NO mental advance of modern times is more significant than that expressed in the present very general recognition that we do not see things in themselves, but only our concepts, or mental pictures of them. In the past, the great body of even intelligent people have been more sure of the so-called facts of the material world than of anything else; and their present awakening to the truth that we cannot rely on sense-testimony, constitutes a most eventful transformation of thought. It is now becoming understood that in keeping with the etymology of the term, education means a leading out, an escape from the bondage of ignorance and false ideas,—states of thought which are not good, not true, and which must disappear before the dawn of right ideas.
Every thoughtful person must see that our spiritual progress demands the constant giving up of imperfect apprehensions of truth; that the indefinite and obscure must steadily give place to the more consistent and complete, and that the surest possible interdiction of advance is effected when we allow a present erroneous idea of things to acquire that fixity which belongs to Principle and its manifestations alone.
It is to be remembered that a false sense of things is the enemy of all good, and so long as we fight for the retention of such a sense, so long are we shackled. For all save those who have attained to a perfect apprehension of Truth, unchangeability of conviction can mean only the crystallization of a faulty sense; and this is true, though the unideal conviction may be less faulty than other forms of error. It follows that all who have reached great elevation of character and attainment have been teachable all the way they have perceived that this false sense of things is an enemy, at war with their highest success and happiness. A Gladstone, when charged with inconsistency between a present policy and a past position, could readily concede the fact, and state that this was an evidence that his convictions were subject to enlightenment, and hence to change. A lesser man would have prided himself, perchance, upon the maintenance of an unvarying attitude respecting public questions, in explanation of his loyalty to a party slogan. Next to the right apprehension of truth, it is most important that we have a right attitude respecting every imperfect sense we may now entertain; namely, that we recognize its unworthiness that it would rob us of our best inheritance, and that it is to be given up the instant demonstrable truth is perceived.
