Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/19

 future in all countries which had ranged themselves along self-governing lines.

Now it is no part of my intention here to engage upon the large task of a general explanation of the recent rapid changes in policy and thinking. For holding, as I do, that man is not a very reasonable animal, but is to a larger extent than he likes to admit the servant of his personal short-range interests and passions, it would be of little service to try to argue out the inflammatory issues in politics and economics. This criticism, moreover, applies not only to the mass of mankind, but with some special significance to those who think for them and mould their thinking into principles and policies. It is, indeed, the play of tradition, class feeling, and interests upon the thinkers who regard themselves as disinterested rationalists that here concerns me.

But for my purpose a further narrowing process is required. Since I shall be engaged in work of social criticism, I must myself be exposed to those deflecting influences that operate on others, and though it is not possible to pretend to an impartiality and objectivity which I deny to others, it is possible for me to trace and set forth in my own intellectual career some of the causal and casual occurrences which have determined my own thinking during a period of more than half a century.

While the more formal processes of acquiring knowledge belong to the education of school or