io THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 



yoke of conformity is upon our necks; and in our 

 minds, as in our bodies, the force of habit becomes 

 irresistible. From our teachers and associates, from 

 our reading, from the social atmosphere about us we 

 catch the beliefs of the day, and they become ingrained 

 part of our nature. For most of us this happens in 

 the haphazard process we call education, and it goes on 

 just as long as we retain any mental receptivity. It 

 was never better expressed than in the famous lines 

 that occurred to Henry Sidgwick in his sleep : 



We think so because all other people think so; 



Or because or because after all, we do think so ; 



Or because we were told so, and think we must think so ; 



Or because we once thought so, and think we still think so; 



Or because, having thought so, we think we will think so. 



In departing from any settled opinion or belief, the 

 variation, the change, the break with custom may come 

 gradually; and the way is usually prepared; but the 

 final break is made, as a rule, by some one individual, 

 the masterless man of Kipling's splendid allegory, who 

 sees with his own eyes, and with an instinct or genius 

 for truth, escapes from the routine in which his fellows 

 live. But he often pays dearly for his boldness. 

 Walter Bagehot tells us that the pain of a new idea 

 is one of the greatest pains to human nature. ' It is, as 

 people say, so upsetting ; it makes you think that, after 

 all, your favourite notions may be wrong, your firmest 

 beliefs ill-founded ; it is certain that till now there was 

 no place allotted in your mind to the new and startling 

 inhabitant ; and now that it has conquered an entrance, 

 you do not at once see which of your old ideas it will 

 not turn out, with which of them it can be reconciled, 

 and with which it is at essential enmity.' It is on this 

 account that the man who expresses a new idea is very 



