ARGUMENTATIVES

Southland Times, Issue 19757, 3 February 1923, Page 9 (Supplement)

ARGUMENTATIVES

THE CRITERION OF BELIEF.

(By 1

“Inquisitor.”)

At the risk of being deemed an unnecessary affliction upon the reading public “Inquisitor” again takes for his theme a subject which it is inconceivable any satisfactory explanation will ever be forthcoming. The question as to how it is possigle to know what is true from what is false does not appear to be a very difficult one when viewed from the plain of common sense but to those who view the problem from the vantage point of philosophy the seeming simplicity gives place to one of most profound intricacy. Of course it may be objected by the exponent of common-sense that the obscurity is a man-made affair and that if one tackles the problem, forgetting for the nonce that sundry verbose tracts were ever written, the mists that at present obscure and distort the matter might be persuaded to drift into some less important region. That attitude was deyeloped to its utmost limits by T. H. Huxley and was crystallised in his dictum that: “Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and organised common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only so far as the guardsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.”

Great, however, as the temptation is, to hand over to common-sense the problem of Truth and Belief, the painful fact remains that along with more tangible matters common-sense has suffered a slump during the past few years. At one time both , the science and the common sense of the day were oblivious to the rotundity of the earth. Guesses were made that centuries afterwards tallied with the facts and although these suppositions were held to be true the conclusion arrived at was certainly not derived from the premises and this is the necessary criterion of all belief. Com-mon-sense was wtong as it has been in a multitude of instances since and no doubt is at the present time. Until a few years ago Euclidian geometry appeared to be the most perfect instrument ever devised by man and it was regarded as unatssailable as Newton’s “laws” of motion and gravitation. Comm6n-sense would simply not hear of them being questioned just as sense objected so strongly to Bruno’s “extremist propaganda anent the revolution of earth around the sun, that this revolutionist formed the subject of a bon fire in the year 1600 and singularly enough the modern descendants of those who may conceivably have presided at the unfortunate Bruno’s roasting acknowledged their anncestors’ mistake by erecting a monument to him on the spot where he was consumed. Now we have another way of dealing with those who in the 20th century amuse themselves by smashing our cherished beliefs but this is an illustration of the fact that the truths of to-day may become the most absurd of fallacies to-morrow. It is possible to suggest, without being regarded as a madman, that the whole foundations of modern science may be upset by some brilliant generalisation that will necessitate the recasting of the whole gigantic structure. Einstein’s conception of motion and and direction as being relative only, and not the unchangeable something that we have so long believed to be the case has already set the scientific imagination to work and some day our newspapers might be telling us that our ancient notion that two and, two makes four was a regrettable error.

Whilst it is necessary to deal in such speculations, it is obviously impossible to rest content in the anarchy that is the sure and certain goal of those who are continually caterwauling about relatively, and “the four dimensional continum, and are ever peering heaven-ward instead of at their own little spot in the universe. From the very beginning of speculation mankind seems always to have been divided into the extreme sceptics and those who accepted all the current “truths” which generally turned out to be profound untruths. The sceptics were frequently as wrong as the others but it is only fair to point out that without them progress would have been almost impossible, although on occasions the sheer weight of a superstition causes it to collapse spontaneously. But whilst crediting the sceptics with this, and it is no small honour that we thrust upon them, it is also necessary to emphasise the fact that mankind cannot exist on pure negation. Even if the idea that the world was flat was a gross misstatement of the true facts, jis far as these can be ascertained, and even though it proved a general hindrance to progress, it nevertheless was a workable hypothesis. Life was possible and a great deal that is highest and best in our civilization existed tolerably well, notwithstanding the belief that if one ventured too far into the sea, one would eventually tumble off. The “evidence” that this had actually happened on numerous well-attest-ed instances was quite in harmony with the beliefs held at the time, just as until recently we never presumed to doubt that a straight line was really a straight line and not an artistically curved one, because the hypothesis of a straight line worked so beautifully that no one wanted to dispute the matter, even if they felt competent enough to do so. But there is no one amongst us in the light of the collapse of a very treasured notion, feels grieved because such a matter had not been known to his grandfather but he would have had cause for complaint if in the sceptical Victorian age they fefused to have anything more to do with straight lines because they had some doubts about rectilinearity.

The majority of philosophers in the past have demonstrated to their complete satisfaction that we live in a perpetual dream and that the whole objective world is merely a mental fabrication. This is a difficult proposition to disprove, logically, but man has been built essentially for action and not constructed on lines that make him a successful juggler with syllogisms whose major premisses would lead one back into an intellectual Soviet. In Boswell’s “Life of Dr. Johnson,” there is the often repeated story of how the irascible old gentleman refuted Bishop Berkeley’s doctrine of spiritual idealism which “demonstrates” the non-existence of matter. “I observed,” says Boswell, “that though we are satisfied that his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I shall never forget the audacity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till be rebounded from it—l refute it thus.” The doctrine may have been wrong in his assumption but his belief has this in its favour, the fact that existence under its negative would only be possible for race of madmen on the tenth dimensional plane. For as Ernest Martini has said: —“There is something higher than intellect and that is life, of which the intellect ia but one function. . . The intellect cannot emancipate itself from that which supports it and which is bound to serve.”