Functional socialism

CHAPTER VII BRAINS

Tue Clown in Twelfth Night sapiently remarked that “our skulls Jove cram with brains”. On the whole, we have reason to be grateful to Jove for this act of condescension. The results have certainly been variegated ; it isindeed a moot point whether the great events of history can be traced to the presence or absence of brains. This is certain: the brains bestowed on each and all of us differ enormously in quality and size. The English are rather particularand self-conscious—in their use of the word “‘brains’’. To the higher reaches of thought they apply the term “intellectual”; they retain the word “brains” for the more concrete and pedestrian affairs of life; but the man who is only smart and quick on the uptake they describe, with a touch of contempt, as “brainy”. If we divide the activities and preoccupations of mankind into two large categories, the cultural and the functional, in the main it would be true that function only asks for brains, leaving the intellectual to the cultural, political, and spiritual. The truth of it is that the concrete practical problems do not induce any great intellectual strain.

This distinction is doubtless as arbitrary as it is