A Psychological Study of Samuel Adams

Within the last few years scholars and workers in various widely separated fields have been turning more and more to analytical psychology as an aid in the solution of their problems. First the physicians, then the sociologists, then—in all too rare instances—the business men, have learned to clear away difficulties with the help of a better understanding of human nature. Curiously enough, the historians, who should have been among the first, have been among the last to realize how much they may gain by applying the new psychology to their famous characters. Now that they have begun to do this, they are being rewarded with results that are both striking and valuable.

It is plain, for example, that neither predestination nor the working of economic laws will account for such historical curiosities as Peter the Hermit, Savonarola, Joan of Arc, or Napoleon. They were driven on, not by external conditions, but by forces inside themselves. H. G. Wells's characterization of Napoleon as a rooster strutting on a dunghill is hardly an explanation; some people at least want to know what made him strut. These extraordinary characters will best repay psychological study. When we know more about their complexes, when we begin to understand their behavior, then history will be worth considerably more to us in interpreting the present.

Among those personages who demand the attention of the analytical psychologist is Samuel Adams, sometimes known as the “Father of the American Revolution.” In treating of him, and his kind, we have fallen into the habit of idealizing him, a process that always precludes understanding. Only within the last generation have historians begun to describe him as he was, that is to say, a highly successful political wire-puller and propagandist, and this picture of him has not yet found its way into general circulation. Moreover, in almost canonizing him we have failed to subject to critical inspection the movement which he led. It may be that a clearer appr