The Dominion. SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 18, 1920. MORE THINKING

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 305, 18 September 1920, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 18, 1920. MORE THINKING

A. speaker at a recent meeting in London stated his belief that people are thinking more now than in the days before the war. M.R. LLOYD George, who was present.on the occasion, appears to have been interested in the remark, his own comment, being that he was not afraid of ueople thinking; it was action without thinking that hewas afraid of. He added: "I do not care how much they think and I do not care- very much on what

lines they think, because once you think the right thing will come in the end." Opinions will differ as to whether people are really getting more thoughtful; but it is quite certain that if the public would make fuller and better use of its capacity for independent thinking the right way out of the existing economic and.industrial chaos would be found. Tho need for disciplined thought is urgent— never has it been more urgent. By the cultivation of the reason the irrationality, of unreasonable aims and actions in all departments of life is made clear. It is only by the formation of the habit of steady, logical thinking that men learn to distinguish between tho possible and tho impossible,' between truth nnd falsehood, between good and evil, between science and quackery. It is astonishing how brazenly the quack flourishes today in anite of tho y?J>t «ums whioh

all civilised nations spend on education. More care should be taken in our schools to teach the children to think things out for themselves. They should be encouraged to ask questions and to learn tho why and whercfor. Tho natural fruit of a national education system should bo a mentally alert community from which all forms of quackery would be eliminated. Such a community would not accept shibboleths without criticism. It would pay little heed to appeal? to' passion and prejudice. It would insist on examining political platforms and social theories in the clear, cold light of reason. The widespread ...intellectual indolence and mental, instability, which are responsible for so much of the present dislocation and anxiety, are a serious reflection on our education system. If tho children aro not being taught_to think and to form independent judgments it cannot be said that they aro being well educated.

It is thinking that makes man. It distinguishes him from things and animals. All that is great in art, in literature, in science, in philosophy, in invention is the product t of_ thought, _ prompted "by imagination and instinct. It is rational thought that has made man great, though when compared with the overwhelming bigness of tho material universe he seems to bo merely a speck in space and a moment in time. Descartes defined man as "a thing that thinks"; and Pascal, -with deeper insight, describes man as "only a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The whole universe need not arm itself to crush him. A breath of air, a drop of water, suffice to kill him. Tint even should the universe crush him, man would bo nobler than that which overcomes him, because he Mollis that he is dying, and he knows the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows nothing of it. Our whole dignity then consists in thought. It is that to which we cling, and not to a space,or a duration that we are unable to fill. Let us then work to think well: that is the jbasis of morals." What a great thing it would be for this country if all of us, young and old, could be led to realise the dignity of thought as Pascal saw it, and could learn to think well! Eight thinking would put a stop to mischievous talk about class war; it would reveal tho folly of expecting to bring down the cost of living by going slow and by limiting production; it would impose a higher intellectual and moral standard on our politicians; it would result in the settlement of industrial disputes! by reason instead of brute force: it would break clown the barriers which divide the community into sections and would unite the nation into a firm fellowship. The charlatans who at present batten on the credulity of the ignorant would have to make an honest living or starve, for thinking banishes superstition. Eight thinking is the basis of right conduct. "As a man thinketh so is he."