and nature is what, at the given
time, is called knowledge. Thinking on the contrary, starts, as we
have seen, from doubt or uncertainty. It marks an inquiring, hunting,
searching attitude, instead of one of mastery and possession. Through
its critical process true knowledge is revised and extended, and our
convictions as to the state of things reorganized. Clearly the last few
centuries have been typically a period of revision and reorganization
of beliefs. Men did not really throw away all transmitted beliefs
concerning the realities of existence, and start afresh upon the basis
of their private, exclusive sensations and ideas. They could not have
done so if they had wished to, and if it had been possible general
imbecility would have been the only outcome. Men set out from what had
passed as knowledge, and critically investigated the grounds upon which
it rested; they noted exceptions; they used new mechanical appliances to
bring to light data inconsistent with what had been believed; they used
their imaginations to conceive a world different from that in which
their forefathers had put their trust. The work was a piecemeal, a
retail, business. One problem was tackled at a time. The net results
of all the revisions amounted, however, to a revolution of prior
conceptions of the world. What occurred was a reorganization of prior
intellectual habitudes, infinitely more efficient than a cutting loose
from all connections would have been.

This state of affairs suggests a definition of the role of the
individual, or the self, in knowledge; namely, the redirection, or
reconstruction of accepted beliefs. Every new idea, every conception of
things differing from that authorized by current belief, must have its
origin in an individual. New ideas are doubtless always sprouting, but a
society governed by custom does not encourage their development. On the
contrary, it tends to suppress them, just because they are deviations
from what is current. The man who looks at things differently from
others is in such a community a suspect character; for him to persist
is generally fatal. Even when social censorship of beliefs is not so
strict, social conditions may fail to provide the appliances which are
requisite if new ideas are to be adequately elaborated; or they may fail
to provide any material support and reward to those who entertain them.
Hence they remain mere fancies, romantic castles in the air, or aimless
speculations. The