THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THINKING[1]
THE purpose of an association such as I have the honor of addressing is to express and foster the ideals of scholarship, to do its part in maintaining in our civilization the ideal of the intellectual life as something of supreme value and importance. To preserve and deepen the humanistic tradition by interpreting it anew so that each generation may not fail to receive its due inheritance of ideas and guiding principles, is a task that becomes increasingly difficult as time goes on. Our faith in progress, however well-grounded it may be, does not justify us in overlooking the fact that rational ideas, and the civilization that is based upon them, are in constant danger of being perverted and destroyed by forces of irrationalism which often assume plausible forms and profess to prophesy in the name of what is highest. If civilization is to advance, it must be through the power of thought, through the influence of ideas; without this direction the course of human history shows a constant tendency to revert to barbarism as the type of a 'natural society.'
The intellectual life, as the basis of civilization, has to be supported by organized effort and with vigilance unremitting from generation to generation. Over against the scholar there always stands a mighty army, numerous and strongly entrenched, the practical men falsely so called, whose real name Plato long ago declared to be misologists—haters of ideas. Their favorite form of attack consists in contrasting the weakness of the mere theorist with the strength and excellence of the practical man, who is called the man of character and good will. The general question of the relation of ideas and practice is a well-worn battle ground which I shall not ask you to re-traverse this evening. But I wish to say a few words regarding a point that is freqeuntly implied in the depreciation of ideas. The scholar's life, it is often said,
- ↑ This paper was delivered as an address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of the University of Virginia, and is here reprinted without change from the University of Virginia Alumni Bulletin for April, 1916.
