The Power of Truth: Individual Problems and PossibilitiesJordan, William George
Philosophy
The Power of Truth: Individual Problems and Possibilities
Jordan, William George
Conduct of life
The love of Truth is the cultivated hunger for it in itself and for
itself, without any thought of what it may cost, what sacrifices it may
entail, what theories or beliefs of a lifetime may be laid desolate.
In its supreme phase, this attitude of life is rare, but unless one
can _begin_ to put himself into harmony with this view, the individual
will only creep in truth, when he might walk bravely. With the love of
truth, the individual scorns to do a mean thing, no matter what be the
gain, even if the whole world would approve. He would not sacrifice the
sanction of his own high standard for any gain, he would not willingly
deflect the needle of his thought and act from the true North, as he
knows it, by the slightest possible variation. He himself would know of
the deflection—that would be enough. What matters it what the world
thinks if he have his own disapproval?
The man who has a certain religious belief and fears to discuss it,
lest it may be proved wrong, is not loyal to his belief, he has but a
coward's faithfulness to his prejudices. If he were a lover of truth,
he would be willing at any moment to surrender his belief for a higher,
better, and truer faith.
The man who votes the same ticket in politics, year after year, without
caring for issues, men, or problems, merely voting in a certain way
because he always has voted so, is sacrificing loyalty to truth to a
weak, mistaken, stubborn attachment to a worn-out precedent. Such a
man should stay in his cradle all his life—because he spent his early
years there.
The search for Truth means that the individual must not merely follow
truth as he sees it, but he must, so far as he can, search to see that
he is right. When the Kearsarge was wrecked on the Roncador Reef, the
captain was sailing correctly by his chart. But his map was an old one;
the sunken reef was not marked down. Loyalty to back-number standards
means stagnation. In China they plow to-day, but they plow with the
instrument of four thousand years ago. The search for truth is the
angel of progress—in civilization and in morals. While it makes us
bold and aggressive in our own life, it teaches us to be tender and
sympathetic with others. Their life may represent a station we have
passed in our progress, or one we must seek to reach. We can then
congratulate ourselves without condemning them. All the truths of the
world are not concentrated in our creed. All the sunshine of the world
is not focused on our doorstep. We should ever speak the truth,—but
only in love and kindness. Truth should ever extend the hand of love;
never the hand clenching a bludgeon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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