Kindly consider what a science is. A science is nothing more than the
organized solution of a number of related problems. These problems and
their answers have been changed and added to the ages through. But when
the science first started there was no literature on it. It originated
from the attempts of men to solve those problems which spontaneously
occurred to them. Before they started thinking these men knew nothing
of the science. The men who came after them availed themselves of the
thoughts of those before, and added to these. The whole process has
been one of thought added to thought. Yet, in spite of this, people
still cling to the belief, even if they do not openly avow it, that
we never can make any headway by thinking, but that in order to be
educated, or cultured, or to have any knowledge, we must be reading,
reading, reading.[17]
I almost blush for this elaborate defense. Everybody will admit the
necessity for thinking—in the abstract. But how do we regard it in the
concrete? When we see a man reading a good book, we think of him as
educating himself. When we perceive a man without a book, even though
we may happen to know that he is engaged in reflection, we do not look
upon him as educating himself, though we may regard him as intelligent.
In short, our habitual idea of thought is that it is a process of
reviewing what we already know, but not of adding anything to our
knowledge. Of course no one would openly avow this opinion, but it is
the common acting belief none the less. The objections to thought are
inarticulate and half-conscious. I am trying to make them articulate in
order to answer them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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