[MA-631]
From the ages in which it was customary to believe in the...
From the ages in which it was customary to believe in the possession of absolute truth, people have inherited a profound dislike of all sceptical and relative attitudes with regard to questions of knowledge; they mostly prefer to acquiesce, for good or evil, in the convictions of those in authority (fathers, friends, teachers, princes), and they have a kind of remorse of conscience when they do not do so. This tendency is quite comprehensible, and its results furnish no ground for condemnation of the course of the development of human reason. The scientific spirit in man, however, has gradually to bring to maturity the virtue of cautious forbearance, the wise moderation, which is better known in practical than in theoretical life, and which, for instance, Goethe has represented in "Antonio," as an object of provocation for all Tassos,—that is to say, for unscientific and at the same time inactive natures. The man of convictions has in himself the right not to comprehend the man of cautious thought, the theoretical Antonio; the scientific man, on the other hand, has no right to blame the former on that account, he takes no notice thereof, and knows, moreover, that in certain cases the former will yet cling to him, as Tasso finally clung to Antonio.