They
could not have done so if they had wished to, and if it had been
possible general imbecility would have been the only outcome.
Men set out from what had passed as knowledge, and critically
investigated the grounds upon which it rested; they noted
exceptions; they used new mechanical appliances to bring to light
data inconsistent with what had been believed; they used their
imaginations to conceive a world different from that in which
their forefathers had put their trust. The work was a piecemeal,
a retail, business. One problem was tackled at a time. The net
results of all the revisions amounted, however, to a revolution
of prior conceptions of the world. What occurred was a
reorganization of prior intellectual habitudes, infinitely more
efficient than a cutting loose from all connections would have
been.
This state of affairs suggests a definition of the role of the
individual, or the self, in knowledge; namely, the redirection,
or reconstruction of accepted beliefs. Every new idea, every
conception of things differing from that authorized by current
belief, must have its origin in an individual. New ideas are
doubtless always sprouting, but a society governed by custom does
not encourage their development. On the contrary, it tends to
suppress them, just because they are deviations from what is
current. The man who looks at things differently from others is
in such a community a suspect character; for him to persist is
generally fatal.
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