To glorify man in his natural and unmodified self is no less surely, even if less obviously, idolatry than actually to bow down before a graven image. - Irving Babbitt

Our most urgent problem just now is how to preserve in a positive and critical form the soul of truth in the two great traditions, classical and Christian, that are crumbling as mere dogma.

It seems to me imperative to re-establish the true dualism—that between vital impulse and vital control—and to this end to affirm the higher will first of all as a psychological fact. The individual needs, however, to go beyond this fact if he is to decide how far he is to exercise control in any particular instance with a primary view to his own happiness: in short, he needs standards. To secure standards, at least critically, he cannot afford, like the Rousseauist, to disparage the intellect.

True democracy consists not in lowering the standard but in giving everybody, so far as possible, a chance of measuring up to the standard.