" At times he seemed on the
verge of the persuasion that most human trouble is really due to bad
metaphysics. It was, one must remark, an extraordinary journey he
had made; he had started from chivalry and arrived at metaphysics;
every knight he held must be a logician, and ultimate bravery is
courage of the mind. One thinks of his coming to this conclusion
with knit brows and balancing intentness above whole gulfs of
bathos--very much as he had once walked the Leysin Bisse. . . .
"Men do not know how to think," he insisted--getting along the
planks; "and they will not realize that they do not know how to
think. Nine-tenths of the wars in the world have arisen out of
misconceptions. . . . Misconception is the sin and dishonour of the
mind, and muddled thinking as ignoble as dirty conduct. . . .
Infinitely more disastrous."
And again he wrote: "Man, I see, is an over-practical creature, too
eager to get into action. There is our deepest trouble. He takes
conclusions ready-made, or he makes them in a hurry. Life is so
short that he thinks it better to err than wait.
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