Even So--And That's the Problem

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON'

The discussion on "What Is Truth" which appeared in the editorial columns of the CRIMSON on Tuesday, October 13, attracted my consideration and provoked the very serious conclusion that the issue has not yet been settled. I shall not be so impertinent as to assume to throw any new light upon the problem, but I shall merely endeavor to reconsider the old arguments.

I shall assume the statement is true that the Church exercises "only a slight shadow of its former influence on the lives of men," especially in the cases "of the few who have the capacity for college education."

"The CRIMSON says that such is the condition, and moreover, that it is inevitable it should be so." A passage from Plato is introduced to describe this conflict of ideas in the individual of which the destruction of previously held moral conceptions in the logical issue, . . . as if it had been written especially for the present generation." After explaining that there are opposing principles, those of justice and honor and those of pleasure, the great Philosopher continues:

"Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair, or honorable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honorable any more than dishonorable, or just and good any more than the reverse, and (then) . . . when he ceases to think . . . the notions which he most valued . . . honorable and natural as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any other life than that which flatters his desires."

Now since this discussion is related only to the Christian, we may insert, for the sake of clarity, the words "he answers as the Bible and, especially, as Jesus has taught him" in place of "he answers as the legislator has taught him." Read again this explanation, endorsed so strongly by the CRIMSON, realizing especially the import of the clause "and then arguments many and diverse refute his words." Please note again that, these "words" which are refuted are those which "he answers as the Bible and Jesus have taught him." Thus it is that "many a man finishes college with his earlier standards completely thrown down and nothing set up in their place."

By this quotation does the CRIMSON mean to insinuate that it is possible for even the mightiest mind, the weightiest arguments, or the most clever arrangement of facts to refute the teachings of Jesus Christ? Does it mean to infer that in the college the student learns these secret disproo's? That here his "ignorance" --the "ignorance" to which he must submit in order "to revert to religion . . . against his reason"--is shattered? That here he learns to despise Christianity because he has either discovered or been taught facts or "arguments . . . (which) . . . refute (the) words" of Christ?

Does the CRIMSON really mean to assert and hold that for this product of the college, this "man" of superior intelligence and "occult" knowledge, that for this man "to revert to religion goes wholly against his reason"? That he has had implanted in his reason" facts and arguments which refute Christ's teachings?

Or does the CRIMSON intend to frankly admit that college training has produced these results; that to doubt all things, whether affirmed by the wisdom of ages to be true or not, has become the singlemental passion of the college man indeed, his single mental ability; that, although he may appear saturated with knowledge, he has been given no real intelligence for he knows not when to doubt and when to accept truth, nor can he reject false suspicions and fallacious arguments; in other words, that he displays no judgement or wisdom, only the conceit of intelligence and the obsession of doubting; and that his natural faculties of mind, judgment and wisdom, having been so impaired, he constitutes a menace to himself and to society. . . . E. O. Bassett '29.