The Short-Comings of Breadth

WHEN I was a schoolgirl, with many definite opinions, I remember having a talk with a man or thirty, who happened to advance a theory — I forget about what — which aroused in me ardent dissent. I eagerly presented my view, which was the exact reverse of his, and paused for him to defend himself. He gave me a friendly look; then leaned back and gazed out of the window, with the remark, “ Well, there ’s something in that, too.”

I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of the room. For, I thought, if one really hold an opinion, how can he say there is “ something in ” the contrary view ? But since then I have not only had many such experiences ; I have myself become an offender. And I wonder if it is altogether a gain. It may be sheer contrariness, but I do get a little tired, sometimes, of broad-mindedness and tolerance, and long for good, bigoted narrowness that can be counted on. I should really like to be told: “No, you ’re totally wrong; what you have just said is false absolutely. The facts of the case are these, and if you don’t believe it, so much the worse for you.” How I should enjoy that! But I have not had the experience since my brothers grew up. Occasionally, in desperation, I have assumed the part myself, and taken my stand on positive assertion of a single half truth ; but it does no good. I simply live over that early experience ; again I am told, “ There ’s something in that, too,” and it gives me the feeling, to quote a figure used by a friend in another connection, of having come up against a soft curtain where I expected a wall.

“ A plain categorical proposition,” says Mr. Morley, “ is becoming less and less credible to average minds. Or at least the slovenly willingness to hold two directly contradictory propositions at one and the same time is becoming more and more common.” I do not think it is quite this. Men surely used to hold two directly contradictory propositions at one and the same time with the utmost ease. The point is that they did not know they were contradictory, whereas we do ; and still we hold them, — or rather, entertain them, as one would interesting guests. Our attitude toward every opinion we meet might be expressed thus : “ Well, there’s something in that, too. Come right in ! ” And the new opinion comes in, and draws a chair up to the hospitable fire, and finds a friendly circle of other opinions there ; they shake hands all round, and each tells the others what good fellows they are.

This is amiable, but, in honesty, I don’t like it. It is like the congress of religions, which I have never been able to understand, save on the assumption that each secretly hopes to convert the others by taking them off their guard, or that no one is in earnest about his religion except as regards its common moral basis. The old attitude used to be, “ You think differently from me : therefore you ’re wrong, therefore you ’re bad, therefore I ’ll kill you.” One by one these clauses have been dropped, beginning with the last one ; thus reversing the system of “ the House that Jack Built.” First we stopped killing the other man, then we stopped thinking he was bad, and now we have nearly stopped thinking he is wrong. May this not be carried too far ?