In the Beginning was the Thought...
A friend recommended and lent me the book, "The Great Influenza" by John Barrie. It is a much broader book than I expected with details on the beginnings of modern scientific medicine in the United States, the political climate in the US surrounding the First World War, the biology of viruses, as well as the story of the influenza pandemic of 1918.
In the prologue Barrie quotes Goethe in Faust,
'Tis writ, "In the beginning was the the Word."
I Pause, to wonder what here is inferred.
The Word I cannot set supremely high:
A new translation I will try.
I read, if by spirit, I am taught,
This sense, "In the beginning was the Thought...."
Barrie then comments.
If a society does set Goethe's "Word...supremely high," if it believes that 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.