This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation.
Interpretation
True enjoyment comes from having earned knowledge through careful investigation.
This quote emphasizes that the feeling of power derived from knowledge is the greatest pleasure, but this power must be anchored in true beliefs that are the result of thorough exploration and inquiry. It suggests that genuine understanding and wisdom emerge from a diligent and honest search for truth.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a philosophy class to ignite discussion about the nature of knowledge.
The aim of scientific thought, then, is to apply past experience to new circumstances; the instrument is an observed uniformity in the course of events. By the use of this instrument it gives us information transcending our experience, it enables us to infer things that we have not seen from things that we have seen; and the evidence for the truth of that information depends on our supposing that the uniformity holds good beyond our experience.
Remember that [scientific thought] is the guide of action; that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.
Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. A awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.
We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself flowers in your veins,_x000D_ till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and_x000D_ perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than_x000D_ so, because men and women are in it who are every one sole heirs as well_x000D_ as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight, as misers do in gold, and_x000D_ kings in scepters, you never enjoy the world.
I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences, but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.
All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.
I have not placed reading before praying because I regard it more important, but because, in order to pray aright, we must understand what we are praying for.
The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.
However great may be the work for which we are responsible, we will always do well if we pause to spend time in sacred praise.
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