Editorial August 17, 1907 Issue

A PREREQUISITE OF PROGRESS

John B. Willis

It is an interesting fact that we cannot knowingly entertain contradictory opinions about a given subject at one and the same time. Try we ever so hard, it is impossible for us to think that a given statement is both true and untrue, so long as we give the same content to its terms. It follows that we cannot realize either spiritual or intellectual progress apart from a succession of concepts, each of which is truer and nobler than its predecessor.

For the truth-seeker this means that all undemonstrated propositions must be held tentatively until a provably correct apprehension is reached. It means also that the moment our attachment to any mere theory or belief, whether acquired through heredity, education, or experience, becomes so great as to bias and control our judgment, that moment our growth in the given direction must cease. Fixedness of opinion under such circumstances not only interdicts all progress, it inevitably results in mental atrophy.

In most departments of thought the acceptance and substitution of improved beliefs in human consciousness goes on steadily, in large part unconsciously, and without friction or ferment, and the gain to humanity is constant and uniform. To illustrate:—

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