As an illustration of what I mean, suppose a man is engaged in a
certain kind of business, or wishes to manage his business in a certain
kind of way. He suspects, if he stops and thinks about it, that the
interests of other people may be involved, that the way in which he
wants to conduct his business is a selfish way, that the interests of
other people may be injured, that the world as a whole may not be as
well off; but it seems to be for his own advantage.
Now it is very difficult, indeed, for you to persuade a man that he
ought to do right under such circumstances. He is ready to doubt and
question as to whether these laws of right are imperative, whether they
are divine, whether they may not be waived one side in the interest of
the thing which he desires to do. So you must guard yourself very
carefully, no matter what the department of life may be that you are
facing, if you find yourself doubting under the impulse of your own
wishes, if you are trying to argue yourself into the belief that you
may be permitted to do something which you very much want to do.
Be suspicious of your doubts, then, and remember that probably they are
wrong. Great moral questions may be involved, and doubt may mean wreck
here.
There is another field where doubt is dangerous and presumably an evil.
You will find most people, in regard to any question which they have
considered or which has touched them seriously, with their minds
already made up. They have some sort of a persuasion about it, they
have a theory which they have accepted; and, if you bring them a truth
with ever such overwhelming credentials which clashes with this
preconceived idea or prejudice, the chances are that it would be met
with doubt, with denial, not a clear-cut, intelligent, well- balanced
doubt, but a doubt that springs out of the unwillingness that a man
feels to reconstruct his theory.
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