40 EVOLUTION MADE PLAIN 
able) is to make use of the opportunities the 
discussion affords me of giving a sort of fifth- 
rib dig o’ the thumb to those complacent ones 
who (judging by the manner they acquired, and 
still retain, their beliefs) seem to think that 
the mere accident of one’s birth and parentage 
in a certain time and place, thus bringing him 
in contact with certain prevailing opinions, is 
• proof that those opinions are true. 
This writer is speaking largely from his own 
mental experience. He, like his opponent, ab¬ 
sorbed orthodox theology along with political 
standpattism and a few other “safe and sane” 
isms from his early environment. My opponent, 
like most others, never thought of questioning 
the truth of those beliefs, but left them un¬ 
disturbed until they fossilized. On the other 
hand some of us, perhaps because of a radical 
twist in our mental make-up, set ourselves to 
examining those hand-me-down beliefs and 
found some of them lacking in some important 
essentials. Having changed sides on one or 
more important questions w r e naturally lost 
faith in the more-or-less popular theory that 
because an idea is old, or is held by a majority 
of the people, it must therefore necessarily be 
true. That is the extent of this writer’s 
“sponginess.” As a rule when we have learned 
that we have absorbed most of our political, 
religious and other early opinions from our 
environment through the pores of our skin we 
become less cock-sure we have a monopoly on 
truth. 
As a rule latitude and longitude instead of 
reason shapes our opinions on the most impor- 
