Beelzebubs-Tales-to-His-Grandson-by-G-I-Gurdjieff

vey only indefinite and relative notions, and are thus taken by ordinary people'elastically. '"In producing this abnormality in the life of man, a large part was played,in our opinion, by that same abnormal system of education of the risinggeneration."And it played a large part because by compelling the young, as we havealready said, to repeat like parrots the greatest possible number of words,teaching them to differentiate one from another only by their sound, asthough the real pith of their meaning had no importance, this system ofeducation has resulted in the gradual loss in people of the capacity to ponderand reflect upon what they are talking about and upon what is being said tothem."Having lost this capacity and at the same time needing to convey theirthoughts more or less exactly to others, they are obliged, in spite of theendless number of words already existing in each of the contemporarylanguages, either to borrow from other languages or to invent always moreand more words, so that finally, when a contemporary man wishes to expressan idea for which he knows many apparently suitable words, and chooses onethat seems according to his mental reflection to be the most fitting, he still instinctivelyfeels uncertain whether his choice is correct, and unconsciouslygives the word his own subjective meaning."Owing to this already automatized habit and to the gradual disappearanceof the capacity to concentrate his active attention for any length of time, theordinary man on saying or hearing any word involuntarily emphasizes anddwells upon one or another aspect of the idea conveyed by the word,invariably limiting the whole meaning of the word to this one aspect, that isto say, this word, instead of including all the implications of the given idea,expresses only the first meaning that happens to come to him, dependingupon the automatic associations flowing in him. Hence every