Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-07-07
Brain Feared
Making Race
OfWeak|ings
Man, Mechanical Misfit
Praised by Writer

BY BENJAMIN DE CASSERES
'"THE greatest thing in the


world is man. The great
est thing in man is mind.
Therefore. the greatest thing in
the world is mind" said Sir
William Hamilton, nous
Scotch logician.
From time immemorial the
brain of man has been praised
and glorified. But here comes
DR.. Estabrooks. who puts the
bee on our brains. He tells US
in a sensational book, Man the
Mechanical Misfit" (MacMil-
LAM. that the brain Is a wan
pire" that sucks I he strength
out of our bodies, that its grow
ing activities will soon make us
all weaklings, robots and NOR
ons, and but listen TO the
cheerful doctor himself:
"A thousand years from now
machines will produce every
thing the human race needs ex-
cept health and humanity will
consist entirely Of doctors and
nurs criDpling around and
giyi~ other shots In the
arm"
Then another haymaker for
the gray mass in your noodle,
to-Wit:
THE vampire brain. which
literally sucks the strength
from every body organ to suit
Its own ends. IL natures unique
and fatal gift 90 man. Nowhere
else In the animal kingdom do
we find even an approach to tho
human brain and nowhere else
do we find such an astonishing
degeneration I'm few brief
years.
1.-THE human has used his In
telligence To think up a dozen
different ways Of side-stepping
natures laws; but, while man
may Outwit nature for another
ten thousand or even hundred
thousand years. the odds are all
against him. Sooner or later the
day Of reckoning will come, and
nature will send her weird, two
legged brain-child TO Join hun
dreds Of other discarde d
models"
Now. the doctor has got some
thing there but II rs not the
whole story The other side OF
the story-which also gives US
some hope for the old thought
hive on our shoulders-lleS IN
natural law that the doctor
seems TO skip entirely. 1t is
this: The law OF reaction.
At Just about the point
(maybe 500 years from now
when the brain seems to be on
the point OF 'vamping' all our
energies and science seems
about TO robotize humanity, the
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. emo
tions. the will will rise in a
stupendous psychological and
actual revolution and deliver
such haymaker on the chin OF
the thinking kidney in the skull
that il will remain dormant for,
maybe. another 500 years.
That's the way things 20 In
this world action and reaction,
ebb and flow.
ANYHOW doctor I don't think
il is our brains that are using VS.
I'd. There aren't enough IN the
world TO endangcr the race. We
cannot have too much OF the
little we've got Besides ma
lures on the Job. Neither SCI
ence nor wars nor brains can
beat her ono purpose sur
vival of the fitteSi.
HERE are two books all
IL Americans and also all for
eigners among us,--in this year
1941 must read.
The first is The Patriotic
Anthology: Americas History IN
Poetry and Prose" edited by
Carl Van Doren Doubleday
Doran). From Columbus tin
poetry TO Franklin d. Roose-
welt lin prosel you'll find what
this. our America has meant TO
Americans. Here are the May
flower tradition in poem and
prose, Paul Revere. Lincoln, the
Declaration of Independence,
the "Bigelow Papers, The
Star Spangled Banner the
Constitution. Walt Whitman's
great poems 10 his America,
William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph
Waldo Emerson--in fact. Amer
lea from every side and aspect.
The other book is we Hold
These Truths" compiled by
Stuart Gerry Brown tliarperl
Here are Al primary documents
which trace the growth of the
American democratic ideal-the
writings of Paine, Webster. Cal
houn. Whitman. the Mayflower
compact, the articles of confed-
Grafton, the Dred Scott decision.
the Ia points and anything you
can name which may have
forgotten.
As. was writing. this third
book comes to my desk-James
NJ. Beck's The Constitution OF
the United States" revised and
with additional material by
James Truslow Adams Double
day-Doran).
Give a month to these three
books-give lifetime TO them,
and you'll be an American to
the depth of your being even
though you were born In Berlin