10. The Psychopathology of Scientism

10 The Psychopathology of Scientism LUDWIG VON BERTALANFFY 10 The Epistemological Basis Scientism and its epistemological root, positivism, either in the original form given to it by Comte and his contemporaries or as modem logical positivism, are not an invention of the scien tists. As Hayek 1 has admirably stated: From Francis Bacon ... to August Comte, and the "physicalists" of our own day, the claims for the exclusive virtues of the specific methods employed by the natural sciences were mostly 'advanced by men whose right to speak on behalf of the scientists were not above suspicion ... The enthusiasm for physicism (it is now called physi calism) and the use of "physical language," the attempt to "unify science" and to make it the basis of morals ... the desire to organize the work of others, particularly by editing a great encyclopedia and the wish to plan life in general on scientific lines are all present [in Saint-Simon's philosophy].

The present writer feels entitled to some criticism because he himself came from the Vienna Circle, having been a pupil of its founder, M. Schlick. The criticism proffered by Hayek may be 202 The Psychopathology of Scientism 203 supplem.ented by stating the fact that scientific research rarely follows the rigid commandments of the positivists. Many scientific developments started with "metaphysical" problems which, ac cording to logical positivism, should have been discarded as pseudo problems at the beginning, the theory of the atom, starting with the wild speculations of Democritus and Lucretius, being an example. Even mechanics, the prototype of exact science, was freed from metaphysics and theology only slowly in a period ex tending from Kepler to Lagrange. Kepler himself derived his laws, not from solid principles of scientific research, but from unbridled neoplatonic speculations. Physical notions like "force"

or "cause" were quite anthropomorphic in the beginning, and it took a long development until they were "deanthropomorphized" and became concepts in the sense of exact science and mathe matical description of nature. It is therefore no wonder that the biological, behavioral, and social sciences also began with vitalistic, philosophical, and meta physical notions and have only slowly reached a state where they can deal with problems according to the modern standards of science. In truth, of course, science essentially is a symbolic system created in such a way as to describe certain aspects. of experience. What cannot be confirm.ed by experience is by this very fact outside the field of science; but this is not a recent discovery. On the other hand, explanation of and confirmation by experience is a highly technical matter and not only much more than, but very different from, "reduction to observable thing-predicates."

Science does not "reduce" to "observation predicates" and "proto col sentences," but to highly technical terms like 'it-mesons, the space-time continuum, the nucleoprotein helix, the expanding or steady-state universe, and the rest, with the laws applying to such entities-things connected with naive experience only by way of a formidable mathematical and logical machine. A consequence of this is that science mirrors only certain aspects of experience, to the exclusion of others. What we call scientific experience is a small sector of experience, and not only or neces204 Scientism and Values sarily the exclusive and best one. It is chosen for a certain pur pose, nam.ely, theoretical description and practical control of nature. What is called "an observed fact" is a certain aspect isolated from the stream of experience for certain intellectual pur suits,. Hence, not only vernacular language, but even science contains a cultural and linguistic bias. For example, the thinking in terms of "substances" and "attributes" is connected with the subject attribute syntax of Indo-Germanic languages, as Benjamin Whorf has emphasized. This, in turn, colors our scientific world picture.

An excellent example is the notion and theory of ether, introduced because there should be something that "oscillates," and so is the substratum of electromagnetic waves. Only slowly is this bias of language and culture-bound categories eliminated in the process of the deanthropomorphization of science,2 achieved, in this. par ticular instance, by the theory of relativity. For similar reasons, our physics is concerned with so-called primary qualities., which are conveniently treated with our sort of mathematics. Secondary qualities are eliminated in the physical world picture even though they are not less "real" in immediate experience. It is quite conceivable that intelligent beings with other biological and cultural categories of understanding would develop forms of mathematics (i.e., deductive systems) quite dif ferent from our "science of quantities," and consequently other forms of "physics." Even "\vithin our own biases, unorthodox branches of mathematics, such as mathematical logic, topology, and group theory, show the possibility of such developments., being concerned with "order" (a tremendous problem in biology, psy chology, etc.) rather than "measurable quantities."

As opposed to positivism, a sounder view appears to be what may be called perspectivism. 3 Cultural efforts from science to the arts are different symbolic universes elaborated to catch certain aspects of reality, whatever the latter term may mean. The scientific world picture is one of these perspectives, most useful for constructing a theoretical world view as well as for techno logical control of nature, but not the only one possible, nor one exhausting reality.

The Psychopathology of Scientism 205 2. Scientism in Theory and Practice In his classical essay, Hayek 4 characterized scientism by three basic concepts: 1. Objectivislll, i.e., the contention that the methods of natural science are the only way of knowledge and that all phenomena must be ultimately expressed in "physical language"; 2. Collectivism, i.e., what we may call the application of per sonificative fictions (Vaihinger) to social phenomena, treating them as if they were concrete, organism-like objects and wholes; 3. Historicism, i.e., the contention following from this point of view that laws of social and historical events can be discovered which are similar in structure to the laws in natural science. Thus scientism, according to Hayek, is the misapplication of the method of natural science in realms where it does not belong. Hayek's study was written in the early forties. At the time of WTiting, scientism was largely a theoretical problem and offered a utopian program. Today, it has become a fact and hence poses before us practical problems of paramount importance. It is, there fore, proposed to start the present study where Hayek left of£.5 Condorcet,6 writing before the French Revolution, contended that man and human society should be studied with the methods of the natural sciences and in the way we study the societies of beavers and bees.Condorcet's postulate and prophecy were ful filled with a vengeance. We do not only theoretically describe man and society in this way in recent developments of the be havioral sciences. We also make human society ever more resemble that of beavers and bees.

In rereading Hayek's study, one can see immediately some basic changes which have occurred since the 1940's. For example, Hayek 7 noted "scarcity of capital" as the "most fundamental economic fact." Today in America the most funda mental economic fact appears to be "Ending is better than mend ing," 8 that is, to keep an economy of abundance going by artificial means such as hidden persuaders, psychological obsolescence, 9 and the like.

206 Scientismand Values In the earlier technological age, Ostwald's "energetic impera tive" to use energy so as to achieve maximum effect with mini mum energy-expense was a fair statement of the aims of physical engineering. Modern psychological engineering is essentially based upon the principle of waste, of which any chromium-laden, over powered, long-finned, once-a-year traded-in car is an example. Again, the "dislike which our whole generation shows for all commercial activities" and for the "merchant" 10 is now countered by the cultural emphasis on the salesman in prestige and in monetary reward. A final quote from Hayek's book may be interesting: "Not only the ancient languages were reduced to a minimum and in practice almost entirely neglected, even the instruction in literature, drama, and history was very inferior, and moral and religious in struction, of course, completely absent." 11 This reads like an excerpt from an editorial published in the post-Sputnik debate on American education. As a matter of fact, it is a description of the school reform of 1795 in revolutionary France shortly after the Reign of Terror.

Hayek was well aware that scientism leads to "conscious plan ning of social phenomena." However, at this time he could refer only to political ,and social engineering and, in particular, econo mic planning,12 which latter he analyzed in his The Road. to Serfdom. Since he wrote his study the new development of "human engineering" has emerged. The phenomena of "mass man," "organization man," "hidden persuaders," baby's education and sexual intercourse directed by how-to-do books available at the corner drugstore, and a variety of others, are all corollaries to this theme. The criticism, against scientism does not appear to be any longer that it is a misapplication of science in fields where it does not belong; rather, in recent years scientists have become only too competent in behavioral and social science and in their technological application. The following discussion suggests a few consequences arising from this fact. The scientistic credo can roughly be summarized as follows: Our knowledge of the laws of physics is excellent, and con sequently our technological control of inanimate nature is almost T he Psychopathology of Scientism 207 without limit. Our knowledge of biological laws is not so far ad vanced, but it is sufficient to allow a large amount of biological technology in modern medicine and applied biology. Our knowl edge of the laws of human behavior and of society is still un developed. Consequently, human and sociological technology lag behind physical and biological technology. If we had a well developed science of human behavior and society and a corre sponding technology, this would mean the way out of the personal, sociological, and political problems of our time.

3. Scientism and Science It seems, however, that the scientistic attitude is apt to lead to the destruction of a free society and of science itself. We shall start with a few considerations regarding the second aspect. Science in the European tradition was a calling elected by a minority of gifted individuals. Today it is becoming a job among others, and much less profitable than tho~e of the used-car dealer or fashion model. 13 The lack of prestige s well as of financial reward for the scientist, and particularly the so-called basic scientist, conceivably leads to a negative selection and hence a progressive decrease in the stature of the individuals engaged in it. Connected with this is the often complained of, but never acted upon, overemphasis on applied as compared to basic science. Vir tually all the achievements of technology were an upshot of basic research unconcerned with practical applications. Hertz's electro magnetic experim,ents eventually leading to radio and television, the highly speculative theory of the atom leading to atomic bombs, Mendel's experimentation in his cloister garden leading to a re form of agriculture are well-known examples. If, however, the applied scientist in atomic energ"y, electronics, or medicine com mands considerably higher earnings .and prestige than the physi cist, chemist, or biologist, we may expect fewer new discoveries and ideas in science. Eventually further progress in technology will frustrate itself when the store of basic science is technologi cally exhausted and bases for new developments fail to be added.

Connected with this is the "mechanization" and "organization"

208 Scientism and Values of science. Science in the old tradition first formulated a problem and then looked for machinery necessary for its investigation, often by way of improvisation; and in the last decades in Europe a tiny budget has been the most important limiting factor. Today the tendency is widely reversed. First there is a complicated and ex pensive machine; then let's think what we are going to do with it. Accordingly, funds for buildings, apparatus, technical help, etc., are nearly unlimited; funds for brains .are very hard to find. Similar considerations apply to "organization" in science. Here we find the mystical belief in the "group" or "team" asa means of unprecedented scientific progress. A group of specialists trained in the same or different fields is an excellent instrument for certain ,veIl-definable research development purposes; namely, to elabo rate and test a given research or technological program, say, to find the best shape for an ICBM or to test thousands of chemicals to discover whether one of them will prove to be a cure for cancer.

The group, however, is. singularly ineffective in inaugurating new scientific developments. Hardly one example is known in the history of science where a "team" has established new principles. 14 History rather shows that major advances and breakthroughs in science have resulted from the often capricious and irrational brain waves of gifted individuals which only subsequently were proved, formalized, and systematized in the accredited ways of science, usu ally (and quite legitimately) encountering considerable resistance on the part of the profession at the beginning. Although it is possible to pool capable individuals, their work, and the results obtained, the expectation that a scientific team is more creative than the sum of its members rests on the metaphysi cal belief that a social group has a "mind" or "spirit" excelling that of the component individuals. There is no foundation for, and many facts against, such a belief.

These and other factors lead to a progressive levelling in science -a phenomenon which is by no means a new discovery, but well known and a matter of grave concern to its leaders. These developments further lead to the decay of what is known as academic freedom. I5 The present discussion is not concerned with such limitations of scientific communication as may be neces· The Psychopathology of Scientism 209 sary for reasons of national security, but solely with infringement in matters without political implication. Established over many centuries, the freedom of thought, re search, and communication has been an unshakeable basis of mod ern science. Encroachments. on this freedom, such as Galileo's trial before the Roman Inquisition, are abhorrent examples even after centuries have gone by. Academic freedom remained unhampered even if a scientist were in violent opposition to the ruling political system. For example, during the time of blackest reaction after the Congress of Vienna, the expulsion of seven professors from the University of Goettingen because of their political views caused an outcry of horror all over Germany and Europe. Virchow, founder of pathological anatomy, fought at the barricades in the revolution of 1848 and consequently was suspended by the Univer sity of Berlin, which, as are all European universities, was a gov ernmental institution. However, after two weeks public opinion forced the government to reinstate him. After six months he be came head of the first department of pathological anatomy in his tory, later to become the famous Geheimrat} medical pope of Germany, and leader of the opposition against Bismarck.I 6 Control of responsible investigators by innumerable committees, administrative authorities, financial agencies, journals, etc., was unknown up to recent times. It would deserve serious study whether the "space lag," the "~issile gap," and many other much discussed "lags" and "gaps" are not connected with the several factors mentioned.

These are various aspects of what Riesman called the "other directedness" of modern man, including the scientist. It leads to distrust in personal responsibility, dominance of the "group," en croachment on academic freedom and the bureaucratization of science which hardly provide a "climate for basic research." 17 4. Scientism and Society OswaldSpenglerhas become a sort of bogey among modem sci entific philosophers and historians, and his Decline of the West 18 a paragon of ill-founded and objectionable speculation. The pres210 Scientism and Values ent writer does not quite share this opinion and does not feel compelled to change the views he expressed thirty-five years ago.19 He agrees that Spengler's intuitive method, his. presumptuous atti tude, errors in fact and in interpretation are subject to serious criticism. However, stripped of the poetic embroidery (which forms part of the fascination of Spengler's work compared to the verbose te diousness in much recent philosophy), Spengler's doctrine is sim ply an attempt to explain history by way of a theoretical model.

That he arrived at this conception in an objectionable, intuitive, and romantic way proves as little against it as Kepler's laws are disproved by the historical fact that Kepler found them, not, by way of what we consider sound scientific method, but 'rather by fantastic neoplatonic speculations. Spengler's model has to be judged by the same criteria that apply to any model in science. It will be found that this model is objectionable in many respects., but also that it has explanatory and predictive ~alue. This is not a contradiction, but a property shared by many models· even in the more orthodox branches of science. Some objections to Spengler are apparent. 1. The basic question is whether a limited number of cultures past and present (eight with Spengler, some twenty with Toynbee) at all allows generalizations or supposed laws of history. This es sentially corresponds with Hayek's criticism of the "historicism"

of the scientistic attitude, and with Rickert's distinction between the "nomothetic" method of natural science and the "ideographic" method of history. 2. Another objection is against the comparison of "cultures" with "organisms." Trivially, an individual organism circumscribed in space and time is different from a social group consisting of in dividual conscious persons. However, communities, be they bio logical or social, can be considered, if not as "superorganisms," then as "systems," that is, collectives of elements standing in inter action, and laws of social systems are in order, as evidenced by mathematical biology, economics, social sciences, etc.20 This is not ascientistic misuse so long as' theoretically the limitations of such The Psychopathologyof Scientism 211 models and consequent over-all laws are borne in mind, and so long as practically they are not used as a tool to make human community into a "society of beavers or bees."

3. Even if the organismic analogy were accepted, Spengler's as sumption of a rigid life-span and timetable of cultural develop ment cannot be maintained; even legitimate organisms, animals and plants, of the same species vary greatly in this respect. Toyn bee has justly abandoned this Spenglerian assumption. The frills of T'oynbee's doctrine, such as the theory of challenge and re sponse and his eschatological views., are hardly less gratuitous (and much less dramatic) than Spengler's metaphysical romanticism. 4. Spengler'S contention that cultures are "organisms" uncon nected with each other is patently incorrect. The survival and in heritance by newer cultures of what has been achieved in the past is obvious. Our Western civilization, in particular, patently dif fers from previous ones in its global character as compared to the geographic limitations of the former. These basic objections as well as factual criticism in detail have to be taken for granted. However, the criterion of verification of any model in science is whether predictions derived from it are confirmed by experience. Irrespective of the defects of Spengler'S method and model, many derivations from it appear to be dis quietingly correct. This does not imply a predestined doom, but rather a warning signal; much in the same way as, with respect to a human individual, the life-span is not predestined, and illness terminating it may be controlled by timely diagnosis and thera peutic measures.

Spengler's "Decline" stems, of course, from Nietzsche's concept of nihilis;m, that is, the devaluation of traditional values. Spengler himself described the phenomenon as a Time of Trouble, inter necine wars, dictatorships, formation of an uprooted fellaheen society, and progressing statism. Toynbee 21 similarly speaks of a Time of Troubles and redoubtable Universal States. Ortega y Gasset 22 calls the same phenomenon "the Uprise of the Masses," emphasizing demographic pressure as its cause. David Riesman 23 speaks of the "other-directed crowd" of our time compared to the "inner-directedness" of other periods. W. H. Whyte 24 describes 212 Scientism and Values the conformity achieved by "Organization Man" and the modern "deification of the organization"; Boulding 25 similarly identifies the problems posed by the "Organizational Revolution." Hof fer's 26 "True Believer" is craving for authority at any price in order to fill his emotional vacuum. Each of these descriptions may be objectionable; but it seems there is a basic phenomenon labelled in different ways.

Apparently, "scientism" plays,a predominant role in this develop ment. Superficially, the scientistic character of Western "civiliza tion" (the term used in the technical sense proposed by Spengler) is caused by a prevalence of science and technology unparalleled in past cultures. The machine, instead of saving labor, becomes man's master, making him an automaton and small wheel in the great mechanism. However, the problem has become much more subtle in America and parts of Europe. Automation and related develop ments tend to save man from becoming a slave of the machine and will undoubtedly do so even more in the future. The problem appears to be shifting from physical to psychological technology, making the basic question: Is a scientifically controlled society de sirable? In Hayek's terms, "collectivism" now is not a theoretical, but a practical, issue; the fictitious entities characteristic of the scientistic approach have become more "real" and powerful than in any other period.

Conditioned-reflex methods, "hidden persuaders," "brainwash ing," subliminal motivation, and allied techniques form the basis of psychological coercion and control unknown in previous history. Hayek has made it-clear that this problem, was recognized by early positivists: Comte already foresaw, even though he derided, a "despotism founded on science." 27 Absolutism, authoritarianism, and demagogues are phenomena ubiquitous in history. However, coercion imposed from outside, be it ever so ruthless,' necessarily breeds rebels, nonconformists, and heretics, as they have existed in all times of history. Dictators can be disposed of and, as a matter of historical record, usually come to a bad end. Only coercion from inside and by psychological means can impos,e total control. Replacing old-fashioned rhetoric T he Psychopathology of Scientism 213 and appe.al to limited numbers, modern psychological techniques have made this method scientific, all-inclusive, and nearly infal lible.

It appears to matter little whether this totalitarianism is essen tially benevolent, as in Huxley's Brave New World" or malevolent, as in Orwell's 1984; or, speaking in realistic and nonutopian terms, whether hidden persuaders are employed democratically to pro mote a washing machine or a politician, or autocratically to ensure the reign of a dictator. For it is more than probable that methods used for inconsequential advertising can and will be employed for the deification of the state, the nation, its leader, or for global war as those in charge desire. There is a neologism which was introduced after the war, namely, Hgenocide," meaning, according to the Oxford dictionary, "extermination of a race." I submit that a similar term, "menti cide," 28 be adopted, meaning extermination of the individual mind. As a matter of fact, extermination of a race is hard to achieve. The scars in the body social heal rapidly, owing to its re generative capacity. Thus, in spite of the large-scale genocide of the last World War, the Malthusian problem of an overpopulated planet becomes more menacing every day.

Menticide, in contrast, is irreversible and irreparable. It is the stultification of the human race, its progressive reduction to autom atons or morons by mass media and psychological techniques. At this point, the psychiatric ,and criminological question arises: Why, at a time when the Hgreatest happiness of the greatest num ber" with respect to material comfort is achieved as never before in history, is society beset with an equally unprecedented menace of mental disorder and criminality? The orthodox and, at first, plausible answer is that the heavy and manifold stresses imposed in our complicated society are re sponsible. Nevertheless, the theory is demonstrably untrue. For example, World War II, the stress of which certainly was extreme, as it endangered not only social amenities and values, but bio logical survival, did not lead to an increase of either neuroses 29 or psychoses. 3o On the other hand, under conditions of economic opu214 Scientism and Values lence unparalleled in history one out of twenty Americans is doomed to become mentally ill, and more than half of the hospital population are mental cases.31 It would appear that mental dis order, in the form both of mental illness and delinquency, is the reverse of, and the price society has to pay for, scientifically granted comfort and conformity.

The hypothesis can well be defended (and is in no way new) that not the stress, but rather the emptiness, of life is one decisive factor in the increase of mental disorder. 32 One may say that "nihil ism," 33 the breakdown of a symbolic universe of values, and the conflicts between Riesman's other-directedness and individual re sistance may lead to conflicts manifest in mental disorders. One may also say that the rootlessness of modern man (what Spengler called the fellaheen) is apt to lead to deradication neurosis" a well known psychiatric disturbance. Again, the defense mechanisms manifest in neurosis and psychosis 34 may become active, not be cause outside stress is intolerable, but rather because the psycho physical organism is weakened, its, immanent activity reduced; and inner emptiness and outer enforcement combine to create the con ditions for mental illness. Well-known laboratory experiments with sensory deprivation,35 prisoner's psychosis, and related phe nomena tend to support such hypotheses. This is not the place to discuss the merits or shortcomings of these particular formulations.

What they amount to is that "culture," among many other things, is an important psychohygienic factor. Similar considerations apply to criminality. Juvenile delin quency, for example, is easily explainable under conditions of poverty, devastation, broken homes, and the like. But it is a dis turbing phenomenon that the rate of juvenile delinquency is lower in poor Italy than in the wealthy United States. As a psychiatrist expressed it, before a Senate Committee: It is our distinct impression that particularly crimes of violence have increased tremendously, that such ... acts of seemingly unmotivated violence, as you see them in wolf-packs and such, are really almost a novel phenomena. That form of gang organization, of violence for T he Psychopathology of Scientism 215 violence's sake is something new that has been added ... and there is an increased toleration of brutality and violence, even of the so called normal adolescent or person. 36 Apparently when there is an eruption against boredom and the emptiness of life, crime is one outlet, not in the form of crime for want or of passion, but for the fun of it. The classical Leopold Loeb case characteristically stands at about the beginning of this era.

Conclusion The diagnosis of the ills of our society appears clear enough. The therapy we do not know, and the present author does not belong to the world-saviors who have invented the nostrum for curing humanity. In view of the question of scientism, its basic defect can readily be summarized. It is the mistaken belief that science, scientific method, and technology with its achievements for human comfort cover the whole of human experience and fulfillm,ent. This pat ent! y not being the case, and nothing else filling the vacuum, the scientistic disappointment is the necessary consequence. An intel lectual vacuum being left, it is no wonder that our time of tech nology and scientism is also the time of pseudo religions and prim itive superstitions. This is true for the pseudo religions invented by the founders of positivism and scientism, Comte and Saint Simon, as well as for astrology, nationalism, the various ways of escapism, semi-Christian sects, and others, of our time. Even tra ditional religions become pseudo religions when, as stated by Billy Graham, 37 The church in this country has the highest membership it has ever had, but the country also has the highest crime and divorce rate and the greatest increase in juvenile delinquency in history.

Or else, as Aldous Huxley has foreseen, the greatest happiness of the greatest number in a scientistic Brave New World can be 216 Scientism and Values maintained by doping. This is largely borne out by this period's subsistence on tranquilizers and allied psychotropic drugs. 38 It is worthwhile to note that the error of scientism was com mitted by the positivists from Bacon to Comte to our time, but was not shared by the founders of pragmatism. William James' Varieties of Religious Experience is an everlasting document in this, respect. Scientism did not recognize, and helped actively to suppress, an enormous and all-important part of human experience. Thus, it made "Organization Man" into a society of "beavers and bees." 39 This is a consequence of the fact that scientism cannot provide a basis for the uniqueness of human individuality and values. In a reappraisal of the latter will be the clue to the future.

NOTES I. F. A. Hayek, The CounterRevolution of Science (Glencoe: Free Press, 1952), pp. 14 and 123. 2. L. von Bertalanffy, "Philosophy of Science in Scientific Education," Scientific Monthly, LXXVII (1953), 233-239. 3. L. von Bertalanffy, "An Essay on the Relativity of Categories," Phi losophy of Science, XXII (1953), 243-263. 4. Hayek, Ope cit. 5. The present paper was prepared before reading A. Huxley's Brave New World Revisited (New York: Harper, 1958), where many similar re flections can be found. 6. Hayek, Ope cit., p. 108. 7. Ibid., p. 97. 8. A. Huxley, Brave New World (New York: Harper, 1932). 9. H. O. Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: McKay, 1957). 10. Hayek, Ope cit., p. 96. II. Ibid., pp. 109 f. 12. Ibid., pp. 94 ff. 13. Since documentation of this point was desired, the writer refers to a discussion in Time magazine (March 24, 1958). 14. Cf. T. J. (editorial), "Two Heads Better Than One?" Science, CXXVII (1958), 933.

15. Cf. P. I. Lazarsfeld and W. Thielens, Jr., The Academic Mind: Social Scientists in a Time of Crisis (1959). 16. E. H. Ackerknecht, RudolPh Virchow, Doctor, Statesman, Anthropologist (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1953). 17. D. W. Bronk, "The Climate for Basic Research" (Presentation at Sym posium: The Structure of Science, Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, April 17-18, 1959).

The Psychopathology of Scie·ntism 217 18. O. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Rev. ed.; Muenchen: Beck, 1922). 19. L. von Bertalanffy, "Einfuehrung in Spengler's Werk," Literaturblatt der Koelnischen Zeitung (May, 1924). 20. Cf., for example: General Systems. Yearbooks of the Society for General Systems Research~ ed. by L. von Bertalanffy and A. Rapaport (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1956 et. seq.). 21. A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History (abridged ed.; New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1947). 22. J. Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (New York: Norton Be Co., 1932). 23. D. Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950). 24. W. H. Whyte, The Organization Man (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956). 25. K. E. Boulding, The Organizational Revolution (New York: Harper, 1953). 26. E. Hoffer, The True Believer (New York: Harper, 1951). 27. Hayek, Ope cit.~ pp. 139, 183, 200, and passim.

28. The term was introduced and similarly explained by J. A. M. Meerloo, "Pavlovian Strategy as a Weapon of Menticide," American Journal of Psychiatry~ CX (1954), 809-813. 29. M. K. Opler, Culture~ Psychiatry and Human Values (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1956), pp. 67 f. 30. F. Llavero, uBemerkungen zu einigen Grundfragen der Psychiatrie," etc., Der Nervenarzt~ XXVIII (1957), 419-421. 31. Cf., for example: M. Gorman, Every Other Bed (World Pub!., 1956). According to R. Fein, Economics of Mental Illness (New York: Basic Books, 1958), the costs per year for care of the mentally ill in the United States are estimated to exceed 1.7 billion dollars, indirect costs adding to some 2.7 billion dollars. "It has been shown that where services for the mentally ill are relatively highly developed, psychiatric cases account for almost half the total number of patients occupying hospital beds; moreover, it was estimated in one country that about one-third of all hospital outpatients attended for reasons that were largely psycho logical." (The Mental Health Programme of the World Health Organi zation~ 1949-1957. Geneva: WHO Inti Ment/5.) 32. Cf. L. von Bertalanffy, "Some Biological Considerations on the Problem of Mental Illness," Bulletin Menninger Clinic~ XXIII (1959), 41-51.

33. L. von Bertalanffy, "Human Values in a Changing World," New Knowl edge in Human Values~ edited by A. H. Maslow (New York: Harper, 1959), pp. 65-74. 34. K. Menninger, with H. Ellenberger, P. Pruyser and M. Mayman, "The Unitary Concept of Mental Illness," Bulletin Menninger Clinic~ XXII (1958), 4-12. 35. Cf., for example, D. Bindra in J. H. Tanner and B. Inhelder, ed., Discussions on Child Development~ II (London: Tavistock, 1957). 36. F. J. Hacker, in Juvenile Delinquency (Hearings before the Subcommit· 218 Scientism and Values tee ... U. S. Senate, Pursuant S. Res. 62; Washington: U. S. Printing Office, June 15-18, 1955), p. 99. 37. Los Angeles Times} June 5, 1958. 38. It is estimated that in 1956, 48 million prescriptions for tranquilizers were filled in the United States at a cost of approximately $200 million. 39. It is perhaps no accident that the late Professor Kinsey originally was an entomologist, studying insect societies. K. Menninger, "One View of the Kinsey Report" (GP} VIII [December, 1953], 67-72), justly notes "Kinsey's compulsion to force human sexual behavior into a zoological frame of reference." As stated by Menninger, from this he derives the identification of the "normal" with the "statistically frequent." The "Volunteer Error in the Kinsey Study," tested by A. H. Maslow and J. M. Sakoda, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology} XLVII, 259 262, probably is responsible for the difference between the clinicians' experience and the Kinsey data as stated by Menninger.