"A splendid book to dispel the cynicism of our times and to re-assert the practical idealism of cooperative life." --Robert V. Hine, Professor of History, University of California, author of California's Utopian Colonies.J. Donald Walters analyzes with deep insight the views expressed by many of the great thinkers in the West, including Plato, Copernicus, Machiavelli, Malthus, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. He studies their conceptions and misconceptions about the individual's relation to himself and to society. He shows where their influence has proved adverse, then offers deeply considered, fresh alternatives. Walters urges the reader to resist the hypnosis of "intellectual authority." Seek the key to a happy and fulfilled life, he says, in personal integrity.