The First Thing About Logic

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| Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order
| to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with
| what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself
| deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy:
|
|             Do not block the way of inquiry.
|
| Although it is better to be methodical in our investigations, and to consider the
| economics of research, yet there is no positive sin against logic in 'trying' any
| theory which may come into our heads, so long as it is adopted in such a sense as
| to permit the investigation to go on unimpeded and undiscouraged.  On the other
| hand, to set up a philosophy which barricades the road of further advance toward
| the truth is the one unpardonable offence in reasoning, as it is also the one to
| which metaphysicians have in all ages shown themselves the most addicted.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 1.135-136.
| From an unpaginated ms.  "F. R. L.", circa 1899.
| http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm

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