But if we assume, for the sake of argument,
that there has been in the past, or will be in the future,
such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself,
there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against
the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern
notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned
with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting
away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth,
it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions,
into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming
to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty.
When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of
something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms.
It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down
a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut.
Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal
who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools,
in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined
as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine
and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous
scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense
of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.
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