Chapter I: Preface

In the spring of 1918 I was invited by Leland Stanford Junior University to give a series of three lectures upon the West Memorial Foundation. One of the topics included within the scope of the Foundation is Human Conduct and Destiny. This volume is the result, as, according to the terms of the Foundation, the lectures are to be published. The lectures as given have, however, been rewritten and considerably expanded. An Introduction and Conclusion have been added. The lectures should have been published within two years from delivery. Absence from the country rendered strict compliance difficult; and I am indebted to the authorities of the University for their indulgence in allowing an extension of time, as well as for so many courtesies received during the time when the lectures were given.

Perhaps the sub-title requires a word of explanation. The book does not purport to be a treatment of social psychology. But it seriously sets forth a belief that an understanding of habit and of different types of habit is the key to social psychology, while the operation of impulse and intelligence gives the key to individualized mental activity. But they are secondary to habit so that mind can be understood in the concrete only as a system of beliefs, desires and purposes which are formed in the interaction of biological aptitudes with a social environment. J. D. February, 1921

CONTENTS

PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
Contempt for human nature; pathology of goodness; freedom;
value of science.

_PART ONE_
THE PLACE OF HABIT IN CONDUCT

SECTION I: HABITS AS SOCIAL FUNCTIONS 14
Habits as functions and arts; social complicity; subjective
factor.
SECTION II: HABITS AND WILL 24
Active means; ideas of ends; means and ends; nature of
character.
SECTION III: CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 43
Good will and consequences; virtues and natural goods;
objective and subjective morals.
SECTION IV: CUSTOM AND HABIT 58
Human psychology is social; habit as conservative; mind and
body.
SECTION V: CUSTOM AND MORALITY 75
Customs as standards; authority of standards; class
conflicts.
SECTION VI: HABIT AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 84
Isolation of individuality; newer movements.

_PART TWO_
THE PLACE OF IMPULSE IN CONDUCT

SECTION I: IMPULSES AND CHANGE OF HABITS 89
Present interest in instincts; impulses as re-organizing.
SECTION II: PLASTICITY OF IMPULSE 95
Impulse and education; uprush of impulse; fixed codes.
SECTION III: CHANGING HUMAN NATURE 106
Habits the inert factor; modification of impulses; war a
social function; economic regimes as social products; nature
of motives.
SECTION IV: IMPULSE AND CONFLICT OF HABITS 125
Possibility of social betterment; conservatism.
SECTION V: CLASSIFICATION OF INSTINCTS 131
False simplifications; "self-love"; will to power;
acquisitive and creative.
SECTION VI: NO SEPARATE INSTINCTS 149
Uniqueness of acts; possibilities of operation; necessity of
play and art; rebelliousness.
SECTION VII: IMPULSE AND THOUGHT 169

_PART THREE_
THE PLACE OF INTELLIGENCE IN CONDUCT

SECTION I: HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE 172
Habits and intellect; mind, habit and impulse.
SECTION II: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING 181
The trinity of intellect; conscience and its alleged separate
subject-matter.
SECTION III: THE NATURE OF DELIBERATION 189
Deliberation as imaginative rehearsal; preference and choice;
strife of reason and passion; nature of reason.
SECTION IV: DELIBERATION AND CALCULATION 199
Error in utilitarian theory; place of the pleasant;
hedonistic calculus; deliberation and prediction.