ABSTRACT
The modern mind is reluctant to accept things without seeing the evidence. As a consequence, we tend to dismiss as unreliable many ideas that once would have been accepted as common sense. I have always thought such attitudes rather narrow-minded, even arrogant. It is as if the experiences and insights of our predecessors count for nothing, even though their perceptions benefited from a slower pace of life in a less artificial environment; a circumstance that would have permitted them a more lingering view of the world and a more acute awareness of its moods. And although writers of the past may have expressed their understandings in non-scientific terms, this does not mean their insights were any less discerning. Instead of always demanding evidence or proof, we might better attend to the spirit and astuteness of their words.
