The Washington herald., 1913-09-21

describe an attitude toward life than a
fixed body of doctrine. Institutions phil
osophies, and religions should be exam
ined in the light OF their human use;
further, they have no meaning or signifi-
cance apart from their physical applica-
tion to men, whose work they are. There
is nothing sacrosanct or inherently au-
thoritative about them To pragmatism
nothing has external authority Ia doc
trine dear to all Socialistic hearts,. Be-
cause il Is ridiculous to study life di-
vorced from any human implication, Mr..
Walling argues pragmatism places man
deliberately and consciously at the CEN
ter. In other words. science, truth, and
religion are our servants, and not mere
masters. They exist only to serve our
needs. According to the author. they
have too often been used as abstract
principles Of authority, in the name OF
which the lower classes have been ex-
plotted and held in subsection. Prag-
matism instructs us not to ignore the
facts of life, but to use them to suit our
ends.
To say that passions can be curbed
only by stronger passions is an unfor-
tunate way of the authors of putting It..
Most passions need to be diverted into
useful channels; TO divert them Is the
function of the intellect and the will
The business of decision is the sum total
of our moral adventures. In action we
can, and, as matter of fact, We do.
back up and color our decisions with all
the warmth of our deeper impulses. 1t Is,
therefore, not so much question of
deeper impulses versus reason as il is
unintelligent decision versus intelligent
decision. Morality being more a matter
OF decision than anything else, it is false
TO emphasize the naturalistic side of man
in nFDhlanNG n
author talks as il the whole problem
were one of finding our deeper. selves.
He advocates a sort of Platonic doctrine
of "Reminiscences applied to the Instincts.
Yet, in the same breath, We are told that
We should be educated so as to change
our own natures after we have discov-
cred them. Mr.. Walling, like many other
deep thinkers. believes that he writes
for those; or better still. that only those
read his dissertations and critiques who
know as much of the subjects under the
mental microscope as he does himself
The larger" aspects of Socialism are
many; and pragmatism alone does not
explain them.
JOHN BARLEYCORN: By Jack London. New
Hork-The Century Company.
How far away from the exact truth
is Jack London tempted now and then
to wander during the course of his John
Barleycorn?" When a man deliberately
takes the world into his confidence and
pOurs into its willing ears the secrets of
his youth and manhood, how completely
must We believe him? When he osten-
tatiously invites the reading public to
become his father confessor. we must
perforce accept him as a model of frank
ness and sincerity. When, as is Mr.. Lon
don. he is is a writer of exceptional pop
ularity and reputation. who has made
himself famous through his imaginative
skill, We are told to see nothing but
facts in a book that wears both the out
ward semblance and the inward guise of
fiction.
1t scarcely seems possible that John
Barleycorn'' is the whole truth and moth
ing but the truth. II is too excessively
frank to convince us thatSt is wholly
a record of thoughts that came into the
mind and incidents that happened to the
writer. In John Barleycorn" Mr.. Lon
don tells what he claims is the story of
his own adventures. Thrown upon his
own resources at an early age, he en-
countered ali sorts and conditions OF life,