ERROR AND FALLACIES 325 



infallible safeguard to offer. It can merely emphasize the im 

 portance of these influences, point them out to us for our con 

 sideration, and call our attention to the undeniable fact that 

 though the faculty for discerning truth is of the same nature in all 

 men, nevertheless different men are so differently disposed in 

 mental habits and equipment that what appears self-evident to 

 one may well appear not only inevident, but utterly untrue, to 

 another. 



While it would be wrong to say that the &quot; normal mind &quot; is itself an ab 

 straction, never to be met in real life, it must be admitted that there is great 

 variety in the attitudes of different minds, face to face with the same real uni 

 verse, and that in our actual experience of life we meet many strange mixtures of 

 scepticism and credulity. But from the historical fact that philosophers in 

 every age have propounded conflicting and irreconcilable solutions of the most 

 momentous problems concerning man and the universe, it would be a mistake 

 to conclude as some have concluded that truth on these grave matters is un 

 attainable, and that therefore the inquiring human mind is fated t6 move, how 

 ever reluctantly, towards the dark, final bourne of doubt and agnosticism. For 

 we have a right to conclude merely that the human mind is both finite and 

 fallible, that there is no royal road to knowledge, that truth must be sought 

 after, that the more precious the truth, the more diligent must be the search, 

 that it is only by a cautious, painstaking, perseverfng application of the mind, 

 deception and error can be avoided. The historical study of the workings of 

 human thought upon philosophical problems, its gropings and findings, its gains 

 and losses, its advances and aberrations, cannot fail to convince the unprejudiced 

 student that man is capable of attaining to sufficient truth about his own origin, 

 nature, and destiny, and his proper place in the universe, to guide his life aright, 

 if he only has the will to do so. It will, no doubt, convince him at the same 

 time that the work of discovering truth, and living up to it, is noble and elevat 

 ing, if difficult and sometimes even arduous. He will be surprised at first to 

 discover that so many great minds have greatly erred in regard to the funda 

 mental truths of human life. But, according as he realizes the complexity of 

 the problems they had to face, the conflicting evidences they had to weigh, the 

 traditional beliefs or disbeliefs in which they were trained, and all the objective 

 sources of error that surrounded them, his surprise will gradually diminish. 

 And it will be likely to disappear altogether if he fixes his&quot; attention on the 

 subjective sources of error by which even great minds may be disturbed and led 

 astray. These phantoms of the tribe need only to be mentioned, to make us 

 realize something of their dangerous influence. 



On the part of the intellect, sloth is a source of much error : it is the cause 

 of undue haste in the search for truth. Doubt is an irksome state of mind ; 

 suspense is unpleasant ; while assent brings rest. Assent is the goal to which 

 inquiry is the path. But the path is through a land of pitfalls and will-o -the- 

 wisps ; and the passage to a right assent is often laborious. Hence the temp 

 tation to move along hastily and without due care, to stifle misgivings, and to 

 cut short the search by resting in assent to some position the truth of which is 

 not really guaranteed by the evidences our inquiry may have brought to light. 



