LIMITS OF RATIONALISM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23369, 8 December 1937, Page 18

LIMITS OF RATIONALISM

"If men mistrust rationalism, they have reason for their mistrust," said Professor Macneile Dixon, of Glasgow, in one of the Gifford lectures which he delivered this year. "Rationalists are much too simple-minded to act as guides or interpreters in this uncanny and incalculable world. And when I am myself in doubt among the philosophers I turn to the consensus of human opinion, to the beliefs of the plain man, that strange, indefinable being, on the surface ridiculous, in the depths profound. If he had words in which to express himself he could tell us things worth knowing even about the greatest matters, even, I think, about the soul. You remember the curious and interesting Old Testament story of Balaam, a man of great reputation in his day, so great that the King of Moab sent for him in extremity. And he saddled his ass and went to meet Balak, King of Moab. And the Lord sent an angel to prevent him, and the angel stood across his path. And Balaam, though a man of high intelligence, did not see the angel of the Lord, but the ass saw him "