What was the Renaissance? The Renaissance was the birth of
doubt, the birth of question, the demand on the part of men, who began
to wake up and think, for evidence. It was the beginning of the
scientific age, the birth of the scientific spirit which has renovated,
re- created, uplifted the world. Men began to think, to look about
them, and to prove all things. And instead of holding fast all things,
as they had been doing in the past, they began to hold fast only the
things which they found by experience, and after testing and trial, to
be good.
Here began, then, the civilization of the world; and all that is finest
and highest in industry, in education, in discovery, in the whole
external civilization of the world, came in with the coming of this
spirit that questions and that asks for proof.
I do not wish you to understand me as supposing that all kinds of doubt
are good, equally good. The Church, as I said a little while ago, has
been accustomed to teach us that doubt was wrong; and there are certain
kinds of doubt that are morally wrong, certain kinds of doubt that are
disastrous to the highest and finest life of the world.
I wish now to analyze a little and define and make clear these
distinctions, that you may see the kind of doubt which is evil and the
kind of doubt which is good.
There are doubts which spring out of the fact that men, under the
influence of personal interest, as they suppose, or strong desire, wish
to follow certain courses, wish to walk in certain paths; and they
doubt and question the laws, moral or mental, religious or what not,
which stand in their way, which would prohibit their having their will.
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