IRRATIONALISM 3 



their mind fails at once when it is applied to any proposition 

 outside the class of propositions with which they have been 

 accustomed to deal. Their capacity for reasoning has been 

 trained to a certain point by their education and by the 

 necessity of making a livelihood — but not to the further point 

 where it becomes as secure a guide as possible in all matters. 

 When called upon to judge in affairs which concern themselves 

 they are thoroughly capable ; but they lose balance at once 

 when they let go the rock of their own interests. In a moment 

 they become either inflexibles or cranks — they stand stock-still 

 or fall over. Such persons are certainly not insane, nor may 

 they even be called stupid. Their mental vision is clear enough 

 for a short distance from the soul-centre, but becomes out of 

 focus for a longer one. 



The defect really springs from that well-known weak spot 

 in the intellectual machinery — want of apprehension of the fact 

 that we must really not generalise upon too small a sample ; 

 that our little garden-plot of experience is, really, not the whole 

 world. Starting from this point — judging classes from indi- 

 viduals, leaping from one single observation to another — we end 

 by becoming generally unable to distinguish probability from 

 certainty, and finally land in any quagmire of dogma which we 

 may happen to reach ; and there we stick. But of itself, this is 

 little worse than that which often happens, from hurry or mis- 

 fortune, to the best of minds. True irrationalism depends upon 

 graver faults — first, the intellectual hebetude which will not 

 trouble to study more than one or two samples ; and secondly, 

 the curious pride which strives to cover such laziness by the 

 pretence that no further study is necessary. Arrived at this, 

 the man becomes an incurable ; for in thought, as in life, pride 

 is the end of effort and the proof of its own falsity. 



Take, for example, the case of scientific experiments on 

 animals. The careful and honest reasoner would not dream of 

 studying this particular case in isolation from the whole class 

 of cases in which trouble or pain is caused by the stronger to 

 the weaker. He sees that we are not angels in this world, but 

 are dominated by the laws of Nature. We cannot live without 

 jostling, nor move without treading on corns. Every man's and 

 every animal's existence means some deprivation to others. If 

 we warm our hands at a fire, we do so at the expense of the 

 gloomy subterranean labours of those who have obtained the 



