Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/164

 146 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING

tion. Chronic doubt is hurtful and ultimately ruinous. If it becomes permanent, it means the partial or complete sus pension of the life-process in the sphere in which it obtains. Life is a process of adjustment, and doubt is an arrest of this process, and can be justified only as a means of avoid ing a maladjustment, or as a step toward a more adequate adjustment, a wider and more complete correlation with en vironment. It is somewhat like a surgical operation, which is intended to relieve a maladjustment of some sort; but a surgery which would keep a man s body perpetually on the operating table under the dissecting knife would be crim inal. And doubt which keeps the mind in a perpetual sus pense will certainly result in maiming the life in some of its functions, and if it becomes universal will destroy the per sonality. It would mean the abdication of both the primary and secondary functions of mind. Doubt is justifiable* when, and only when, it is a temporary stage in the organiza tion of a more adequate belief. As we climb up the moun tain side to the higher altitudes whence we may have a wider outlook upon the universe of reality, it is often necessary that we pass through belts of cloud; and that which justifies and rewards us for climbing through the choking mists is the grander prospect which opens out above them.

3. The closed mind, on the other hand, is equally fatal. It avoids the dangers of chronic doubt, but has dangers of its own that are just as great. It leads one by a different route to a different destination, but one that is as far re moved from the true ends of life. The closed mind has a belief and is active, therefore ; whereas the mind suspended in chronic doubt is paralysed. But the closed mind directs its activities more and more against reality. The beliefs of such a mind represent a certain correlation with a certain order of environing conditions. But this attitude could be justified only on two grounds (i) that those beliefs rep resent a perfect correlation with those conditions, (2) that those conditions undergo no change. We know as a mat-

�� �