TO “BELIEVE” IS DANGEROUS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20316, 26 January 1928, Page 18

TO “BELIEVE” IS DANGEROUS

An aphorism of John Locke is, “It lb one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in nossession of the truth,” which, in the vernacular of Josh Billings, is to the effect: —“ The trouble with most folks isn’t so much their ignorance, as knowin’ so many things that ain’t so.” “ Most folks ”is so allinclusive that all men believe with 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 truth and without question, who they read and hear (says the Longview News). Some time m the course of every child’s life it learns there isn’t any “ Santa. Claus.” And fh® child becomes sufficiently civilised tt maturity to lose faith in the common myths, fairy talcs, and superstitions it will some day know that toads don’t give warts to those who touch them. Historians say there was no Barbara Frietchie, and that the story of George Washington’s cherry tree was manufactured by a Philadelphia hack writer. Weather bureau records show there is never floating ice in the Delaware River on Christmas Eve though the picture, of “ Washington Crossing the Delaware ” depicts the river full of ice cakes on the night of December 24. Nero did not “fiddle while Rome burned,” for the violin was invented after Nero’s time, and fables were written by % Grseco-Italian named Babrius several centuries after the death of and later imitators. Cinderella’s slippers were made of sable instead of glass, and the mask worn by the “ Man in the Iron Mask ” was made of black velvet. Bats are not blind, and the adder is not deaf.