It was rather a more general comment. We have every reason to assume that our minds "work" from our ability to generalize facts and formulate theories that enable us to make predictions and invent technology, or, for that matter, solve everyday problems. Thus, we have a basis for reasoning about a wider number of things based on our experience or what has been recounted in human history and literature. The fact that some people may have cockamamie ideas is of no consequence, any more than the fact that people once believed in phlogiston or spontaneous generation, geocentricism or Lamarckianism invalidates science. As observation and method improved, so did the body of science. Not only that, but as new evidence or criticisms arose, it proved to be self- correcting, and to therefore have a progressive approach to truth.
In the same way, it is foolish to have the prejudice that there is no moral or spiritual truth possible, just because people have thought various things at various periods. For example, I consider the condemnation of slavery to be an advance as certain as Copernicus's establishment of heliocentrism, and people who point out that opinions have differed over slavery to be fatuous........ |
