TO “BELIEVE" IS DANGEROUS

Evening Star, Issue 19786, 9 February 1928, Page 15

TO “BELIEVE" IS DANGEROUS

An aphorism of John Locke is: “It is one thing to show a man mat le is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth,” which, in the vernacular of Josh Billings, is to the effect: —“ The tr-.mnle with most fclks isn’t so much their ignorance, as kuowin’ so many tilings that ain’t so.” “ Most folks” is so .a’l-mclusive that all men believe witlT Pope and Von Winter that “To err is human.” So much of the sum of human knowledge is untrue that only the recklessly credulous accept, as the tinth and without question, what vhey read and hear (says the ‘Longview News’/. Some time in the course of every child’s life it learns that there isn’t any “Santa Claus.” And if the child becomes sufficiently civilised at maturity to lose faith in the common myths, fairy tales, and superstitions, it will some day know that toads don’t give warts to those who touch them. Historians say there was no Barbara Frietchiq, and that the story of George Washington’s’ cherry tree was manufactured iihy a. Philadelphia hack writer. Weather bureau records show there is Vl|icvc.ii floating ice in the Delaware River on Christmas Eve, though the picture of ‘ Washington Crossing the Delaware 1 depicts the river full of ice cakes sll the night of December 24. Nero did'not “fiddle while Rome burned,” fdf the violin was invented after Nero’s Dime, and /Esop’s fables were written by a Gneco-ltalian named Babrins several centuries after the death of zEsop and later imitators. Cinderella’s slippers were made of sable instead of glass, and the mask worn by the “ Dlan in the Iron Mask ” was made of black velvet. Bats are not blind, and tbe adder is not deaf.