Thinking is not the whole of knowing. Feeling and willing play an important part in thinking and knowing. Words like heretic, sceptic, and sophist have a history which shows the distrust of mankind in pure intellectual effort. It would be hard to find a better commentary on the effect of a perverse heart upon the operations of the intellect than the following paragraph from Max Müller, although it was penned for a purpose entirely different from the use here made of it.
“No title could have been more honorable at first than was that of Sophistes. It was applied to the greatest thinkers, such as Socrates and Plato; nay, it was not considered irreverent to apply it to the Creator of the Universe. Afterwards it sank in value because applied to one who cared neither for truth nor for wisdom, but only for victory, till to be called a sophist became almost an insult. Again, what name could have been more creditable in its original acceptation than that of sceptic? It meant thoughtful, reflective, and was a name given to philosophers who carefully looked at all the bearings of a case before they ventured to pronounce a positive opinion. And now a sceptic is almost a term of reproach, very much like heretic,—a word which likewise began by conveying what was most honorable, a power to choose between right and wrong, till it was stamped with the meaning of choosing from sheer perversity what the majority holds to be wrong.”[50]
There are realms in which thought cannot beget knowledge of the truth until there is a radical change in the wishes and desires of the heart, in the choice and alms of the will, in the movings of the inmost depths of the soul.
XVIII
THINKING AND FEELING
There is much contention among men whether thought or feeling is the better; but feeling is the bow and thought the arrow; and every good archer must have both. Alone, one is as helpless as the other. The head gives artillery; the heart, powder. The one aims, and the other fires.
Beecher.