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MODERNISM VERSUS TRADITIONALISM

that is, wrong. Orthodoxy has always numbers on its side, for the average man is temperamentally timid and conservative and is unwilling to be disturbed in the thoughts and views he has inherited with his birth. He seeks refuge in tradition and is content to live secure in the dead past. All that is handed down from remote times and forms the tradition of the people is sacred. Orthodoxy is jealous of the views it holds and resents all opposition to them. It aims at making people religious in its own way. It moves about with prying eyes and spies on its neighbour's conscience and struggles to read his thoughts. Whenever it is powerful enough to inflict its will upon others, it clips the wings of thought, gags speech, and cripples action. The collective orthodox mind controls the thinking of the individual and drives the dissenters to secrete their thoughts in the lowest depths of their souls. Orthodoxy makes free thinking taboo and fails to see that high thinking is impossible without free thinking. Orthodoxy is impervious to the influence of the times.

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