Thinking as a Science

THINKING
AS A SCIENCE
HENRY HAZLITT
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1916
B Y E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
THINKING AS A SCIENCE
E VERY man knows there are evils in the world which need setting right. Every man has pretty definite ideas as to what these evils are. But to most men one in par­tic­u­lar stands out vividly. To some, in fact, this stands out with such startling vividness that they lose sight of other evils, or look upon them as the natural consequences of their own par­tic­u­lar evil-in-chief.
To the Socialist this evil is the capitalistic sys­tem; to the pro­hi­bi­tion­ist it is in­tem­per­ance; to the feminist it is the sub­jec­tion of women; to the clergyman it is the decline of religion; to Andrew Carnegie it is war; to the staunch Re­pub­li­can it is the Demo­cratic Party, and so on, ad infinitum .
I, too, have a pet little evil, to which in more passionate moments I am apt to attribute all the others. This evil is the neglect of thinking. And when I say thinking I mean real thinking, in­de­pen­dent thinking, hard thinking.