题目内容
He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons of the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment and unless he contends himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels the most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or to bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them form. persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated persons are in this condition--even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusions may be true, but they might be false for anything they know; they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them and considered what such persons may have to say. Consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrines which they themselves profess.
The best title for this passage is ______.
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