(A Random Post)
I’m not sure if this is relevant but it reminded me of recent posts. Here’s a short exerpt from Mr. J. Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travel’s” which I’m reading for my English ISP.
“…As these Houyhnhnms are endowed by Nature with a general disposition to all virtues, and have no conceptions or ideas of what is evil in a rational creature, so their grand maxim is, to cultivate Reason, and to be fully governed by it. Neither is Reason among them a point problematical as with us, where men can argue the plausibility on both sides of a question; but strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do where it is not mingled, obscured or discoloured by passion or interest. I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because Reason taught us to affirm or deny only which we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. So that controversies, wranglings, disputes and positiveness in false or dubious propositions are evils unknown among the Houyhnhnms…”