To those who are not directly concerned with the attack on
supernaturalism it may also be a matter of regret that so much of this
work is concerned with a criticism of religious beliefs. But that is an
accident of the situation. We have not yet reached that stage in affairs
when we can afford to let religion alone, and one may readily be excused
the suspicion that those who, without believing in it, profess to do so,
are more concerned with avoiding a difficult, if not dangerous, subject,
than they are with the problem of developing sane and sound methods of
thinking. And while some who stand forward as leaders of popular thought
fail to do their part in the work of attacking supernaturalistic
beliefs, others are perforce compelled to devote more time than they
would otherwise to the task. That, in brief, is my apology for
concerning myself so largely with religious topics, and leaving almost
untouched other fields where the Freethought attitude would prove
equally fruitful of results.
After all, it is the mental attitude with which one approaches a problem
that really matters. The man or woman who has not learned to set mere
authority on one side in dealing with any question will never be more
than a mere echo, and what the world needs, now as ever, is not echoes
but voices. Information, knowledge, is essential to the helpful
consideration of any subject; but all the knowledge in the world will be
of very little real help if it is not under the control of a right
method. What is called scientific knowledge is, to-day, the commonest of
acquisitions, and what most people appear to understand by that is the
accumulation of a large number of positive facts which do, indeed, form
the raw material of science. But the getting of mere facts is like the
getting of money. The value of its accumulation depends upon the use
made thereof. It is the power of generalization, the perception and
application of principles that is all-important, and to this the grasp
of a right method of investigation, the existence of a right mental
attitude, is essential.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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