In praise of doubt..............................

      In Faust, Goethe wrote,

            'Tis writ, "In the beginning was the Word."/  I Pause, to wonder what is here inferred./The Word I cannot set supremely high:/A new translation I will try./I read, if by the spirit, I am taught,/This sense, "In the beginning was the Thought. . . ."

     Upon "the Word" rested authority, stability, and law;  "the Thought" roiled and ripped apart and created—without knowledge or concern of what it would create. . . .

      If a society does set Goethe's "Word . . . supremely high," if it believes it knows the truth and that it need not question its beliefs, then that society is more likely to enforce rigid decrees, and less likely to change.  If it leaves room for doubt about the truth, it is more likely to be free and open.

-John Berry,  The Great Influenza:  The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History