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
length. According to Bridgman, concepts dealing with things
situated outside the experimental field are meaningless.
Thus, a question has no signification if it is not possible to
discover the operations permitting us to answer it.
The precision of any concept whatsoever depends upon
that of the operations by which it is acquired. If man is
defined as a being composed of matter and consciousness,
such a proposition is meaningless. For the relations bétween
consciousness and bodily matter have not, so far, been
brought into the experimental field. But an operational defi-
nition is given of man when we consider him as an organism
capable of manifesting physicochemical, physiological, and
psychological activities. In biology, as in physics, the con-
cepts which will always remain real, and must be the basis
of science, are linked to certain méthods of observation. For
example, our present idea of the cells of the cerebral cortex,
their pyramidal body, their dendritic processes, and their
smooth axon, results from the techniques invented by Ramon
y Cajal. This is an operational concept. Such a concept will
change only when new and more perfect techniques will be
discovered. But to say that cerebral cells are the seat of
mental processes 1s a worthless affirmation, for there is no
possibility of observing the presence of mental processes in
the body of cerebral cells. Operational concepts are the only
solid foundation upon which we can build. From the im-
mense fund of knowledge we possess about ourselves, we
must select the data corresponding to what exists not only in
our mind, but also in nature.
We know that among the concepts relating to man, some
are specific of him, others belong to all living beings, and
Still others are those of chemistry, physics, and mechanics.
[32]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
There are as many systems of concepts as of strata in the
organization of living matter. At the level of the electronic,
atomic, and molecular structures found in man’s tissues, as
well as in trees, stones, or clouds, the concepts of space-time
continuum, energy, force, mass, entropy, should be used. And
also those of osmotic tension, electric charge, ions, capillarity,
permeability, diffusion. The concepts of micella, dispersion,
adsorption, and flocculation appear at the level of the ma-
terial aggregates larger than molecules. When the molecules
and their combinations have erected tissue cells, and when
these cells have associated togéther to form organs and organ-
isms, the concepts of chromosome, gene, heredity, adaptation,
physiological time, reflex, instinct, étc., must be added to those
already mentioned. They are the very concepts of physiology.
They exist simultaneously with the physicochemical con-
cepts, but cannot be reduced to them. At the highest level
of organization, in addition to electrons, atoms, molecules,
cells, and tissues, we encounter a whole composed of organs,
humors, and consciousness. ‘Then, physicochemical and phys-
iological concepts become insufficient. To them we must
join the psychological concepts characteristic of man, such as
intelligence, moral sense, esthetic sense, and social sense. The
principles of minimum effort and of maximum production
or of maximum pleasure, the quest for liberty, for equality,
étc., have to be substituted for the thermodynamic laws and
those of adaptation.
Each system of concepts can only be legitimately used in
the domain of the science to which it belongs. The concepts
of physics, chemistry, physiology, and psychology are applica-
ble to the superposed levels of the bodily organization. But
the concepts appropriate at one level should not be mingled
[33]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
indiscriminately with those specific of another. For exam-
ple, the second law of thermodynamics, the law of dissipation
of free energy, indispensable at the molecular level, is useless
at the psychological level, where the principles of least effort
and of maximum pleasure are applied. The concepts of capil-
larity and of osmotic tension do not throw any light on
problems pertaining to consciousness. It is nothing but word
play to explain a psychological phenomenon in terms of
cell physiology, or of quantum mechanics. However, the
mechanistic physiologists of the ninéteenth century, and
their disciples who still linger with us, have committed such
an error in endeavoring to reduce man entirely to physical
chemistry. This unjustified generalization of the results of
sound experiments i is due to Orpea lization: Concepts
should not be misused. They must be kept in their place in
the hierarchy of sciences.
The confusion in our knowledge of ourselves comes chiefly
from the presence, among the positive facts, of the remains
of scientific, philosophic, and religious systems. If our mind
adheres to any system whatsoever, the aspect and the signifi-
cance of concréte phenomena are changed. At all times,
humanity has contemplated itself through glasses colored by
doctrines, beliefs, and illusions. ‘These false or inexact ideas
must be discarded. Long ago, Claude Bernard in his writings
mentioned the necessity of gétting rid of philosophical and
scientific systems as one would break the chains of intellec-
tual slavery. But such freedom has not yét been attained.
Biologists and, above all, educators, economists, and sociolo-
gists, when facing extremely complex problems, have often
yielded to the temptation to build up theories and afterwards
[34]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
to turn them into articles of faith. And their sciences have
crystallized in formulas as rigid as the dogmas of a religion.
We meét with troublesome reminders of such mistakes in
all the departments of knowledge. The quarrel of the vital-
ists and the mechanists, the futility of which astounds us
today, arose from one of the most famous of these errors. The
vitalists thought that the organism was a machine whose
parts were integrated with one another by a factor that was
not physicochemical. According to them, the processes re-
sponsible for the unity of the living being were governed by
an independent spiritual principle, an entelechy, an idea
analogous to that of an engineer who designs a machine.
This autonomous factor was not a form of energy and did
not produce energy. It was only concerned with the manage-
ment of the organism. Evidently, entelechy is not an opera-
tional concept. It is purely a mental construct. In short, the
vitalists considered the body as a machine, guided by an engi-
neer, whom they called entelechy. And they did not realize
that this engineer was nothing but the intelligence of the
observer. As for the mechanists, they believed that all physi-
ological and psychological activities could be explained by
the laws of physics, chemistry, and mechanics. Theythus built
a machine, and, like the vitalists, they were the engineer of
this machine. Then, as Woodger pointed out, they forgot the
existence of that engineer. Such a concept is not operational.
It is evident that mechanism and vitalism should be rejected
for the same reason as all other systems. At the same time, we
must free ourselves from the mass of illusions, errors, and
badly observed facts, from the false problems investigated by
the weak-minded of the realm of science, and from the
[35]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
pseudo-discoveries of charlatans and scientists extolled by
the daily press. Also from the sadly useless investigations, the
long studies of meaningless things, the inextricable jumble
that has been standing mountain high ever since biological
research became a profession like those of the school-teacher,
the clergyman, and the bank clerk.
This elimination compléted, the results of the patient
labor of all sciences concerning themselves with man, the
accumulated wealth of their experience, will remain as the
unshakable basis of our knowledge. In the history of human-
ity, the expression of all our fundamental activities can be
read at a single glance. In addition to positive observations,
to sure facts, there are many things neither positive nor in-
dubitable. They should not be rejected. Of course, opera-
tional concepts are the only foundation upon which science
can be solidly built. But creative imagination alone is capa-
ble of inspiring conjectures and dreams pregnant with the
worlds of the future. We must continue asking questions
which, from the point of view of sound, scientific criticism,
are meaningless. And even if we tried to prevent our mind
from pursuing the impossible and the unknowable, such an
effort would be vain. Curiosity is a necessity of our nature, a
blind impulse that obeys no rule. Our mind turns around
all external objects and penétrates within the depths of our-
selves, as instinctively and as irresistibly as a raccoon ex-
plores, with its clever little paws, the slightest détails of its
narrow world. Curiosity impels us to discover the universe.
It inexorably draws us in its train to unknown countries.
And unclimbable mountains vanish before it like smoke be-
fore the wind.
[ 36]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
2
A thorough examination of man is indispensable. The
barrenness of classical schemata is due to the fact that, despite
the great scope of our knowledge, we have never appre-
hended our whole being with a sufficiently penétrating ef-
fort. Thus, we must do more than consider the aspect of man
at a certain period of his history, in certain conditions of his
life. We must grasp him in all his activities, those that are
ordinarily apparent as well as those that may remain poten-
tial. Such information can only be obtained by looking care-
fully in the present and in the past for all the manifestations
of our organic and mental powers. Also by an examination,
both analytic and synthetic, of our constitution and of our
physical, chemical, and mental relations with our environ-
ment. We should follow the wise advice that Descartes, in his
Discourse on Méthod, gave to those who seek the truth, and
divide our subject into as many parts as are necessary in order
to make a complete inventory of each one of them. But it
should be clearly understood that such a division is only a
methodological expedient, created by ourselves, and that
man remains indivisible.
There is no privileged territory. In the abysses of our inner
world everything has a meaning. We cannot choose only
those things that please us, according to the dictates of our
feelings, our imagination, the scientific and philosophical
form of our mind. A difficult or obscure subject must not
be neglected just because it is difficult and obscure. All
méthods should be employed. The qualitative is as true as
the quantitative. The relations that can be expressed in
[37]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
mathematical terms do not possess greater reality than those
that cannot be so expressed. Darwin, Claude Bernard, and
Pasteur, whose discoveries could not be described in alge-
braic formulas, were as great scientists as Newton and Ein-
Stein. Reality is not necessarily clear and simple. It is not
even sure that we are always able to understand it. In addi-
tion, it assumes infinitely varied aspects. A state of conscious-
ness, the humeral bone, a wound, are equally real things. A
phenomenon does not owe its importance to the facility with
which scientific techniques can be applied to its study. It
must be conceived in function, not of the observer and his
méthod, but of the subject, the human being. The grief of
the mother who has lost her child, the distress of the mys-
tical soul plunged in the “dark night,” the suffering of the
patient tortured by cancer, are evident realities, although
they are not measurable. The study of the phenomena of
clairvoyance should not be neglected any more than that of
the chronaxy of nerves, though clairvoyance can neither be
produced at will nor measured, while it is possible to meas-
ure chronaxy exactly by a simple méthod. In making this
inventory, we should utilize all possible means and be con-
tent with observing the phenomena that cannot be measured.
It often happens that undue importance is given to some
part at the expense of the others. We are obliged to consider
all the different aspects of man, physicochemical, anatomical,
physiological, métapsychical, intellectual, moral, artistic, re-
ligious, economic, and social. Every specialist, owing to a
well-known professional bias, believes that he understands
the entire human being, while in reality he only grasps a tiny
part of him. Fragmentary aspects are considered as repre-
senting the whole. And these aspects are taken at random,
[38]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
following the fashion of the moment, which in turn gives
more importance to the individual or to sociéty, to physio-
logical appétites or to spiritual activities, to muscular devel-
opment or to brain power, to beauty or to utility, étc. Man,
therefore, appears with many different visages. We arbitra-
rily choose among them the one that pleases us, and forgét
the others.
Another mistake consists in suppressing a part of reality
from the inventory. ‘There are many reasons accounting for
this. We prefer to study systems that can easily be isolated
and approached by simple méthods. We generally neglect
the more complex. Our mind has a partiality for precise and
definitive solutions and for the resulting intellectual secu-
rity. We have an almost irresistible tendency to select the sub-
jects of our investigations for their technical facility and
clearness rather than for their importance. ‘Thus, modern
physiologists principally concern themselves with physico
chemical phenomena taking place in living animals, and pay
less attention to physiological and functional processes.
The same thing happens with physicians when they special-
ize in subjects whose techniques are easy and already known,
rather than in degenerative diseases, neuroses, and psychoses,
whose study would require the use of imagination and the
creation of new méthods. Everyone realizes, however, that
the discovery of some of the laws of the organization of living
matter would be more important than, for example, that of
the rhythm of the cilia of tracheal cells. Without any doubt,
it would be much more useful to free humanity from cancer,
tuberculosis, arteriosclerosis, syphilis, and the innumerable
misfortunes caused by nervous and mental diseases, than to
engross oneself in the minute study of physicochemical phe-
[39]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
nomena of secondary importance manifesting themselves in
the course of diseases. On account of technical difficulties,
certain matters are banished from the field of scientific re-
search, and refused the right of making themselves known.
Important facts may be completely ignored. Our mind has
a natural tendency to reject the things that do not fit into
the frame of the scientific or philosophical beliefs of our
time. After all, scientists are only men. They are saturated
with the prejudices of their environment and of their epoch.
They willingly believe that facts that cannot be explained by
current theories do not exist. During the period when phys-
iology was identified with physical chemistry, the period of
Jacques Loeb and of Bayliss, the study of mental functions
was neglected. No one was interested in psychology and in
mind disorders. At the present time, scientists who are con-
cerned solely in the physical, chemical, and physicochemical
aspects of physiological processes still look upon telepathy
and other métapsychical phenomena as illusions. Evident
facts having an unorthodox appearance are suppressed. By
reason of these difficulties, the inventory of the things which
could lead us to a bétter understanding of the human being,
has been left incompléte. We must, then, go back to a naive
observation of ourselves in all our aspects, reject nothing,
and describe simply what we see.
At first glance, the scientific méthod seems not to be ap-
plicable to the analysis of all our activities. It is obvious
that we, the observers, are unable to follow human person-
ality into every region where it extends. Our techniques do
not grasp things having neither dimensions nor weight.
They only reach those situated in space and time. They are
incapable of measuring vanity, hatred, love, beauty, or the
[40]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
dreams of the scientist, the inspiration of the poet, the eleva-
tion of the mystical soul toward God. But they easily record
the physiological aspects and the material results of these
psychological states. Mental and spiritual activities, when
they play an important part in our life, express themselves
by a certain behavior, certain acts, a certain attitude toward
our fellow men. It is only in this manner that the moral,
esthétic, and mystic functions can be explored by scientific
methods. We also have at our disposal the statements of those
who have traveled in these almost unknown regions. But the
verbal expression of their experiences is, in general, dis-
concerting. Outside the domain of intelligence, nothing is
clearly definable. Of course, the elusiveness of a thing does
not signify its non-existence. When one sails in dense fog,
the invisible rocks are none the less present. From time to
time their menacing forms emerge from the white mist. And
at once they are swallowed up again. To this phenomenon
can be truthfully compared the evanescent visions of artists
and, above all, of great mystics. Those things which our tech-
niques are incapable of grasping nevertheless Stamp the in-
itiated with a visible mark. In such indirect ways does science
know the spiritual world which, by definition, it is forbidden
to enter. Man in his entiréty is located within the jurisdic-
tion of the scientific techniques.
3
The critical review of the data concerning man yields a
large amount of positive information. We are thus enabled to
make a complete inventory of human activities. Such an in-
ventory will lead to the building up of new schemata, richer
[41]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
than the classical ones. But our knowledge will not, in this
manner, progress very strikingly. We shall have to go farther
and build up a real science of man. A science capable of un-
dertaking, with the help of all known techniques, a more
exhaustive examination of our inner world, and also of real-
izing that each part should be considered as a function of
the whole. In order to develop such a science, we mutt, for
some time, turn our attention away from mechanical inven-
tions and even, in a certain measure, from classical hygiene
and medicine, from the purely material aspects of our ex-
istence. Everybody is interested in things that increase
wealth and comfort. But no one understands that the struc-
tural, functional, and mental quality of each individual has
to be improved. The health of the intelligence and of the
affective sense, moral discipline, and spiritual development
are just as necessary as the health of the body and the pre-
vention of infectious diseases.
No advantage is to be gained by increasing the number
of mechanical inventions. It would perhaps be as well not to
accord so much importance to discoveries of physics, astron-
omy, and chemistry. In truth, pure science never directly
brings us any harm. But when its fascinating beauty domi-
nates our mind and enslaves our thoughts in the realm of
inanimate matter, it becomes dangerous. Man must now
turn his attention to himself, and to the cause of his moral
and intellectual disability. What is the good of increasing
the comfort, the luxury, the beauty, the size, and the com-
plications of our civilization, if our weakness prevents us
from guiding it to our best advantage? It is really not worth
while to go on elaborating a way of living that is bringing
about the demoralization and the disappearance of the
[42]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
noblest elements of the great races. It would be far bétter to
pay more attention to ourselves than to construct faster
steamers, more comfortable automobiles, cheaper radios, or
telescopes for examining the structure of remote nebulez.
What real progress will be accomplished when aircraft take
us to Europe or to China in a few hours? Is it necessary to in-
crease production unceasingly, so that men may consume
larger and larger quantities of useless things? There is not
the shadow of a doubt that mechanical, physical, and chem-
ical sciences are incapable of giving us intelligence, moral
discipline, health, nervous equilibrium, security, and peace.
Our curiosity must turn aside from its present path, and
take another direction. It must leave the physical and physi-
ological in order to follow the mental and the spiritual. So
far, sciences concerning themselves with human beings have
confined their activities to certain aspects of their subject.
They have not succeeded in escaping from Cartesian dual-
ism. They have been dominated by mechanism. In physiol-
ogy, hygiene, and medicine, as well as in the study of
education and of political and social economy, scientists have
been chiefly absorbed by organic, humoral, and intellectual
aspects of man. They have not paid any great attention to his
affective and moral form, his inner life, his character, his
esthetic and religious needs, the common substratum of or-
ganic and psychological activities, the intimate relations of
the individual and of his mental and spiritual environment.
A radical change is indispensable. This change requires both
the work of specialists devoting their efforts to the particular
knowledge related to our body and our mind, and of scien-
tists capable of integrating the discoveries of the specialists
in function of man as a whole. The new science must pro-
[43]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
gress, by a double effort of analysis and synthesis, toward a
conception of the human individual at once sufficiently com-
plete and sufficiently simple to serve as a basis for our action.
4
Man cannot be separated into parts. He would cease to
exist if his organs were isolated from one another. Although
indivisible, he assumes different aspects. His aspects are the
héterogeneous manifestations of his unity to our sense or-
gans. He can be compared to an electric lamp whose pres-
ence is recorded in a different manner by a thermométer, a
voltméter, a photographic plate, or a selenium cell. We are
incapable of direclly apprehending him in his simplicity.
We can only grasp him through our senses and our scientific
instruments. According to our means of investigation, his
activity appears to be physical, chemical, physiological, or
psychological. The analysis of his manifoldness naturally de-
mands the help of various techniques. As he manifests him-
self exclusively through the agency of these techniques, he
necessarily takes on the appearance of being multiple.
The science of man makes use of all other sciences. ‘This 1s
one of the reasons for its slow progress and its difficulty. For
example, in order to study the influence of a psychological
factor on a sensitive individual, the méthods of medicine,
physiology, physics, and chemistry have to be employed. Lét
us suppose that our subject receives bad news. This psycho-
logical event may express itself simultaneously by moral suf-
fering, nervous agitation, circulatory disturbances, lesions of
the skin, physicochemical modifications of the blood, étc.
When dealing with man we are obliged to employ the meth-
[44]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
ods and concepts of several sciences, even for the simplest
experiment. If we study the effects of a given food, either
animal or vegétable, on a group of individuals, we must first
learn the chemical composition of that food. And also the
physiological and psychological states, and the ancestral char-
acteristics of the individuals who are to be the subjects of
the investigation. Then we have to record accurately the
changes in weight, in height, in the form of the skeléton, in
muscular strength, in susceptibility to diseases, in the phys-
ical, chemical, and anatomical characteristics of the blood, in
nervous equilibrium, in intelligence, courage, fertility, lon-
gevity, which take place during the course of the experiment.
Obviously, no one scientist is capable of mastering all the
techniques indispensable to the study of a single human
problem. Therefore, progress in knowledge of ourselves re-
quires the simultaneous efforts of various specialists. Each
specialist confines himself to one part of the body, or con-
sciousness, or of their relations with the environment. He is
anatomist, physiologist, chemist, psychologist, physician,
hygienist, educator, clergyman, sociologist, economist. Each
speciality is divided into smaller and smaller parts. There are
specialists in glandular physiology, in vitamines, in diseases
of the rectum, in those of the nose, in education of small chil-
dren or of adults, in hygiene of factories and of prisons, in
psychology of all categories of individuals, in domestic econ-
omy, rural economy, étc. Such a division of the work has
made possible the development of the particular sciences.
Specialization is imperative. Scientists have to devote their
attention to one department of knowledge. And it is impos-
sible for a specialist, actively engaged in the pursuit of his
own task, to understand the human being as a whole. Indeed,
[45]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
such a state of affairs is rendered necessary by the vast extent
of the field of each science. But it presents a certain danger.
For example, Calmétte, who had specialized in bacteriology,
wished to prevent the spread of tuberculosis among the
French population. He, naturally, prescribed the use of the
vaccine he had invented. If, in addition to being a bacteri-
ologist, he had possessed a moregeneral knowledge of hygiene
and medicine, he would have advised also the adoption of
measures with regard to dwellings, food, working conditions,
and the way of living of the people. A similar occurrence
took place in the United States in the organization of the ele-
mentary schools. John Dewey,)who is a philosopher, under-
took to improve The education of American children. But
his méthods were suited to the schema, the abstraction, which
his professional bias made him take for the concrete child.
Still more harm is caused by the extreme specialization
of the physicians. Medicine has separated the sick human
being into small fragments, and each fragment has its spe-
cialist. When a specialist, from the beginning of his career,
confines himself to a minute part of the body, his knowledge
of the rest is so rudimentary that he is incapable of thor-
oughly understanding even that part in which he specializes.
A similar thing happens to educators, clergymen, econo-
mists, and sociologists who, before limiting themselves en-
tirely to their particular domain, have not taken the trouble
_to acquire a general knowledge of man. The more eminent
the specialist, the more dangerous he is. Scientists who have
Strikingly distinguished themselves by great discoveries or
useful inventions often come to believe that their knowledge
of one subject extends to all others. Edison, for example, did
not hesitate to impart to the public his views on philosophy
[46]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
and religion. And the public listened to his words with re-
spect, imagining them to carry as much weight on these new
subjects as on the former ones. ‘Thus, great men, in speaking
about things they do not thoroughly understand, hinder
human progress in one of its fields, while having contributed
to its advancement in another. The daily press often gives us
the dubious benefit of the sociological, economic, and scien-
tific opinions of manufacturers, bankers, lawyers, professors,
physicians, whose highly specialized minds are incapable of
apprehending in their breadth the momentous problems of
our time. However, modern civilization absolutely needs spe-
cialists. Without them, science could not progress. But, be-
fore the result of their researches is applied to man, the
scattered data of their analyses must be integrated in an in-
telligible synthesis.
Such a synthesis cannot be obtained by a simple round-
table conference of the specialists. It requires the efforts of
one man, not merely those of a group. A work of art has never
been produced by a committee of artists, nor a great discov-
ery made by a committee of scholars. ‘The syntheses needed
for the progress of our knowledge of man should be elabo-
rated in a single brain. It is impossible to make use of the
mass of information accumulated by the specialists. For no
one has undertaken to codrdinate the data already obtained,
and to consider the human being in his entiréty. ‘Today there
are many scientific workers, but very few real scientists. This
peculiar situation is not due to lack of individuals capable of
high intellectual achievements. Indeed, syntheses, as well as
discoveries, demand exceptional mental power and physio-
logical endurance. Broad and strong minds are rarer than
precise and narrow ones. It is easy to become a good chemist,
[47]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
a good physicist, a good physiologist, a good psychologist, or
a good sociologist. On the contrary, very few individuals are
capable of acquiring and using knowledge of several differ-
ent sciences. However, such men do exist. Some of those
whom our scientific institutions and universities have forced
to specialize narrowly could apprehend a complex subject
both in its entirety and in its parts. So far, scientific workers
devoting themselves, within a minute field, to prolonged
Study of a generally insignificant détail, have always been the
most favored. An original piece of work, without any real
importance, 1s considered of greater value than a thorough
knowledge of an entire science. Presidents of universities
and their advisers do not realize that synthétic minds are as
indispensable as analytic ones. If the superiority of this kind
of intellect were recognized, and its development encour-
aged, specialists would cease to be dangerous. For the sig-
nificance of the parts in the organization of the whole could
then be correctly estimated.
At the beginning of its history more than at its zenith a
science needs superior minds. To become a great physician
requires more imagination, judgment, and intelligence than
to become a great chemist. At the present time our knowl-
edge of man can only progress by attracting a powerful intel-
lectual élite. Great mental capacities should be required
from the young men who desire to devote themselves to biol-
ogy. It seems that the increased number of scientific work-
ers, their being split up into groups whose studies are lim-
ited to a small subject, and over-specialization have brought
about a shrinking of intelligence. There is no doubt that the
quality of any human group decreases when the number of
the individuals composing this group increases beyond cer-
[48]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
tain limits. The Supreme Court of the United States con-
sists of nine men whose professional value and character are
truly eminent. But if it were composed of nine hundred
jurists instead of nine, the public would immediately lose,
and rightly, its respect for the highest court of this country.
The best way to increase the intelligence of scientists would
be to decrease their number. After all, the knowledge of man
could be developed by a very small group of workers, pro-
vided that they were endowed with creative imagination and
given powerful means for carrying out their researches.
Great sums of money are wasted every year on scientific re-
search, in America as well as in Europe, because those who
are entrusted with this work do not generally possess the
qualities necessary to the conquerors of new worlds. And
also because the few individuals endowed with this excep-
tional power live under conditions precluding intellectual
creation. Neither laboratories, nor apparatus, nor organiza-
tion can give to scientists the surroundings indispensable to
their success. Modern life is opposed to the life of the mind.
However, men of science have to be mere units of a herd
whose appetites are purely material and whose habits are
entirely different from theirs. They vainly exhaust their
Strength and spend their time in the pursuit of the condi-
tions demanded by the elaboration of thought. No one of
them is wealthy enough to procure the isolation and the
silence which in former times everybody could have for
nothing, even in the largest cities. No attempt has so far
been made to create, in the midst of the agitation of the new
city, islands of solitude where meditation would be possible.
Such an innovation, however, is an obvious necessity. The
construction of vast syntheses is beyond the reach of minds
[49]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
unceasingly dispersed in the confusion of our present modes
of existence. The development of the science of man, even
more than that of the other sciences, depends on immense
intellectual effort. The need of such an effort demands a
revision, not only of our conception of the scientist, but also
of the conditions under which scientific research is car-
ried on.
5
Human beings are not good subjects for scientific investi-
gation. One does not easily find people with identical char-
acteristics. It is almost impossible to verify the results of an
experiment by referring the subject to a sufficiently similar
control. Lét us suppose, for example, that we wish to com-
pare two methods of education. For such a study we choose
two groups of children, as nearly alike as possible. If these
children, although of the same age and the same size, belong
to different social classes, if their food is not the same, if they
live in different psychological atmospheres, the results can-
not be compared. In a like manner, the effects of two modes
of life on children belonging to one family have little value.
For, human races not being pure, there are often profound
differences bétween the offspring of the same parents. On
the contrary, the results will be conclusive when the chil-
dren, whose behavior is compared under different condi-
tions, are twins from a single ovum. We are generally obliged
to be content with approximate information. This is one of
the factors that have impeded the progress of the science
of man.
In researches dealing with physics and chemistry, and also
[50]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
with physiology, one always attempts to isolate relatively
simple systems, and to détermine their exact conditions. But
when the human being has to be studied as an entiréty, and
in his relations with his environment, such a limitation of
the subject is impossible. ‘The observer must be endowed
with sound judgment in order not to lose his way in the
complexity of the facts. The difficulties become almost in-
surmountable in rétrospective investigations. Such studies
require a very experienced mind. Of course, we should as
rarely as possible utilize the conjectural science which is
called history. But there have been in the past certain events,
revealing the existence in man of extraordinary potentiali-
ties. A knowledge of the genesis of these qualities would be
of great importance. What factors caused, during the epoch
of Pericles, the simultaneous appearance of so many gen-
iuses? A similar event occurred at the time of the Renais-
sance. Whence sprang the immense expansion, not only of
intelligence, scientific imagination, and esthétic intuition,
but also of physical vigor, audacity, and the spirit of adven-
ture in the men of this period? Why did they possess such
mighty physiological and mental activities? One easily real-
izes how useful would be precise information regarding the
mode of life, the food, the education, the intellectual, moral,
esthetic, and religious surroundings of the people who lived
during the time immediately preceding the appearance of a
pleiad of great men.
Another cause of the difficulties in experimenting on
human beings is the fact that the observer and his subject
live at about the same rhythm. The effects of a certain diet,
of an intellectual or moral discipline, of political or social
changes, are felt but slowly. It is only after a lapse of thirty or
[51]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
forty years that the value of an educational méthod can be
estimated. The influence of a given mode of living upon the
physiological and mental activities of a human group does
not manifest itself before a generation has passed. Inventors
of new systems of diét, physical culture, hygiene, education,
morals, social economy, are always too early in publishing
the success of their own inventions. It is only now that the
result of the Montessori system, or of the educational prin-
ciples of John Dewey, could be profitably analyzed. We
should wait another quarter of a century to know the sig-
nificance of the intelligence tests which psychologists have
made in the schools during these past years. The only way to
ascertain the effect of a given factor on man is to follow a
great number of individuals through the vicissitudes of their
life right up to their death. And even then the knowledge
thus obtained will be grossly approximate.
The progress of humanity appears to us to be very slow
because we, the observers, are units of the herd. Each one
of us can make but few observations. Our life is too short.
Many experiments should be conducted for a century at the
least. Institutions should be established in such a way that
observations and experiments commenced by one scientist
would not be interrupted by his death. Such organizations
are Still unknown in the realm of science. But they already
exist in other lines of endeavor. In the monastery of Solesmes
three successive generations of Benedictine monks have de-
voted themselves, over a period of about fifty-five years, to
the reconstruction of Gregorian music. A similar méthod
should be applied to the investigation of certain problems
of human biology. Institutions, in some measure immortal,
like religious orders, which would allow the uninterrupted
[52]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
continuation of an experiment as long as might be necessary,
should compensate for the too short duration of the existence
of individual observers.
Certain data, urgently needed, can be procured with the
help of short-lived animals. For this purpose, mice and rats
have been chiefly used. Colonies consisting of many thou-
sands of these animals have been employed to study different
diets, their influence on the rapidity of growth, on size, dis-
ease, longevity, étc. Unfortunately, rats and mice have only
very remote analogies with man. It is dangerous, for exam-
ple, to apply to children, whose constitution is so different,
conclusions of researches made on these animals. Besides,
the mental states accompanying anatomical and functional
changes in bones, tissues, and humors under the influence of
food and mode of life, cannot be properly investigated on
such low types of animals. By observing more intelligent
animals, such as monkeys and dogs, one would obtain more
détailed and important information.
Monkeys, despite their cerebral development, are not good
subjects for experimentation. Their pedigree is not available.
They cannot be bred easily or in sufficiently large numbers.
They are difficult to handle. On the contrary, intelligent
dogs can be procured readily. Their ancestral character-
istics are easily traced. Such animals propagate rapidly. They
mature in a year. Generally, they do not live beyond fifteen
years. Détailed psychological observations can be made with-
out trouble, especially on shepherd dogs, which are sensitive,
intelligent, alert, and attentive. With the aid of these animals
of pure breed, and in sufficient number, the complex and
important problem of the influence of environment on the
individual could be elucidated. For example, we should
[53]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
ascertain whether the increase in stature, which is taking
place in the population of the United States, is an advantage
or a disadvantage. It is also imperative to know what effect
modern life and food have on the nervous system of children,
and on their intelligence, alertness, and audacity. An exten-
sive experiment carried out on several hundred dogs over a
period of twenty years would give some precise information
on these subjects, which are of paramount importance to
millions of people. It would indicate, more rapidly than the
observation of human beings, in what direction the diét
and mode of living of the population should be changed.
Such study would effectively supplement the incompléte and
brief experiments which now appear to satisfy nutrition spe-
cialists. However, the observation of even the highest type
of animal cannot entirely replace that of man. In order to
develop definitive knowledge, experiments on groups of
human beings should be started under such conditions that
they could be continued by several generations of scientists.
6
A bétter knowledge of ourselves cannot be acquired merely
by selecting positive facts in the mass of information con-
cerning man, and by making a complete inventory of his
activities. Neither would the completion of these data by
new observations and experiments, and the building up of
a true science of man be sufficient. Above all, we need a
synthesis that can be utilized. ‘The purpose of this knowledge
is not to satisfy our curiosity, but to rebuild ourselves and
our surroundings. Such a purpose is essentially practical.
The acquisition of a large quantity of new data, if these data
[54]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
remain scattered in the brains and in the books of special-
ists, is absolutely useless. A dictionary does not confer a lit-
erary or philosophical culture upon its owner. Our ideas
must be assembled as a living whole, within the intelligence
and the memory of a few superior individuals. ‘Thus, the ef-
forts which humanity has made, and is ceaselessly making, to
attain a bétter knowledge of itself would become productive.
The science of man will be the task of the future. We
must now be content with an initiation, both analytic and
synthetic, into those characteristics of the human being
which scientific criticism has demonstrated to be true. In the
following pages man will appear to us as naively as to the
observer and to his techniques. We shall view him in the
form of fragments carved by these techniques. But as far as
is possible, these fragments will be replaced in the whole.
Such knowledge is, of course, most inadequate. But it is cer-
tain. It contains no métaphysical elements. It is also em-
pirical, because no principle governs the choice and the
order of the observations. We do not seek to prove or to dis-
prove any theory. The different aspects of man are consid.
ered as simply as, when ascending a mountain, one considers
the rocks, torrents, meadows, and pines, and even, above the
shadows of the valley, the light of the peaks. In both cases,
the observations are made as the chances of the way decide.
These observations are, however, scientific. They constitute
a more or less syStematized body of knowledge. Naturally,
they do not have the precision of those of astronomers and
physicists. But they are as exact as is permitted by the tech-
niques employed, and the nature of the object to which the
techniques are applied. For instance, we know that men are
endowed with memory and esthetic sense. Also that the pan-
[55]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
creas secretes insulin, that certain mental diseases depend
on lesions of the brain, that some individuals manifest phe-
nomena of clairvoyance. Memory, and the activity of in-
sulin can be measured. But not esthétic emotion or moral
sense. The characteristics of telepathy, or the relations be-
tween mental diseases and the brain, lend themselves Still less
to exact study. Nevertheless, all these data, although ap-
proximate, are sure.
This knowledge may be reproached with being common-
place and incompléte. It is commonplace because body and
consciousness, duration, adaptation, and individuality are
well known to specialists in anatomy, physiology, psychology,
métapsychics, hygiene, medicine, education, religion, and
sociology. It is incompléte because a choice had to be made
among an immense number of facts. And such a choice is
bound to be arbitrary. It is limited to what appears to be
most important. The rest is neglected, for a synthesis should
be short and understandable at a single glance. Human in-
telligence is capable of rétaining only a certain number of
détails. It would, then, seem that our knowledge of man, in
order to be useful, must be incompléte. The likeness of a
portrait is due to the selection of détails, and not to their
number. A drawing more forcibly expresses the character
of an individual than a photograph does. We are going to
trace only rough skétches of ourselves, similar to anatomical
figures chalked on a blackboard. Our skétches will be true,
in spite of the intentional suppression of détails. They will
be based on positive data and not on theories and dreams.
They will ignore vitalism and mechanism, realism and nomi-
nalism, soul and body, mind and matter. But they will con-
tain all that can be observed. Even the inexplicable facts left
[56]
THE SCIENCE OF MAN
out by classical conceptions of man, those facts that stub-
bornly refuse to enter the frame of conventional thought,
and therefore may lead to unknown realms. Thus, our in-
ventory will include all actual and potential activities of
the human being.
In this manner we shall become initiated into a knowledge
of ourselves, which is only descriptive and still not far from
the concréte. Such knowledge does not claim definitiveness
or infallibility. It is empirical, approximative, commonplace,
and incomplete. But also scientific and intelligible to every-
body.
[57]
Chapter III
BODY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES
1. Man. His dual aspect. Human activities and their substratum.
2. The dimensions of the body. Its form. 3. Its outer and inner
surfaces. 4. Its constitution. Cells and their societies. Their struc-
ture. Cell types. 5. Blood and organic medium. 6. Nutrition of
tissues. Metabolism. 7. Circulatory apparatus, lungs, and kidneys.
8. Chemical relations of the body with its environment. Digestion.
Nature of food. 9. Sexual functions. 10. Physical relations of the
body with its environment. Voluntary nervous system. Skeletal and
muscular systems. 11. Visceral nervous system. Sympathetic and
parasympathetic. Automatism of the organs. 12. Complexity
and simplicity of the body. Structural and functional limits of
organs. Anatomical heterogeneity and physiological homogeneity.
13. Mode of organization of the body. Mechanical analogy. An-
titheses and illusions. 14. Fragility and robustness of the body.
Silence of the body during health. Factors which weaken the body.
15. The causes of disease. Infectious and degenerative diseases.
I
WE ARE conscious of existing, of possessing an activity of our
own, a personality. We know that we are different from all
other individuals. We believe that our will is free. We feel
happy or unhappy. These intuitions constitute for each of
us the ultimate reality.
Our States of consciousness glide through time as a river
through a valley. Like the river, we are both change and
permanence. We are independent of our environment, much
[58]
BODY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES
more so than are the other animals. Our intelligence has s&
us free. Man is, above all, the inventor of tools, arms, and
machines. With the aid of these inventions he was able to
manifest his specific characteristics, and to distinguish him-
self from all other living beings. He has expressed his inner
tendencies in an objective manner by erecting Statues,
temples, theaters, cathedrals, hospitals, universities, labora-
tories, and factories. He has, in this way, Stamped the sur-
face of the earth with the mark of his fundamental activities
—that is, of his esthetic and religious feelings, his moral
sense, his intelligence, and his scientific curiosity.
This focus of mighty activities can be observed from
within or from without. Seen from within, it shows to the
lone observer, who is our self, his own thoughts, tendencies,
desires, joys, and sorrows. Seen from without, it appears as
the human body, our own, and also that of all our fellow
creatures. Thus, man assumes two totally different aspects.
For this reason, he has been looked upon as being made up
of two parts, the body and the soul. However, no one has
ever observed a soul without a body, or a body without a
soul. Only the outer surface of our body is visible to us.
We perceive our functional activities as a vague sense of
well-being. But we are not conscious of any of our organs.
The body obeys mechanisms entirely hidden from us. It dis-
closes its constitution only through the techniques of anatomy
and physiology. Then, a stupendous complexity appears
under its seeming simplicity. Man never allows himself to
be observed simultaneously in his outer and public aspect,
and in his inner and private one. Even if we penetrate the
inextricable maze of the brain and the nervous functions,
nowhere do we meét with consciousness. Soul and body are
[59]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
creations of our méthods of observation. They are carved
by those méthods from an indivisible whole.
This whole consists of tissues, organic fluids, and con-
sciousness. It extends simultaneously in space and in time.
It fills the three dimensions of space, and that of time with
its héterogeneous mass. However, it is not comprised fully
within these four dimensions. For consciousness is located
both within the cerebral matter and outside the physical
continuum. The human being is too complex to be ap-
prehended in his entiréty. We have to divide him into small
parts by our méthods of observation. Technological necessity
obliges us, therefore, to describe him as being composed of
a corporal substratum and of various activities. And also to
consider separately the temporal, adaptive, and individual
aspects of these activities. At the same time we must avoid
making the classical errors of reducing him to a body, or a
consciousness, or an association of both, and of believing in
the concréte existence of the parts abstracted from him by
our mind.
2
The human body is placed, on the scale of magnitudes,
halfway bétween the atom and the Star. According to the size
of the objects selected for comparison, it appears either large
or small. Its length is equivalent to that of two hundred
thousand tissue cells, or of two millions of ordinary microbes,
or of two billions of albumin molecules, placed end to end.
Man is gigantic in comparison with an electron, an atom,
a molecule, or a microbe. But, when compared with a moun-
tain, or with the earth, he is tiny. More than four thousand
[60]
BODY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES
individuals would have to stand one upon the other in order
to equal the height of Mount Everest. A terrestrial meridian
is approximately equivalent to twenty millions of them placed
end to end. Light, as is well known, travels about one hun-
dred and fifty million times the length of our body in one
second. The interstellar distances are such that they have to
be measured in light years. Our stature, in relation to such
a system of reference, becomes inconceivably small. For this
reason, Eddington and Jeans, in their books of popular
astronomy, always succeed in impressing their readers with
the complete insignificance of man in the universe. In reality,
our spatial greatness or smallness is without importance.
For what is specific of man has no physical dimensions. The
meaning of our presence in this world assuredly does not
depend upon our size.
Our Stature seems to be appropriate to the character of
the tissue cells, and to the nature of the chemical exchanges,
or metabolism, of the organism. As nerve impulses propagate
in everybody at the same speed, men of a very much larger
frame than ours would have too slow a perception of external
things, and their muscular reactions would be too sluggish.
At the same time the rate of their chemical exchanges would
be profoundly modified. It is well known that the metabolism
of large animals is lower than that of small ones. The horse,
for instance, has a lesser métabolic activity than the mouse.
A great increase in our stature would diminish the intensity
of our exchanges. And probably deprive us of our agility and
of the rapidity of our perceptions. Such an accident will not
happen, because the size of human beings varies only within
narrow limits. The dimensions of our body are détermined
simultaneously by heredity and developmental conditions.
[61]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
In a given race, one observes tall and short individuals.
These differences in the length of the skeléton come from
the state of the endocrine glands and from the correlation
of their activities in space and time. They are of profound
significance. It is possible, by means of proper diét and mode
of living, to augment or diminish the stature of the individ-
uals composing a nation. Likewise, to modify the quality of
their tissues and probably also of their mind. We must not
blindly change the dimensions of the human body in order
to give it more beauty and muscular strength. In fact, seem-
ingly unimportant alterations of our size and form could
cause profound modifications of our physiological and
mental activities. There is no advantage in increasing man’s
Stature by artificial means. Alertness, endurance, and audac-
ity do not grow with the volume of the body. Men of genius
are not tall. Mussolini is of medium size, and Napoleon was
short.
Each man is characterized by his figure, his way of carrying
himself, the aspect of his face. Our outward form expresses
the qualities, the powers, of our body and our mind. In a
given race, it varies according to the mode of life of the in-
dividuals. The man of the Renaissance, whose life was a
constant fight, who was exposed continuously to dangers and
to inclemencies, who was capable of as great an enthusiasm
for the discoveries of Galileo as for the masterpieces of
Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, did not resemble mod-
ern man who lives in a steam-heated apartment, an air-
conditioned office, a closed car, who contemplates absurd
films, listens to his radio, and plays golf and bridge. Each
epoch puts its seal on human beings. We begin to observe
the new types created by motor-cars, cinemas, and athletics.
[62 ]
BODY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES
Some, more frequent in Latin countries, are characterized by
an adipose aspect, flabby tissues, discolored skin, protruding
abdomen, thin legs, awkward posture, unintelligent and
brutal face. Others appear, especially among Anglo-Saxons,
and show broad shoulders, narrow waist, and birdlike
cranium. Our form is molded by our physiological habits,
and even by our usual thoughts. Its characteristics are partly
due to the muscles running under the skin or along the
bones. ‘The size of these muscles depends on the exercise to
which they are submitted. ‘The beauty of the body comes
from the harmonious development of the muscles and the
skeléton. It reached the height of perfection at the epoch of
Pericles, in the Greek athlétes whom Phidias and his disciples
immortalized in their statues. The shape of the face, the
mouth, the cheeks, the eyelids, and the lines of the visage are
détermined by the habitual condition of the flat muscles,
which move in the adipose tissue underlying the skin. And
the state of these muscles depends on that of our mind. In-
deed, each individual can give his face the expression that
he chooses. But he does not keep such a mask permanently.
Unwittingly, our visage progressively models itself upon our
States of consciousness. With the advance of age it becomes
more and more pregnant with the feelings, the appéetites,
and the aspirations of the whole being. ‘The beauty of youth
comes from the natural harmony of the lineaments of the
human face. That, so rare, of an old man, from his soul.
The visage expresses still deeper things than the hidden
activities of consciousness. In this open book one can read
not only the vices, the virtues, the intelligence, the stupidity,
the feelings, the most carefully concealed habits, of an in-
dividual, but also the constitution of his body, and his ten-
[63]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
dencies to organic and mental diseases. In fact, the aspect of
bones, muscles, fat, skin, and hair depends on the nutrition
of tissues. And the nutrition of tissues is regulated by the
composition of blood plasma, that is, by the activity of the
glandular and digestive systems. The state of the organs is
revealed by the aspect of the body. The surface of the skin
reflects the functional conditions of the endocrine glands,
the stomach, the intestines, and the nervous system. It points
out the morbid tendencies of the individual. In fact, people
who belong to different morphological classes—for instance,
to the cerebral, digestive, muscular, or respiratory types—
are not liable to the same organic or mental diseases. ‘There
are great functional disparities bétween tall and spare men,
and broad and short ones. The tall type, either asthenic or
athlétic, is predisposed to tuberculosis and to dementia
precox. The short, pycnic type, to cyclic mania, diabétes,
rheumatism, and gout. In the diagnosis and prognosis of
diseases, ancient physicians, quite rightly, attributed great
importance to temperament, idiosyncrasies, and diatheses.
Each man bears on his face the description of his body and
his soul.
3
The skin, which covers the outer surface of the body, is
impermeable to water and to gases. It does not allow the
microbes living on its surface to enter the organism. It is
capable of destroying them with the aid of substances secréted
by its glands. But it can be crossed by the minute and deadly
beings, which we call viruses. Its external face is exposed to
light, wind, humidity, dryness. heat, and cold. Its internal
[64]
BODY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES
face is in contact with an aquatic world, warm and deprived
of light, where cells live like marine animals. Despite its
thinness, the skin effectively protects the organic fluids
against the unceasing variations of cosmic surroundings. It
is moist, supple, extensible, elastic, durable. Its durability
is due to its mode of constitution, to its several layers of cells,
which slowly and endlessly multiply. These cells die while
remaining united to one another like the slates of a roof—
like slates ceaselessly blown away by the wind and continually
replaced by new slates. The skin, nevertheless, retains its
moistness and suppleness, because small glands secréte on its
surface both water and fatty substances. At the nostrils,
mouth, anus, uréthra, and vagina, it joins the mucosas, those
membranes that cover the inner surface of the body. All its
orifices, with the exception of the nostrils, are closed by
elastic and contractile rings, the sphincters. ‘Thus, it is the
almost perfectly fortified frontier of a closed world.
Through its outer surface, the body enters into communi-
cation with all the things of the cosmic universe. In fact, the
skin is the dwelling-place of an immense quantity of small
receptor organs, each of which registers, according to its own
Structure, the changes taking place in the environment.
Tactile corpuscles scattered all over its surface are sensitive
to pressure, to pain, to heat, or to cold. Those situated in the
mucosa of the tongue are affected by certain qualities of
food, and also by temperature. Air vibrations act on the ex-
tremely complex apparatus of the internal ear by the me-
dium of the tympanic membrane and the bones of the mid-
dle ear. The nétwork of olfactory nerves, which extends into
the nasal mucous membrane, is sensitive to odors. A strange
phenomenon occurs in the embryo. The brain causes a part of
[65 ]
MAN, THE UNKNOWN
itself, the optic nerve and the rétina, to shoot out toward the
surface of the body. The part of the skin overlying the young
rétina undergoes an astonishing modification. It becomes
73-74» 250-253, 255
Genetical, 242
Geneticists, theories of, 91, 251
Genetics, 297
science of, 250
Genius (es), 23, 141, 271, 301-302
Genoa, 288
Geometry, 8
Germans, 145
Germany, 286
Germ-plasm, 263, 301
Gestation, 89
Giants, 121
Gland (s), endocrine, 87, 102, 144,
156, 218, 263
mammary, 197
pancreas, 88
sexual, 89, 215
suprarenal, 88, 142, 145, 225
sweat, 228
thyroid, 6, 74, 83, 142, 197, 206,
238
Glucose, 83, 119, 225
Glycogen, 104, 119
God, 135-136, 262
a mathematician, 108-109
grace of, 267
Goitre, exophthalmic, 113, 206
Golden Age, 110
Golf, 227-228
links, 13
Good, definition of, and evil, 129
Gout, 64
Government, 21, 187
[332]
INDEX
Gramophone records, and vulgarity
of crowd, 12
Greece, 1, 135
Gregorian music, 52
Groups, dissenting, 295
Growth, index, 168, 174, 181-182
optimum, 296
Guide, Alpine, 150
Habit (s), as an aspect of adaptation,
221
moral, 307
virile, 219
Hale, G. E., 319
Hallucination, 136
Halsted, W. S., 204-205
Hand, 97
Happiness, appitude for, 5, 111
engendered by soundness of
organs, 312
human, 313
Haptens, 240
Hardship, advantages
from, 309
Harmony, of organic and psycholog-
ical functions, 306
restoration to, 319
Hatred, 258
Healing, 205
of sick, 148
Health, 19, 293
artificial, 212, 311-318
good, 207
natural, 212, 311-312
spiritual, 280
Heart, 210, 217, 224
disease, 115
fragment of chick embryo, 178
pulsations of, 238
Heat, fight against, 213
Héloise, sacrifice of, 143
Hemlock, 128
Hemoglobin, 79, 195
Hemophilia, 253
Hemorrhage (s), 78, 198, 200, 203,
205
cerebral, 115
Henderson, L. J., 78
resulting
Heparin, 104
Herd, 12
Hereditary, 215, 254, 268
Heredity, 33, 61, 250-251, 268, 273
laws of, 91
Hermitte, 123
Herter, Christian, 287
Heterochronic individuals, 188
Heterochronism, 175, 177
Heterogeneity, 105-106
organic, 104
structural, 104
Heterogeneous organism in time
and space, 74
Hibernation, 172
History, 3, 51, 321
Homo aconomicus, g
Homogeneity, 106
Homosexual (ity), 153, 268
Honesty, 307
intellectual, 138
Hope, 221
Hormones, 312
Horse (s), 61
thoroughbred, 302
Hospitals, 114
for insane, 154
Hotels, 12
Humanity, 266, 321
aspirations of, 3
conjectures of, 3
evolution of, 291
tendencies of, 3
Humors, 3, 9, 33, 239
specificity of, 239
Hunger, 307
Hunt, Reid, 207
Hydrogen, 80
Hygiene, 280
and quantity of human beings, 15
basis of, 31
development of, in United States,
287
subject of, 120
success Of, 313
tiiumphs of, not so advantageous.
19
[333]
INDEX
Hygienists, and infectious diseases,
20
and prevention of nervous and
organic diseases, 280
and optimum development, $
behavior of, 26
Hypertension, 115, 253
Hypnotist, 260
Hypophysis, 101
Hypotheses, 1
Hysteria, 147, 244
Idea (s), Platonic, 235-236, 262
Idiosyncrasies, 64
Idiots, moral, 142
Idleness, 222, 309
Illusion (s), 123, 221
Imagination, 6, 21, 39, 138, 255, 314
creative, 36, 122
intuitive, 122
Imitation, capacity for, 263
Immorality, 276
Immortality, 183
Immune to epidemics, 241
Immunity, acquired, 207
artificial, 209
natural, 110, 207
spontaneous, 208
Impulses, genesic, 267
nerve, 61
sexual, 307
Inaction, and suffering, 221
and time, 186
Independence, an illusion, 266
Index, growth, 168, 174
growth, of serum, 181-182
Individual (s), 2, 5, 223, 235-237,
258, 269
categories of, 243
classification of, 187
heterochronic, 188
thoroughly developed, 140
Individuality, 199, 241, 246, 251,
265-267, 271
anatomical, 105
collapse of, 272
humoral, 242
mental, 242
Individuality— (Continued)
neglect of, 270
physiological, 104
psychological, 244-245
structural, 242
Individualization, 257, 265
degree of, 244
Indolence, 223
Industrialism, 132
Industry, 10, 132
Inequalities, individual, 271
mental, 297
Organic, 297
Inertia, 276
Infection (s), 205, 280, 313
elimination of, 115
microbial, 15
Influence, of individual, 264
pathogenic, 257
Influenza, 246
Infra-red rays, 66
Inhibitions, 97
Injuries, 199
Insane, 20, 139, 275, 300, 319
Insanity, 253, 268, 281, 300-301, 318
causes of, 157
circular, 158
Insecurity, 309
Inspiration, 123, 143
esthetic, 125, 137
religious, 125
scientific, 125
Instinct, 33
Institutes, biological, 290
research, 289
Institutions, euthanasic, 319
political, 187
scientific, 187
Insulin, 56, 88, 119, 210, 312, 314
Insurance, social, 18
Integration, moral discipline and,
399
Integrity, anatomical, 258
functional, 258
Intellect, 8
Intellectual, 138, 218
pure, 137
value, 121
[334]
INDEX
Intellectual— (Continued)
victories, 15
work, 81
Intelligence, 21-22, 26, 33, 126-131,
137-138, 151-152, 197, 220, 224,
243, 285, 309, 317
genesis of, 122
quality of, 121
quantity of, 121
tests, 52
International Bureau of Weights
and Measures, 31
International Institute of Meta-
psychics, 124
International Medical Association,
148
Interventions, and cadence of in-
ner time, 189
full effects of our, 190
Intestines, 64, 69
Intimacy, 12
Intraorganic adaptations, 192
Introduction to the Study of Ex-
perimental Medicine, 120
Introspection, 3, 120
Intuition (s), 6, 58, 122, 138
religious, 137
Intuitive (s), 123, 243
Inventions, 7
Inventor, 59
Inventory, 37, 39
Inviolability of our visible fron-
tiers, 258
Todine, 113
Ions, 33
Iris, 199, 213
Irresponsibility, 153, 222-228
Islamism, 277
Isochronic, 94, 175
Isochronism, 177
Isolation, 49, 154, 295, 310
Italy, 286
Jacobins, 294
Jeans, J, 16, 61, 108
Johns Hopkins Medical School, 287
Johns Hopkins University, 218
Joltrain, E., 145
Joys less quickly forgotten than
SOITOWS, 221
Judge and intuition, 123
Judgment, 5, 26, 138
Kidney (s), 105, 146, 196-197, 206,
210, 228
atrophy, 239
function of, 8»
grafted, 100
removal and replantation of, 84
Kindergarten, 270
Knights, 295
Knowledge, medical, 247
Kocher, 204
Kroepelin, 156
Laboratory (ies), 314
industrial, 312
Landsteiner, K., 239-240
Language, 98
mathematical, 1
Larynx, 68, 98
Lavoisier, 23, 156
Law (s), natural, 2, 15, 273, 301,
321
of adaptation, 33
organic, 3
thermodynamic, 33-34
Laziness, 307
Leaders, 259, 262
Leadership, 222
Le Chatelicr, 223-224
Lecomte du Nouy, P., 167, 201
Legality, 129
Leisure, 186, 310
Lenin, 27
Lens, 198-199, 226
crystalline, 66
Lesions, cerebral, 244
organic, 313
Leucocytes, 69, 71, 75, 79, 104, 107,
200, 208-209
Level, molecular, 34
psychological, 34
Levitations, 147
Libido, 282
[335]
INDEX
Life, duration of, 15
expectation of, at birth, 114
illuminative, 136
inner, 309
latent, 82-83
mode of, 5
mystic, 136
phenomena of, 1
spiritual, 3, 7
Light, excessive, 218
speed of, 61
waves, 319
Limb (s), 97, 200, 256
lower, 98
Lincoln, 256
Lindbergh, 257
Lipoids, 208
Lister, 204
Liver, 6, 74, 119, 225, 228, 238
Lodge, O., 260
Loeb, Jacques, 4, 40, 91, 108, 172
Logic (al), 123
Logicians, 128, 243
Lombroso, 139
London, 18, 124
Longevity, 19, 147,175, 179-180, 218
Lords, feudal, 231
Louis XIV, 11
Lourdes, 149
Medical Bureau, 148-149
Love, 258
Lunatics, 318
Lungs, 196, 212
function of, 85
Lupus cured at Lourdes, 149
Lymph, 70
interstitial, 71, 77, 84
Lymphatics, 71
Lymphocytes, 75
Lyons, University of, 124
Machine (s), 3, 13
Machinery, modern, 315
Macy Foundation, 288
Majority, 296
Maladies, intellectual, 280
moral, 280
Man, an indivisible whole, 2
as focus of activities, 59, 265
definition of, 3
empirical character of science of,
55
extends in time and space, 161
nature of, 249
remaking of, 274
sick as a whole, 112
superiority of, 109
Mania, cyclic, 64
Manufacturers, 231
Marcus Aurelius, 154
Marriage, 302
instability of, 299
Marrow, bone, 104, 198
Marx, 27
Mass production, $3
effect of, 116
of cows, 116
of hens, 116
Masters, 316
Material, 282
Materialism, 317
Materialist (s), §, 259
Mathematics, 123
Matter, 32, 132
constitution and properties of, 2
inanimate, 28, 320
inert, 1, 17
sciences of inert, 273
separated from mind, 120
supremacy of, 152, 280
Maturity, 186, 3211
Mayos, 204
Meanness, 128
Measles, 208, 257
Mechanicists, 108, 259, 281
Mechanics, 1, 9-10, 27, $2, 35, 279
quantum, 34
Mechanism, 4, 35, 56, 212, $21
adaptive, 204-205, 215, 218, 247,
303
healing, 203
Mechanisticism, 288
Mechanists, 35, 197
[336]
INDEX
Medicine, 7, 15, 19, $1, 155, 249,
280, 283-284, 313
scientific, 248
Mediterranean, 214
Medium (s), 71, 124, 245, 265
Mediumistic states, 282
Meditation, 49, 146, 309, $14
Meltzer, S. J., 197 ©
Membrane (s), synaptic, 95
tympanic, 65
Memory, 55, 176, 181, 242, 282
training of, 122
Men, business, 285
completely developed, 268
modern, 232
standardization of, 269
white, 222
Mendel, 240, 254
Menopause, 89, 166
Menstruation, 90
Mental activities, 117-118
Mentality, identical, 242
Merlin, 177
Metabolism, 61, 80, 127, 167, 173
basal, 81
Metacarpus, 97
Metals, 78, 113
Metaphysics, 8
Metapsychical, 7
phenomena, 40
Metapsychic (s), 124-125, 259
Metchnikoff, E., 208
Mice, 53, 61, 179, 207
Micella, 33
Michelangelo, 62
Microbes, 64, 68-69, 205-206, 209,
247
Middle Ages, 236, 248, 266, 277,
295, 298, 317
philosophers of, 162
Millikan, R. A., 16
Mind, 4, 20, 117, 132, 308
pathology of, 156
synthetic, 289
weakness of, 121
Ministers, 153
Minkowski, 162
Minority, power of an ascetic and
mystic, 296
Miracle, 148-149
Misery, degeneration due to pros-
perity or, 222
Mitochondria, 73
Mobility, spatial and length of
life, 176
Modifications, organic, and states of
consciousness, 141
Molecules, 4, 10, $3
carbohydrate, 241
protein, 241
Monasteries, 134, 817
Monkeys, 53
Monks, 285, 304
Benedictine, 52
Monocytes, 75
Montessori system, 52
Morality, 129-130
Morals, 130
biological, 129
Christian, 129, 221
industrial, 129, 27%
sexual, 153
Morons, 139
Morphine, 221
Morphinomaniacs, 269
Mortality, 19
infantile, 15
Motion, perpetual, 149
Mountaineers, 217
Mount Everest, 61
Mount Saint-Michel, 133
Mouse. See Mice
Movements, automatic, 96
Mucosa (s), 65
digestive, 258
intestinal, 87
respiratory, 258
Multiplicity and unity of man, 266
Murderers, 300
Muscle (s), 5, 9, 224, 2832
motive, 97
skeletal, 99
Museums, 152
Music, Gregorian, 52
Mussolini, 62, 220, 262
[337]
INDEX
Mutations, 298, 301
Myocarditis, 210
Mysticism, 136, 317
Christian, 135
Hindu, 135
Tibetan, 135
Mysticity, 7, 133-135, 151
Mystics, 4, 41, 134, 136, 143
Christian, 147, 267
Myxedema, 113
Napoleon, 62, 262, 298
See also Bonaparte
National Committee for Mental
Hygiene, 155
Necessity, methodological, 137
Needle, magnetic, 160
Nephritis, 210, 239
chronic, 115
Nerves, autonomous, 101
olfactory, 65
optic, 66
sympathetic, 101, 213, 225
vasomotor, 84, 144
Nervous system, 19, 20, 64, 103,
197, 214-215, 218, 319
autonomous, 99, 101
central, 93, 99-100, 102, 213, 223
cerebrospinal, 93
sympathetic, 93
Neurasthenia, 115
Neuron, 94
motor, 95
of association, 95-96
receptor, 95
Neuroses, 39, 156, 244, 260
Neurotics, 245
New Era, 17
News, effect of bad, 44, 144
Newton, 23, 38, 82, 260
New York, 188, 287, 298
Academy of Medicine, Commit-
tce on Medicine and Religion,
148
inhabitant of, 150
State, 154
New Zealand, 15
Nitrogen, 81
Noise, 214-215, 233
Nominalism, 56
Nominalists, 236, 248
Normal, development of the, 318
Normandy, 133, 216
North America, 299
Norwegian, 166
Nose, 68-69, 214
Nucleoli, 73
Nucleoproteins, 73
Nucleus, 4, 71, 73-75, 250
Nudism, 67
Nutrition, 226, 233
Object, material, 320
Obligation, 127
Observation (s), 1, 251, 253, 310,
314
data of, 282
individual, 247
Obstacle, 257
Occident, 277
Office, 315
Old man, beauty of, 63
Ollier, 204
Omentum, 200
Operations, surgical, 189
Opium, 215, 294
Orders, monastic, 295
of chivalry, 295
Organism (s), 3-4, 67, 106, 108
fragility of, 109
heterogeneous ın time and space,
74
human, 6
soundness of, 312
Organization, 199
modern business, 316
Organs, 4-5, 33, 06, 70, 72
correlation of, 197
fragility of, 109
pathology of, 156
receptor, 65
sensory, 67
techniques of building, 107-108
Orient, 277
Originality, 132, 251, 310
Osteitis cured at Lourdes, 149
[338]
INDEX
Ovaries, 89-90
extirpation of, 143
Over-specialization, 48
Ovum, 4, 90-91, 250-251, 253, 265
Oxygen, 68, 80-81, 83, 195-196, 228
Pain, signal of distress, 111
Pancreas, 56, 68, 104, 119, 210, 228
Paralysis, 94, 244
Parasympathetic, 101
Parents, 270
types of, 264
Paris, 13, 124, 133, 287
Parish, groups of, 12
Park Avenue, 98
Pasteur, 15, 38, 82, 111, 132, 138,
156, 204, 218, 220, 256, 287
Pasteur Institute, 287-289
Pathogenic agent, 246
Pathologists, 281
Pathology, 7
Pavlov, 96, 144, 307
Peace, 310
Peasant (s), 298, 316
Pecuharity (ics), individual, 316
morphological, 238
specific, 250
Pedagogy, 3, 120, 280
Pedigree, 53
Pelvis, 97, 256
Pende, Nicola, 288
Penis, 199
Performances, athletic, 12
cinema, 12
theatrical, 12
Pericles, 51, 63
Peritoneum, 200
Permeability, 33
protoplasmic, 282
Permutations, 241
Persistence after death, 265
Personality, 3, 58, 176, 190, 258,
264, 268-269, 272, 310, 314-315
analysis of, 244
disparateness of, 316
dissolution of human, 158
double, 244
harmony of, 293
Personality— (Continued)
human, 40
humoral, 241-242
mental, 241, 267
modification of human, 142
organic, 242, 267
spatial extensibility of, 261
Perspicacity and renovation of
man, 276
Perspiration, 213
Peterson, F., 148
Pharynx, 68-69
Phenomenon (a), 2, 6
metapsychical, 7, 124, 261
physiological, g
psychological, 141
regularity of, 193
telepathic, 124, 259
Phidias, 63
Philanthropists, 259
Philosopher (s5), 4, $1
Philosophy, 7
Phosphates, 196
Phosphorus, 81, 256
Physicians, 20, 26, 39
Physicochemical, 8-9, 33, 39-40
Physics, 1-2, 8-10, 16, 27, 32-33, 35,
162, 279
Physiologists, 39
mechanistic, 3, 34
Vitalistic, 3
Physiology, 3-4, 6-9, 33, 40, 120, 124
directed, 312-313
Pigment, 213, 217
Pilots, 188
Pity, 128
Placenta, 91
Plasma, acidity of, 84
blood, 78
Plato, 120, 236
Platonic Idea (s), 235-236, 262
Pleasure, 144
Pleiad of great men, 51
Plutarch, 257
Pneumococci, 68
Pneumonia, 207, 209, 246
Poets, 4
[339]
INDEX
Poise of individual in confusion of
new City, 310
Political economy, 3, 31
Politicians, 271, 275
Polypeptides, 78
Polysaccharids, 208
Pope Innocent VIII, 182
Position, human types herded to-
gether according to financial,
317
Potential, electric, 95
energy, 81
high reducing, 80
Potentialities, 190, 225, 251, 254,
256-257, 321
mental, 317
Pott’s disease, 149
Poverty, 309-310
Power, 309
electoral, 271
electrical, 315
of renovation, 234
will, 4, 130
Prayer, 135, 147, 282
influence of, on lesions, 149
Prediction of future, 264
Predispositions, ancestral, 190
hereditary, 255
Predominance of weak, 272
Pregnancy, 92, 197
Prejudices, sentimental, 319
Presidents, bank, 16
railroad, 16
university, 16
Prestidigitation, 260
Principle (s), moral, 128
religious, 18
Prisons, 318
Privation (S), 112, 309-310
Probabilities, calculation of, 248
Problems, social, 186
Processes, adaptive, 305
dendritic, 32
functional, 39
healing, 205
irreversible, 267
mental, 234
physiological, 39-40, 234
Production, mass, 316
Products, endocrine, 311
waste, 83
Professors, university, 285,
Program, no, for remaking of man,
321
Progress, human, 317
Progression, arithmetical, 214
geometrical, 214
Proletarian (s), 277, 298, 316-317
intellectual, 302
manual, 302
Proletariat, 302, 316
Propaganda, 26
Properties, fundamental, 225
Prosperity, 222, 275, 310
Protein (s), 78, 81, 86, 174, 208,
240-241
Protoplasm, 72
Prudden, T. Mitchell, 287
Pseudopods, 137
Psychoanalysis, 146
Psychologists, 3
Psychology, 3, 12, 33, 40, 120, 124,
156, 246, 280
normal, 260
scientific, 245
Psychoses, 39, 156, 158, 244
Puberty, 166, 188
Pulsations, cardiac, 218, 223
Purgative, 193
Purpose, spiritual, 317
Pyknic type and diseases, 64
Pyramidal body of cercbral cells,
32
Qualitative, as more difficult to
study than quantitative, 279
as separated from quantitative,
278
as true as quantitative, §7
See also Quantitative
Qualities, hereditary, 273
primary, 162, 278-279
secondary, 162, 278-279
Quantitative, 2
See also Qualitative, 37, 278-279
Quantum mechanics, 34
[ 340 ]
INDEX
Quiet, exceptional in existence of
modern man, 12
Rabbit (s), 208, 216
Raccoons, metabolism of, in win-
ter, 82
Race (s), white, 67, 109-110, 212,
291
lower, 214
Radiations, solar, 213
Radio, 24
and vulgarity of crowd, 12
Ramon y Cajal, S., 32, 93
Ranches, Western, 217
Rats, 53
Rays, cosmic, 67
infra-red, 66
light, 67
sun, 67
ultra-violet, 11, 67
Reactions, instinctive, 307
Reactivity, modifications of, 242
Realism, 56
Realists, 236, 248
Reality, 1, 4, 38-39, 236, 249, 273,
279, 319-321
Reasoning, scientific, 15
Receptivity, 214
Recipes, empiric, and preventive
medicine, 7
Reconstruction of structures, 200
Reflex (es), 33, 307, 309
associated, 308
conditional, 96
innate, 96
Regeneration, 201, 278
Regimens, dietary, 299
Rejuvenation, 171, 181-183
Relations, chemical, 37
anental, 37
physical, 37
temporal, 94
Religion (s), 134, 229
Asiatic, 135
dogmas of industrial, 152
scientific, 273
Religious beliefs, 15
Renaissance, 51, 62, 120, 278-280,
282, 320
Renovation, $21
means of, 273
Renunciation, 301
Reproduction, gı
Research (es), biological, 290, 31g
conclusions of, dangerous, 53
psychical, 124
Resistance, 19, 69, 109-110, 114, 225
organic, 304
to disease, 5, 26
to fatigue, 5
Responsibility, 222, 271, 309
Restoration, 278, 293, 319
Retina, 66, 198-199, 213-214, 226
Retirement, 187
Revolts, events that drive people
to, 310
Revolution (s), 10, 28, 233, 276,
293, 300
French, 297
industrial, 17
Russian, 297
Revue Métapsychique, 124
Rewards, financial, go2
moral, 302
Rheumatism, 64
Rhine, J. B., 124
Rhythm, 51
inward, 192
of life, 24
Rich, as a class of human beings,
317
men above the multitude, 2712
Richet, C., 124, 241
Riemann, 123
Right and wrong, 128
Road, new, 322
Robbers, 153
Rockefeller, John D., 287
Rockefeller Foundation, 287
Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research, 287, 289-290
mousery of, 207
Rocky Mountains, 98
Rolando, region of, 96
Roman Catholic Church, 129, 187
[341]
INDEX
Roman Empire, 277
Rome, 185
Rous, P., 79
Roux, E., 289
Royal Society of Sciences of Copen-
hagen, 128
Rulers, democratic, 292
Russia, 286
Ruth, Babe, 257
Ruysbroeck the Admirable, 120
Sacrifice, 285, 301
of life, 132
St. John of the Cross, 136
Saints, 130, 134, 147, 259
Salivation, 144
Salts, mineral, 113
Salvation, 154, 321
Scandinavian (s), 214, 304
Scar, 202
Schema (s), 3, 26, 31, 41, 46, 70,
236, 268
classical, 37
School, 270, 315
Schizophrenia, 156
Schopenhauer, 128
Science, 6, 9-10, 14, 16-17, 28, 27-
29. 31, 277
abstract, 2
and intelligence, 122
basic, 291
biological, 1
descriptive form of, 2
indispensable, 291
medical, 20
of human being, 286
of inert matter, 1, 321
of life, 1, 321
of living beings, 2
of man, 44, 821
of medicine, 247
Scientific reasoning, 2
Scientists, 4, 31
Sclerosis, arterial, 115
Scurvy, 206
Séances in psychical research, 124
Secretions, glandular, 256
Sections, microscopical, 71
Security, 18, 309
economic, 310
Selection, natural, 20, 268, 296
Self-indulgence, 311
Selfishness, 128
Senescence, 168, 171-173, 186, 311,
313
lengthening of, 180
regional, 175
Sense (s), esthetic, 5, 33, 55, 128,
131, 139, 152, 309
moral, 5, 33, 128-130, 133-1345
138-199, 151-152, 224, 309
olfactory, 238
religious, 5, 128, 133, 139, 309
social, 33
Sensibility, 317
Separation of mind from body, 280
Septicemias, 209
Sera, serum (s), 78, 242
antitoxic, 312
blood, 282
injections of, 207
therapeutic, 209
Serf (s), 298, 316
Service, military, 216
Sex (eS), 253, 314
Sexual, appetites, 143-144
excesses, 143
Shaping, intellectual, 309
Shapley, H., 16
Sheep, 82
Shocks, 234
Short-sightedness, 254
Shoulder blade, 97
Sidgwick, Henry, 124
Silence, 49
of sound body, 111
Simplicity, functional, 104
Sincerity, 307
Situations, adverse, 307
Skating-rinks, 13
Skeleton, 5, 62, 97, 104, 256
Skin, 64, 74, 202, 266
extirpation of, 224
grafts, 238
Skyscrapers, 25
[342 |
INDEX
Sleep, 215-216, 229 .
hypnotic, 244
need of, 307
Smallpox, 115, 208
Smith, Theobald, 287
Snow, 217
Society (ies), modern, 269, 278
of cells, 4, 72
Society for Psychical Research, 124
Sociologists, 34, 140
Sociology, 3, 27, 31, 120, 280
human, 72
Socrates, 128
Sodium chloride, 3
Soldier, 257
Solesmes, monastery of, 52
Solitude, 12, 154, 269
Solomon’s Song, 143
Song, and prayer, 135
Solomon’s, 143
Sorrows, 221
Soul, 118, 144, 266
Soundness of organs
freedom, 312
Space, 62, 74, 119, 125, 156, 161,
172, 197, 199, 259, 261-262, 264,
266, 320
dimensions of, 60
Spain, 304
Specialist (s), 3, 45, 47, 281
Specialization, 45
Specificity, 239
individual, 267
of organs, 238
Spengler, O., 277
Spermatozoon (a), 90-91, 250, 262
Sphincter, 65
Spinal cord, 66, 96, 196
Spine, 70
Spiritism, 264
Spiritual, 282
Spiritualist (s), 3, 259
Spleen, 74, 104
Sports, 13
Stability, 193, 310
nervous, 26
of life, 301
engenders
Stabilization, adaptation as an
agent of, 223
Staphylococci, 69
State, psychological, 150
steady, 224
Statistics, on care of sick, 114
on insane, 154
Stature, 21
increase in, 53
Steamers, 12
Steel, 1, 191
Steinach, E., 181-183
Sterile women, 299
Sterility, voluntary, 22
Stimulus (i),
absolute intensity of a, 215
foreseen, 308
Stomach, 64
Stores, 12
Strength, 298, 303
Streptococci, 69
Strife, 220
Structure (s), 200
and function, 266
atomic, 33
electronic, 33
molecular, 33
of organs, 71
Struggle, 309-310
Strychnine, 94
Substances, antiseptic, 205
chemical, 3-5
chemical, of environment, 266
required for growth, etc., 267
Substratum, 16, 60, 88, 104, 144.
146, 192
bodily, 137
organic, 171
psychological, 171
Suburbs, 10
Suffering, 221
moral, 7, 145
Sugar (s), 9, 78, 81
Suicide, 259
Sulfur, 81
Superiority of man, 109
Superscience, 285
Suppositions, 259
[343]
INDEX
Suppuration, 204
Suprarenals, 101, 104
Supreme Court of
States, 48, 292
Surgery, modern, 203
Surroundings, intellectual, 15
moral, 15
social, 255
Survival, 211, 22%, 230
Swimming-pools, 13
Symbols, 236-237
equations of, 1
realm of, 248
world of, 249
Syncope, 200
Synthesis, 44, 47, 54, 56
of knowledge, 282
Syphilis, 39, 115, 157-158, 211, 246,
263, 300
spirochetes of, 141
Superstition (s), 18
System (s), adaptive, 306
autonomous, 108
central nervous, 93, 99-100, 102,
213, 223
cerebrospinal, 93, 100, 228
digestive, 64
glandular, 64
nervous, 19-20, 64, 93, 103, 213-
215, 218, 310, 319
organic, 102, 228, 306
parasympathetic, 101
philosophical, 279, 319
sympathetic, 93, 101-102, 228, 309
the United
Tanning, 67
Tardigrada, 82
Technology, 22, 273, 278, 281, 294,
321
Teissier, J., 124
Telegraph, 12, 24
Teleological, 197-198, 233
Telepathic communications, 5, 67
Telepathy, 40, 56, 124-125, 148,
260-261
Telephone, 24
and vulgarity of crowd, 13
Television, 24
Temperament (s), 64, 101, 127
Temperature, 11, 212-218
Temples, 134
Tendencies, 128, 251, 253
ancestral, 254-257, 265
hereditary, 254, 257
inherent, 255
Tendons, 97
Tennis, 227-228
Tennis-courts, 13
Tension, osmotic, 33
Testicles, 89, 105, 143, 182, 209, 256
Tests, psychological, 123
Therapeutics, 248
chemical, 312
Thermodynamics, 149, 279
Thinking, philosophical, 317
Thirst, 198, 213, 216, 306
Thorax, 196, 217
Thought, 1, 97, 118, 138, 144-145,
261
habits of, 278
transmission, 147
Thyroid, 6, 74, 83
Thyroxin, 88, 312
Tides, 163
Time, 60, 62, 74, 119, 125, 197, 157
160-162, 197, 199, 237, 259, 261-
262, 264-266, 320
inner, 159, 163-164, 166, 169, 170-
171, 177, 184, 189, 192
intrinsic, 166
lunar, 163
physical, 169-170, 172, 175-176,
184-185
physiological, 4, 33, 164-165, 168-
170, 172-173, 175-176, 182-184,
188-189, 234, 267
psychological, 4,
181
solar, 163, 169-171
Time Traveller, 165
Tissue (s), 4, 200-201
alterations, 175
connective, 202
cultivated in flask, 8g
cultivation of, 72, 17g
164-165, 176,
[344]
INDEX
Tissue— (Continued)
cultures of, 167
epithelial, 202
fatty, 202
human, amount of fluid needed
for, 83
nutrition of, 85-86
Tobacco, 299
Tongue, 65, 98
Tonsils, 69
Tourists, 184
Toxins, 208
Trachea, 68
Trainers, animal, 308
Training, familial, 270
Trains, 12
Traité de Psychologie, 244
Transformers, chemical, 88
Transfusion, 240
blood, 239
Transplantation, 209
glandular, 239
of organs, 239-240
Treatises, medical, 247
Treponema pallidum, 211, 263
Truth, contemplation of, 138
ultimate, 137
Tube, Fallopian, go
Tuberculosis, 20, 39, 64, 114, 253,
300
peritoneal, cured at Lourdes, 149
Tuffer, T., 204
Tumors, 211
brain, 115
Twins, 252
identical, 239, 242
single ovum, 50
Type (s), affective, 244
herding together of ill-assorted,
317
intellectual, 243-244
mystical, 244
pyknic, 64
sensitive, 243
voluntary, 243
Typhoid fever, 20, 69, 114-115, 207-
209, 246
Ultraviolet rays, 11, 67
Unbalance, nervous, 299
Unemployment, 222
Unintelligence, more general, 152
Uniqueness, 242, 244, 249-250, 315
United States, 15, 19-21, 46, 5g, 110,
114, 124, 140, 154, 231, 287, 298
Unity, 118, 233, 249, 266, 293
Universals, 235-236, 246, 248, 269,
280
Universe, 1, 6-7, 16, 266, 319-320
Universities, 12
American, 287
Unpredictable, 321
Urine, 196, 239
Uterus, 89
Vaccination, 209
Vaccine, 46, 242
injections of, 207
Vagina, 197, 199
Value (s), human, 316
moral, 15
Van Slyke, D. D., 78
Ventricle, 210
Vermont, 13
Versailles, 88
Vesicle (s), 73
optic, 198
Vessels, suture of, 239
Vices, inherent, 129
Victory, events drive people to, 310
Virility, 268
Virus (es), 64, 112-113, 205-206,
208, 242, 247, 289, 313
Visions of events happening at a
distance, 147
Viscera, 84, 99, 101-102, 213
removal of, 100
Vitalism, 35, 56
Vitalists, 35, 197, 259
Vitality, 255
Vitamines, 113, 206, 256, 8305, gute
312
Voronoli, S., 177, 181-183
[345]
INDEX
Vulgarity of modern civilization,
132
Vulva, 197
Washington, George, 257
Water, 1, 218
alkalinity of ocean, 8
Watson, J. B., 251
Waves, electromagnetic, 66, 261,
$19
Weak, predominance of, 272
reproduction of, 296
Weakening of body, 111
Weaklings, 212
Weakness, intellectual, 268
Wealth, 14, 111, 309, $21
Weather, inclemencies of, 213
Weber, 214-215
Weierstrass, 123
Welch, W. H., 218, 287
Wells, 160, 164
Westminster chimes, 13
Whip and criminals, 318
Whole, functional, 105
Will, 128
power, 4, 130
to power, 309
Wireless, 12
Woodger, J. H., 35
Work, 221, 224, 306
Workers, industrial, 316
manual, 304
white-collar, $16
Workmen, 10
World (s), 12, 320
aquatic, 65
earthly, 8
inner, 4, 7
intraorganic, 108
material, 1-2, 7, 15
modern, 14
new, 6
organic, 7
outer, 2, 6
spiritual, 7
temporal, 188
terrestrial, 9
Worries, 215
Wound (s), rate of healing of, 167
suppurating, cured at Lourdes,
149
Writing, automatic, 245
Wrong, right and, 128
Yale University, 288
Yankee, 304
Years, 166
Yellow fever, 246
Youth, beauty of, 63
eternal, 177
[346]
ZBBS