Chapter 59

Your faculty of judgment has not been sufficiently exercised if you think you must give up all pretentions to knowledge without understanding that this distinguishing feature in our human nature is undoubtedly of great utility. I have noticed that in recovery, opposition to the value of our knowledge seems to circulate with almost universal indulgence, and any challenge to this seems to be on the order of blasphemy and absurdity. Continual, insufficient use of correct judgment is properly that which is commonly called stupidity, and for such a failing, I know of no remedy with dignity that is not utterly wonting. Here again, we find philosophy is called upon to apply all of its intensity and penetration as an element of necessity.

If we are making progress we will be able, with very little trouble, to use knowledge to lead us to truth, both good and bad. It is a requirement that we understand the difference between good and bad –without attaching irrational or imaginary constraints to the validity of this recognition, as this is a quick measure of our mental health capacities. Truth is either good or bad, there is little gray area; and the way in which we adjust ourselves to its implications is of extreme importance.

I will concede that truth sometimes presents itself to us in ways that allows us to turn around our thinking without any necessity of understanding the connections between cause and effect. But this does not rule out the value of understanding how cause and effect works. If we sought to free ourselves from the consequences of cause and effect without extracting the function of cause, a pure form of sensibility might appear to us. We might find that the truth behind the cause that led to the effect could teach us a valuable lesson.

When facing truth, if we do not wish to return to the state of utter ignorance from which we started, we must not afterwards complain of the obscurity or the obstacles in our path along the way to discovering it. My personal rule of thumb is this: Always endeavor to enlarge your sphere of understanding by using governing determinant rules that demand proof from either experience or from reason without betraying to a lamentable degree the effort that this exercise requires. And do not confuse difficulty with complication.