However
great his powers, everything that he can do without the aid of incessant
remindings from other thinkers, is merely provisional, and will require
a thorough revision. He ought to be aware of this, and accept it with
his eyes open, regarding himself as a pioneer, not a constructor. If he
thinks that he can contribute most towards the elements of the final
synthesis by following out his own original thoughts as far as they will
go, leaving to other thinkers, or to himself at a subsequent time, the
business of adjusting them to the thoughts by which they ought to be
accompanied, he is right in doing so. But he deludes himself if he
imagines that any conclusions he can arrive at, while he practises M.
Comte's rule of _hygiene cerebrale_, can possibly be definitive.
Neither is such a practice, in a hygienic point of view, free from the
gravest dangers to the philosopher's own mind. When once he has
persuaded himself that he can work out the final truth on any subject,
exclusively from his own sources, he is apt to lose all measure or
standard by which to be apprized when he is departing from common sense.
Living only with his own thoughts, he gradually forgets the aspect they
present to minds of a different mould from his own; he looks at his
conclusions only from the point of view which suggested them, and from
which they naturally appear perfect; and every consideration which from
other points of view might present itself, either as an objection or as
a necessary modification, is to him as if it did not exist.
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