Half truths are the most atrocious of all kinds of fallacies in that they are the most misleading. “Do evil that good may come” is but half of the whole truth “Doevil that good may come, provided there is no other way open.” Again, “Of two evils choose the lesser, if a complete enumeration has shown that there is not a third course.”
A development of a finer ability of discernment under right influence should lead the common citizen to see through these various sophistries practiced by corporate greed, and should enable him by means of the ballot to “blaze a better way.”
The “public is a blunderbuss” because the average man either cannot, or will not, think his own thoughts. By developing greater skill and arousing greater interest in the thinking process, the crowd of camp followers will be reduced; selfish bossism will die; and a truer and more efficient democracy will reign supreme.
8. THE RATIONALIZATION OF THE SPIRIT OF PROGRESS.
Genuine progress comes through a happy combination of the old with the new. A love for the old only, means ultra conservatism; whereas a love for the new only, means ultra radicalism; a love for both means rational liberalism.
That people love the old way may be attributed to two forces which will receive attention here.
(1) Race instinct.
It may be said that “life is a brief space between two eternities—a path between infinity and infinitude.” “Man is a pedestrian who perambulates along the way.” The eternities concern him not so much as the path whichstretches between them. In a former day, one of the striking characteristics of the western plain was the beaten path stretching out along the table-land like an elongated, dust colored serpent; and often following this path would be a herd of buffalo winding its way in single file around boulder and ant hill till shut from view by the distant horizon. Thus has man travelled along the beaten path, following the “foot prints of the ages.” Here and there and everywhere do we see signs of those who have gone on before; father, grandfather, great grandfather; yes, even to the toe marks of those primeval ancestors of ours who shambled along the way, nobody knows how many years ago. From the dark recesses of the cave, have our forbears thrown a lasso of blood about our necks, and it seems as if we must follow the old, old way. “Being acorns of the ancestral oak,” we grow similar oak tree tendencies, living over again the life of our progenitors. “There lies in every soul the history of the universe.”
(2) Imitation.
But there is another reason for this ultra conservative spirit and it is that nature’s chief mode of instruction is by means of imitation. To every living thing of wood or field nature seems to say, “Your parents are always right, do as they do for this is the best way to learn the lessons of life.” A man thinks, feels and wills his way through life in a certain manner largely because his father did likewise. Moreover, we not only imitate those who have gone on before, but we counterfeit each other; fashion is another name for world wide mimicry. Weimitate our friends and those whom we admire; we talk like them, we walk like them, we live like them.