Mr. Hamilton Fyfe's contribution to your November issue may be read as a declaration of the creed of disbelief in Man. He stands as the prophet of pessimism, and arrays the pronouncements of a long line of pessimists to show that facts do not lie about the unreliability of man's nature. Facts present themselves to scientific man as being neither ugly nor beautiful, but as presenting subjects for observation whereby he may discover the working principle to which they owe their origin and their continuing existence. By his understanding of the principle underlying facts, he may, by operating on the principle, be able to turn facts which may appear to be obstacles in the pursuit of knowledge into means whereby he may command constructive processes.

Had Mr. Fyfe observed the facts in man's nature from a less moralistic standpoint and had viewed them in relation to the principle underlying their occurrence, he would have followed in the steps of Mr. F. Matthias Alexander, a man who adopted such a procedure in his study of man.

Alexander adduces proof to show that instinct may be considered to provide a most unreliable form of guidance for man to place his trust in it he is to be able to control his reactions in a reasoning manner, and if he is to prevent himself from reacting to the influences of "monarchs leaders, politicians, agitators," and others in the undesirable manner to which Mr. Fyfe makes reference. Alexander found that the principle upon which man relied to guide the self and to control the manner of his reactions on the instinctive plane of living, and which was found in association with man's frailties (which took the shape of disintegration, disease, pessimism, and "mental disequilibrium") might be called the "end-gaining" principle. In seeking how man might prevent himself from reacting to his misplaced confidence in this principle, Alexander discovered a new principle which he called the "means-whereby" principle. He saw that man might rely with confidence on this principle for guidance in the control of his reactions, and that he would thus prevent the need arising of his ever again being obliged to rely on the "end-gaining" principle or to suffer the disadvantages associated with its use. By providing a new preventive principle, Alexander prepared the way for man to adopt constructive living.

In discovering the "means-whereby" principle, Alexander discovered what might be called that fundamental regulating and constructive principle which has guided the evolutionary process through time and space and which has conferred on man as its most recent fruit the supreme endowment of self-awareness.

Prof. Haldane is right when be says "We need more knowledge," and far from unreasoning when he says "I believe in man." A man, Alexander, has discovered how man may acquire the kind of knowledge by the use of which he may be able to control his reactions in a manner such that the standard of his self-awareness continues to rise. By such means, man may make of himself a manner of man such that his intelligence, demonstrating itself in the manner of his reactions, gives cause, not for pessimism and despair, but for pride and admiration.

Mungo Douglas
Bolton, Lancs., 10 November, 1947