| Summary: | "This volume collects a few of the many essays and addresses I have scattered in various journals and magazines during the last forty years, together with three that have not previously appeared in their present form. In selecting these essays I have been guided partly by the desire to present matter likely to be of interest to the general reader; but also I have aimed at a certain unity of topic and argument, a unity indicated by the title of the volume. Man, I contend, is more than a machine, and more than a mirror that reflects the world about him. He is an active being with power to direct his strivings towards ideal goals; and there is ground for belief that those goals are neither wholly illusory nor wholly unattainable. Critics will say that the tone of this volume is pessimistic. But that will be unjust. I am constitutionally optimistic; and if these essays strike a somber note, that is the consequence of my lifelong studies of man, his powers, his efforts, his successes, his failures, his follies, his crimes, and his dreams of nobility. Man is a feeble and fallible creature; and he is in a most difficult and dangerous situation. The discerning reader will see that the more popularly written essay, "Was Darwin Wrong?" is intimately related to the larger questions discussed in the opening essays of the volume. For the two essays on psychical research I offer no apology. They sufficiently express my attitude to that field. As for the essays on eugenic topics, they will inevitably antagonize a considerable proportion of those who dip into this volume. I am encouraged almost to hope that at some remote date my Eugenia scheme may be realized by some enlightened multi-millionaire." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).
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