Henry Hazlitt

“ But there is one practice about which there can be no controversy—that of making sure you thoroughly understand every idea of an author. While most people will not verbally contradict this advice, their actual practice may be a continual contradiction of it. They will be in such haste to finish a book that they will not stop to make sure they really understand the more difficult or obscure passages. Just what they hope to gain it is difficult to say. If they think it is wasting time to try to understand every idea, it is surely a greater waste of time to read an idea without understanding it. ”

“ But as almost all objects differ in some qualities and almost all have some qualities in common, it follows that, contrary to common belief, there is no one clas­si­fi­ca­tion absolutely essential to any group of objects. An infinite number of clas­si­fi­ca­tions may be made, because every object has an infinite number of attributes, depending on the aspect we take of it. Nor is any one aspect of a thing “truer” than any other. The aspect we take depends entirely on the purpose we have in mind or the problem we wish to solve. ”

“ Society could not long exist if it persisted in acting on beliefs altogether wrong, though it is safe to say that popular ideas are never more than approximately right. But unless and until you have either thoroughly thought over a question for yourself or have consulted an acknowledged and trustworthy authority, it is best tentatively to accept and act on common belief. To think and act differently, merely for the sake of being different, is unprofitable and dangerous, all questions of ethics aside. ”

“ One last objection to thinking before reading remains. Schopenhauer has answered it in his forcible manner:
“A man may have discovered some portion of truth or wisdom after spending a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for himself, adding thought to thought; and it may sometimes happen that he could have found it all ready to hand in a book and spared himself the trouble. But even so it is a hundred times more valuable, for he has acquired it by thinking it out for himself. ”

“ No science is more provocative of thought than ethics. The question of whether acts should be declared good or bad as they tend to produce pleasure or happiness, either individual or in humanity as a whole, or whether “virtue” or “morality” is an end in itself, is one of the most subtle and elusive we can attempt to solve; no matter which answer we give we are brought into logical and psy­cho­log­i­cal dilemmas from which it seems impossible to escape. This is also true of the problem of whether our knowledge of what constitutes right and wrong comes from experience or from intuition. ”

“ It is the severest blow you can deal to yourself, and few people will think the better of you for doing it. Most of them will say, “See, he acknowledges himself that he was wrong.” And with these people, both you and your theory will be far more discredited than if you had clung to it until the end of your life, no matter how obviously, how flagrantly, it opposed itself to facts. But a few people will appreciate your sacrifice. A few people will admire your bigness. And you will grow. You will grow as a thinker. ”

“ The only cure for such a mental condition is a constant sincerity in every opinion we advance. People are often led into the fault by a motive not incommendable in itself—the desire for originality. But they choose the wrong path to their goal. If you make originality and radicalness your aim, you will attain neither truth nor originality. But if you make truth your aim you will very likely get truth, and originality will come of itself.
There are hundreds of prejudices, hundreds of forms of prejudice. ”

“ Thomas A. Edison says he always rejects an easy solution of any problem and looks for something difficult. But the inventor has one great advantage over any other kind of thinker. He can test his conclusion in a tangible way. If his device works, his thinking was right; if his device doesn’t work, his thinking was wrong. But the philosopher, the scientist, the social reformer, has no such satisfactory test. His only satisfaction is the feeling that his results harmonize with all his experience. ”

“ There is another form of this prejudice of imitation radically opposed to this. Just as with fashions in clothes there are people who strive to imitate others, so there are people who devote themselves entirely to being “different.” Their greatest fear is that they will be taken for “one of the mob.” They dress themselves as uniquely as possible in order to acquire “individuality.” We have these same people in the realm of thought. They are in constant trepidation lest they say something that everybody else says. They say things not for the sake of truth but for humor or paradox. ”

“ But if you can derive so much pleasure from thinking which you cannot put to use, how much greater should be your pleasure when your conclusions can be utilized? For when you think of something useful, you have not only the present pleasure of solving your problem, but the ulterior pleasure of applying your solution to action, or to the solution of some further problem. ”

“ If we have thought out a subject thoroughly, if we have acquired a stock of clear and definite ideas on it, criticism in reading will largely take care of itself. By dint of our own thinking we will know what is relevant and what is not; we shall be able to judge the truth and importance of the various arguments offered. The chances are, however, that we shall not have given much previous thinking to the subject, and that even if we have we shall not have gone as far as the author, who doubtless availed himself of other books. ”

“ We feel almost a physical pain when a tenet we have long cherished is torn up and exposed. The longer we hold an opinion, the harder it is for us to get rid of it. In this respect it is similar to habit. Nor is the comparison an analogy merely. An opinion is a habit of thought. It has the same basis in the brain, and is subject to the same laws, as a habit of action. It is well known that the opinions of a man over forty are pretty well set. The older a man grows, the harder it is for him to change an opinion—or for others to change it for him. ”

“ When debating we con­cen­trate, and we do so without conscious effort. We are too interested in defeating our opponent to wander from the subject. We are forced to think rapidly. Not least of all, we are compelled to think articulately.
But with all its advantages, debate is one of the most potent sources of prejudice. In the heat of controversy, we adopt any and every argument that comes handy. Every statement of our opponent is considered only in the light of how it can be refuted. We are willing to use almost any objection against him, so long as we believe he will see no flaw in it. ”

“ But if you immediately abandoned every problem you started to think of, whenever you came across one which you imagined was just as important, you would probably never really solve any big question.
Our attention is guided by interest. If a man merely allows his thoughts to flow at random, thinking only of those things which spontaneously arouse his interest, he may or may not attend to things worth thinking about. All will depend upon the path in which his natural interests run. But the point is that if the subject he thinks about is valuable, it will be so only by accident ”

“ Nowhere is the evolutionary method more strikingly seen than in biology. Since Darwin’s great theory was promulgated the science has gone forward by leaps and bounds. We have derived untold benefit from a comparison of man and animals in the light of this hypothesis; even study of the development of individual man has been aided. The discovery of the fact of evolution constituted an incalculable advance, but the method for study which it furnished was of even greater importance. ”

“ It may be aeronautics, astronomy, banking, Greek history, differential calculus, social psychology, electricity, music, philosophy of law, submarines, soap manufacture, religion, metaphysics, sun-motors, education, literary style or the moon. But whatever it is, it ought to be a subject in which you are interested for its own sake—which most frequently means one which you do not make your vocation. If you get tired of it, drop it and take up something in which you are interested. Your thinking and study should be pursued as a pleasure—not as a duty. ”

“ It is almost needless to remark that an author who pretends to point out fallacies in another is not necessarily right. There are men who pride themselves on “reading both sides of a subject”; but unless they have been critical, their knowledge is not half as clear or as likely to be true as that of a man who has read only one side, but who has read it critically. ”

“ Then when we meet with a book which we think would be good to read, or which we feel we simply must read, we can before starting it glance at our list. The formidable array we find there will probably induce us either to give up entirely our intention to read the book before us, or at least to put it somewhere on the list which will allow more important books to be read first.
Some people cannot endure planning their reading in this manner. It grates on them to think they are tied down to any sort of program; it seems to deprive them of the advantages of spontaneous interest. ”

“ The best practice for boxing is boxing. The best practice for solving important questions is solving important questions.
Nor do I admit the contention is valid that one problem rather than another should be thought of because it is “deeper.” We cannot truthfully say that psychology is a “deeper” science than ethics, or that metaphysics is deeper than psychology, or vice versa. Most subjects and most problems are just as deep as we care to make them. Their depth depends entirely on how deep we go into them. ”

“ When we have formed an opinion on anything, the chances are that we have communicated it to some one, and have thereby committed ourselves to that side. Now to reverse an opinion is to confess that we were previously wrong. To reverse an opinion is to lay ourselves open to the charge of inconsistency. To be inconsistent—to admit that our judgments are human and fallible—this is the last thing we can ever think of. ”

“ If this is the most prevalent form of prejudice it is also the most difficult to get rid of. This requires moral courage. It requires the rarest kind of moral courage. It requires just as much courage for a man to state and defend an idea opposed to the one in fashion as it would for a city man to dress coolly on a sweltering day, or for a young society woman to attend a smart affair in one of last year’s gowns. The man who possesses this moral courage is blessed beyond kings, but he must pay the fearful price of ridicule or contempt. ”

“ I have chosen rather the concrete path of suggesting a list of questions which I consider of great import. I believe that no matter how much thought the reader gives to any one of them he will not be losing his time.
I have elsewhere pointed out that the more knowledge a man has the more problems he will have. It is equally true that unless a man has some knowledge on a subject he will not be able to appreciate or even understand some of its most important problems. It is only when we begin to think of subjects that we discover problems and realize their significance. ”

“ The only way we could remember would be by constant re-reading, for knowledge unused tends to drop out of mind. Knowledge used does not need to be remembered; practice forms habits and habits make memory unnecessary. The rule is nothing; the application is everything. ”

“ When we are thinking at random—when we are day dreaming, as in the example given—the strongest association, or the first to be aroused, is the one we dwell upon. But when we are thinking with a purpose, in a word, when we are reasoning, we reject all associations which have no bearing on our purpose, and select only those which serve it.
Concentration does not, as popularly supposed, mean keeping the mind fastened on one object or idea or in one place. It consists in having a problem or purpose constantly before one. It means keeping our thought moving toward one desired end. ”

“ Finally, we keep our entire past train of thought in view. Like an oarsman, who cannot look ahead, but guides himself by the objects he is constantly leaving further behind, we keep to our original course of thought by a survey of the ideas already written.
In spite of these great advantages, writing has certain serious handicaps as a practical method for con­cen­trating. First among these is its slowness. Thoughts flash through our minds much faster than we can write them. We either lose many ideas by the wayside, or fail to go as far in our subject as we otherwise would. ”

“ Obviously if two men of equal ability both study the same subject, one will get more out of his study than the other if he reads authors who treat the subject on a deeper plane—provided of course he understands them.
Whether consciously or not, we tend to imitate the authors we read. If we read shallow books we are forced, while reading them, to do shallow thinking. Our plane of thought tends toward the plane of thought of the authors we study; we acquire either habits of careful critical thinking, or of dogmatic lack of thinking. ”

“ If the deductive method is to be checked up by experiment, and the results of the experiment are always to be taken, why not experiment first, and omit theory altogether?
Leaving aside the fact that theory is the best guide for experiment—that were it not for theory and the problems and hypotheses that come out of it, we would not know the points we wanted to verify, and hence would experiment aimlessly—a more serious objection is that experiment is seldom if ever perfect, for it nearly always involves some unverified assumption. ”

“ But when I use the word thinking, I mean thinking with a purpose, with an end in view, thinking to solve a problem. I mean the kind of thinking that is forced on us when we are deciding on a course to pursue, on a life work to take up perhaps; the kind of thinking that was forced on us in our younger days when we had to find a solution to a problem in mathematics, or when we tackled psychology in college. ”

“ How should we deal with authors with whom we disagree fundamentally? Herbert Spencer relates that he twice started Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, but disagreeing fundamentally with the first and main proposition he ceased reading. Now to do this is to give an author too much credit for consistency. For even if every other proposition he sets forth is ostensibly a corollary from his leading one, some of them will contain much truth. It is impossible to be consistently wrong. Add to this the possibility that the author may be right on his first proposition after all. ”