A Methodology - Book 1

Method and world, for all practical intents and purposes, are really interchangeable terms; one without the other is inconceivable. Just as we have no conception, no experience of world, no personal contact with it, until and unless we develop for ourselves a world view - because until then we take world on hearsay and repeat opinion on it, parroting other people's superstitions and falling in with their fears - so can we similarly not gain any knowledge, nor any understanding, of method, unless we acquaint ourselves, in the flesh, with the life of mankind, indeed until we familiarize ourselves personally and progressively with the whole range of sympathetic and compassionate being, especially of a contemporary order, otherwise we will forever fish in murky waters, mistaking the dubious for the genuine on account of our popularity and confusing questionable artifice with certain reality for the lack of a trustworthy comparison.