In concluding this first Book let me give a summary of the principal points of what has gone before.
I figure the mind of man as an imperfect being obtaining knowledge by imperfect eyesight, imperfect hearing and so forth; who must needs walk manfully and patiently, exercising will and making choices and determining things between the mysteries of external and internal fact.
Essentially man’s mind moves within limits depending upon his individual character and experience. These limits constitute what Herbart called his “circle of thought,” and they differ for everyone.
That briefly is what I consider to be the case with my own mind, and I believe it is the case with everyone’s.
Most minds, it seems to me, are similar, but none are absolutely alike in character or in contents.
We are all biassed to ignore our mental imperfections and to talk and act as though our minds were exact instruments,—something wherewith to scale the heavens with assurance,—and also we are biassed to believe that, except for perversity, all our minds work exactly alike.
Man, thinking man, suffers from intellectual over-confidence and a vain belief in the universal validity of reasoning.
We all need training, training in the balanced attitude.
Of everything we need to say: this is true but it is not quite true.
Of everything we need to say: this is true in relation to things in or near its plane, but not true of other things.
Of everything we have to remember: this may be truer for us than for other people.
In disputation particularly we have to remember this (and most with our antagonist): that the spirit of an utterance may be better than the phrase.
We have to discourage the cheap tricks of controversy, the retort, the search for inconsistency. We have to realize that these things are as foolish and ill-bred and anti-social as shouting in conversation or making puns; and we have to work out habits of thought purged from the sin of assurance. We have to do this for our own good quite as much as for the sake of intercourse.
All the great and important beliefs by which life is guided and determined are less of the nature of fact than of artistic expression.
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