Kleptomania, Hydrocephalus, and Curative Speech: Individual Cases

There is a habit that is all too common among people today—I am far from suggesting you should start inveighing openly against it; in matters of this kind, one must adopt a completely objective attitude, the same objective attitude as is required in dealing with the crises that occur in the little child. It is nevertheless a fact that when whole communities of people have a habit of keeping their hands in their trouser pockets and so avoiding any use of gesture, it means nothing else than that they want to be God-forsaken, they want to be left alone by the Gods—the Gods who are next above the spirit-man. It means, they would rather not have any knowledge of the beings who have developed the spirit-self—even as man has developed the I organisation. And one of the first things that happens to such persons is that their speech begins to be slovenly. This, is, in fact, the great danger that faces the civilisation of the West—the danger that speech and language, instead of being developed to become what they should become, deteriorate and grow slovenly.