Fate Then Is That Necessity By Which

Upon This First, And In One Sense This Sole, Rule Of Reason, That In Order To Learn You Must Desire To Learn, And In So Desiring Not Be Satisfied With What You Already Incline To Think, There Follows One Corollary Which Itself Deserves To Be Inscribed Upon Every Wall Of The City Of Philosophy: Do Not Block The Way Of Inquiry.

Do You Call It Doubting To Write Down On A Piece Of Paper That You Doubt? If So, Doubt Has Nothing To Do With Any Serious Business. But Do Not Make Believe; If Pedantry Has Not Eaten All The Reality Out Of You, Recognize, As You Must, That There Is Much That You Do Not Doubt, In The Least. Now That Which You Do Not At All Doubt, You Must And Do Regard As Infallible, Absolute Truth.

Some Think To Avoid The Influence Of Metaphysical Errors, By Paying No Attention To Metaphysics; But Experience Shows That These Men Beyond All Others Are Held In An Iron Vice Of Metaphysical Theory, Because By Theories That They Have Never Called In Question.

Bad Reasoning As Well As Good Reasoning Is Possible; And This Fact Is The Foundation Of The Practical Side Of Logic.

It Is The Man Of Science, Eager To Have His Every Opinion Regenerated, His Every Idea Rationalized, By Drinking At The Fountain Of Fact, And Devoting All The Energies Of His Life To The Cult Of Truth, Not As He Understands It, But As He Does Not Yet Understand It, That Ought Properly To Be Called A Philosopher.