The Israelites were urged by the voice of God at the Red Sea to go forward. But they were not left without inspiring motives. There was a “promised land,” and to the hope of this Moses could appeal.
Man has not reached a very high life until he can look on to future achievement and blessing, and find in these his highest incentive to go on.
(1481)
Ideas Arousing Genius—See [Arousement by a Thought].
Ideas, Great, Honored—See [Monuments, Meaning of].
IDEAS GUIDING ACTIONS
Logical ideas are like keys which are shaping with reference to opening a lock. Pike, separated by a glass partition from the fish upon which they ordinarily prey, will—so it is said—butt their heads against the glass until it is literally beaten into them that they can not get at their food. Animals learn (when they learn at all) by a “cut and try” method; by doing at random first one thing and another thing and then preserving the things that happen to succeed. Action directed consciously by ideas—by suggested meanings accepted for the sake of experimenting with them—is the sole alternative both to bull-headed stupidity and to learning bought from that dear teacher—chance experience.—John Dewey, “How We Think.”
(1482)
IDEAS, POWER OF
The soul, which vivifies, moves, and supports the body, is a more potent substance than the hard bones and heavy flesh which it vitalizes. A ten-pound weight falling on your head affects you unpleasantly as substance, much more so than a leaf of the New Testament, if dropt in the same direction; but there is a way in which a page of the New Testament may fall upon a nation and split it, or infuse itself into its bulk and give it strength and permanence. We should be careful, therefore, what test we adopt in order to decide the relative stability of things.