The Washington socialist. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1914-1915, 1914-08-27
The intellect Alone
A Poor Guide
cry Geo. u. lIcrronD

mature of our capitalist civilization, de-
spite the industrial insanity and spirit
! ual chaos, II new world Is surely form
ling: dimly may we discern the white
/ pinnacles and the green gardens Of
/ the gathering city of man There Is
approaching -and It is not so far off
as ii seems-a world arranged by the
wisdom hid In the human heart; n
world that Is the organization of a
strong and universal kindness: a world
redeemed from the fear of institutions
and of poverty Even now, derded
and discouraged rs it Is, socially I'M
trained and inexperienced as It is, If
the mstinctual and repressed kindness
of mankind were suddenly lot loose
upon the earth, sooner than we think
would II ensphere itself; sooner than
we think would It reconstitute society;
sooner than we think would we be
members one of another, sitting
around one family hearthstone and
singing the song of the new humanity
! The Socialist philosophy, and more
especially the recent philosophy of the
Syndicalist, is sending us to re-exam-
nation of the sources and organs Of
such human wisdom as we have. And
/ the voices thereof are older than we
think Bergson, who has wrought so
needful and profound revolution in
philosophical approach and procedure,
was by no means the first to place
the intelligence of the instinct above
the intelligence of the intellect; to
prefer the wisdom of the onward will
to the builded conclusions of the brood
ing mind, Long before Bergson, be-
/ fore William James, had Lao-tze and
Buddha, had Jesus and Plotlnus, pro-
| claimed that enlightenment proceeds
from feeling and action rather than
from thinking. Also the mystical
philosophy of Fichte, and the political
idealism of MaZZini, with the early So
cialism of Etienne CADET preceded the
| Pragmatists with the principle that
truth is experience: is whatever helps
man on; is response to spiritual atti-
tudes; is the path that opens unto free
and adventuring faith is the vision
/ that forms before the advancing deter
mination to reach and to do the good
1t is true that neither the newer phil
osophers nor their forerunners have
gotten themselves quite clearly into
Language. Indeed, Bergson seems to
admit that he does not himself know
what he finally means. Yet it all
comes to this--if we dig to the sub
stance of what they say: that if man
kind is to get anywhere worth going
to, it will be through forsaking the
bungling counsels of the conceited
brain, and through following the un-
shamed and unhindered wisdom of the
heart-even the heart that knows not
! letters in preference to the lettered
/ intellect that knows not the heart.
Mere Thinker a False Guide.
No; we cannot intellectually plot our
way into social health and happiness.
The mere thinker is forever the false
prophet, the blind guide. He neither
knows nor deserves the truth. His
search is in the land where truth does
not dwell-the land of the minds curl
osity, and it is in the derided land of
the hearts desire, after all, that truth
goes in and out and finds pasture, 1t
is comparatively little if we only knew
it, that sheer intellect has accom-
plished. Every movement that has ad
vanced the world has proceeded from
the kindling and the uniting of men in
a common passion and purpose-from
the heart rather than the brain. And
revolutionist and philosopher are alike
emerging from the exaggerated esteem
in which the intellect has been held.
From Plato to the political econom-
ists-so apart in their concepts and so
together in their presumptive methods
are the minds acrobatics being put
in their proper and subordinate place:
they are no longer counted as wisdom.
BY Its Fruits We Shall Know 1t.
The system that divided society into
classes can bring forth no true knowl-
edge, no living truth, no industrial
competence, no fundamental social de
cency. 1t can only continue the desc
latiOn of labor and increase the blind
ness and depravity Of the privileged.
So long as some people own the tools
upon which others depend for bread, so
long as the few possess themselves of
the fruits of the labor of the many so
long as the arts and the institutions
and the sciences are built upon ex-
plotted workers, just so long will our
so-called progress be through the per-
ennial exhaustion of generations and
races; just so long will successive civ
ilizatiOns be but voracious parasites
upon the spirit and body of mankind
And it is to destroy the dominance of
the nriUi1poad pIacc 70 oIiD,inot n