This idea was also brought out very clearly by Wallace, who emphasized that apparently reasonable activities of man might very well have developed without an actual application of reasoning.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
To say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.
Man is the only animal capable of reasoning, though many others possess the faculty of memory and instruction in common with him.
There seems to be one quality of mind which seems to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions go unnoticed.
To say that a thing has never yet been done among men is to erect a barrier stronger than reason, stronger than discussion.
His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.
Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned.
Who knows the minds of men and how they reason and what their methodology is? But I am not going to extrapolate from the General Conference backing out on my book and make it a personal issue.
Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.
It was a question of helping a man prepare in the way that suits him best. The theory is if you give a man responsibility for his own actions, then it is up to him to accept that responsibility.
Man never had an idea - man will never have an idea, except those supplied to him by his surroundings. Every idea in the world that man has came to him by nature.