The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.
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Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a read more
Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ('What else could it be?') I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.
Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, read more
Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.
Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.
Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.
All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences.
All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences.
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is read more
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
In that the wisdom of the few becomes available to the many, there is progress in human affairs; without it, read more
In that the wisdom of the few becomes available to the many, there is progress in human affairs; without it, the static routine of tradition continues.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves read more
Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil- experience.
The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.
The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.
