Page:The Source and Aim of Human Progress.djvu/59

Rh guard of true human progress. What Tacitus, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius with all their culture deemed "an absurd and extravagant superstition, a contagion and infection" turned out to be the beacon light of humanity. Those whom the great Romans regarded as "the enemies of the human race" we, who have the advantage of historical perspective, now glorify as saintly martyrs who have given their lives for the highest principles of humanity. The stone which the builders neglected hath become the corner stone.

No opinion should be disdained and scorned. No individuality should be suppressed and crushed. The manifestation of individuality and originallyoriginality [sic] should in every well-ordered and progressive community not only [sic] be persecuted, but on the contrary it should be cherished, protected, and cultivated as the fons et origo of civilization and human progress.

If we wish social life not to become stationary and stagnant, we should give free scope to all individuality and originality, no matter how eccentric they may seem to us. We should allow free play to all opinions, doctrines, and expressions of human thought, no matter how absurd and contagious the superstitions may appear to us. New ideas, ideals, and beliefs should not be persecuted but should rather be left for discussion and criticism, because we should not assume that we are in possession of the whole truth, and that no further advance is possible. We may learn from other people who look at the world from a different angle, and thus may be able to see things in a different light which may either add to the truth which we already possess, or may even transform it by some new additional element or principle which at first may appear to us as bizarre and paradoxical.

Even such simple sciences as Geometry, Physics, and Astronomy were revolutionized by principles which appeared quite absurd and paradoxical to the learned profession. What was more absurd to an Egyptian Ahmes than the assumptions of surfaces without thickness, of lines without breadth, and of points without any dimensions whatever? The principle of inertia appeared in opposition to the commonsense of antiquity. Heavenly bodies must have the support of crystal spheres, the assumption that they revolve in space without any support seemed absurd. The assumption by Newton that the force of attraction is transmitted through space instantaneously and without any known medium appeared paradoxical even to such a mind as Leibnitz. It was not long ago when a well known professor in