Adventures of ideas / by Alfred North Whitehead.

  • Alfred North Whitehead
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Adventures of ideas / by Alfred North Whitehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    introduced a legal reformation largely motived by the prin¬ ciple that human nature has essential rights. But neither the humane slave-owners, nor the inspired Plato, nor the clear¬ headed lawyers, initiated any campaign against slavery. They accepted it as a matter of course. It was presupposed in the very structure of society; and such necessity limits the scope of all generalities. Distinctions were introduced, the sort of distinctions which are conclusive so long as you know that in practice you have got to accept them. We see here the first stage of the introduction of great ideas. They start as speculative suggestions in the minds of a small, gifted group. They acquire a limited application to human life at the hands of various sets of leaders with special functions in the social structure. A whole literature arises which explains how inspiring is the general idea, and how slight need be its effect in disturbing a comfortable society. Some transition has been produced by the agency of the new idea. But on the whole the social system has been inoculated against the full infection of the new principle. It takes its place among the interesting notions which have a restricted application. But a general idea is always a danger to the existing order. The whole bundle of its conceivable special embodi¬ ments in various usages of society constitutes a programme of reform. At any moment the smouldering unhappiness of mankind may seize on some such programme and initiate a period of rapid change guided by the light of its doctrines. In this way, the conception of the dignity of human nature was quietly energizing in the minds of Roman officials, producing somewhat better government and nerving men like Marcus Aurelius to rise to the height of their appointed task. It was a worthy moral force, but society had been inoculated against its revolutionary application. For six hun- wi 2
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