http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/7530633

Keep your wits

"I rather imagine Lewis Carroll wrote "Through the Looking Glass" to avoid going mad. He must have known how upside down things are in this life, must have longed to escape into the saner world of reflection. He probably noted the opinionated conclusions and saw the sad mistakes made by his associates. Perhaps he discovered that the poacher whose dog worked along the hedgerows was often wiser and shrewder than his jailors. In any case, he must have known how rarely conduct comes from calculation, how commonly our wits are addled and our ways wanting in wisdom. For foolishness is not one of the lost arts. It has been practised for centuries. Millions are proficient in it, knowing its niceties. The means by which one becomes stupid are many, the methods easy to acquire. One has only to listen to the babble of advice heard on every hand in order to achieve a high grade of idiocy. The instruction to be had is guaranteed to lead to dullness. Teaching facts, without training the reason, will successfully occlude anyone's judgment. This volume is dedicated to thought, thinking and reasoning along these lines"--Chapter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

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