One of the most suggestive and beautiful facts in the spiritual
history of men is the exhilaration which a great new thought brings
with it; the thrilling moments in history are the moments of contact
between such ideas and the minds which are open to their approach. It
is true that fresh ideas often gain acceptance slowly and against
great odds in the way of organised error and of individual inertness
and dulness; nevertheless, it is also true that certain great ideas
rapidly clarify themselves in the thought of almost every century.
They are opposed and rejected by a multitude, but they are in the air,
as we say; they seem to diffuse themselves through all fields of
thought, and they are often worked out harmoniously in different
departments by men who have no concert of action, but whose minds are
open and sensitive to these invisible currents of light and power.
The first and the most enduring result of this movement of ideas is
the enlargement of the thoughts of men about themselves and their
world. Every great new truth compels, sooner or later, a readjustment
of the whole body of organised truth as men hold it.
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