Note 61 — Chapter VI · THE MEANING OF FORGIVENESS

Perhaps I may add a word as to the forgiveness of those who, by an extension of meaning, may be called our intellectual enemies. By intellectual enemies I understand those whose point of view is radically opposed to our own, whose principles and premises, if accepted, would render the entire theory of life on which we act, and on which we found our convictions, untenable. We are apt to be exasperated in listening to them, or in reading the works in which they express their opinions. We are apt to feel that there is no room in the world in which we live for such ideas as theirs, that we and they cannot exist side by side. The bitter feuds of rival religious factions, the notorious odium theologicum, and in more recent times the thinly veiled animus shown in the controversies of philosophical schools are all alike traceable to this source. Racial antagonisms, too, are partly to be accounted for on the same ground. There are certain primary attitudes of mind, modes of feeling and directions of impulse, the correctness of which we cannot demonstrate just because they are primary, and which we all the more vehemently assert when we find them disputed. Love your intellectual enemies, may usefully be added to the stock of moral commandments; keep an open and hospitable mind to opinions and ways of acting, thinking and feeling which naturally repel you. And it will help us to discipline ourselves in this difficult behavior if we reflect that the views most contrary to our own are nevertheless sure to contain some element of truth which we cannot afford to disregard, and which will serve the purpose of correcting and supplementing such truth as we may ourselves possess.