Abstract: This paper will talk about how, thinking about history, we may need to "cultivate a skeptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to choose means", as David S. Landes said in his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Looking at hundreds of years of history, we possibly need to think about these words and how this could be a trend in history.

Honors History 10 Mid Term Essay

by Alex Butler

There are things in history that happen over and over and we are supposed to learn lessons from doing these things over and over, correct? There must be lessons that we should learn over hundreds and hundreds of years of doing things that people before us have done. The question is; do we need to keep trying? Is this the lesson that the past 600 years has brought to teach us? It could possibly be that all we need to do is to try and try until we get things right. According to chapter 29 in The Wealth and Poverty of Nations(1 ) we also need to "cultivate a skeptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to choose means". What this means is that we need to improve our skepticism of faith, to avoid believing something just because it is what others believe, to learn as we listen and watch, and to try and clarify and define what we believe to be true and knowledgeable. What I get from this is that we need to keep learning and questioning and watching what is happening in our world and try to improve ourselves.

What we learn from history is going to help the future, in a sense. We learn how and how not do do things. As stated in class many times, Thomas Edison(2 ) was asked how he felt about not being able to find a way to make the light bulb work, he stated "I found 3,000 ways how not to make a light bulb". Things that people learn do not always have to be the 'right' way of doing something, or how something is 'supposed' to be done. We can also learn from doing things the 'wrong' way, or in a way that does not work the way we want or need it to. We can learn from history, not necessarily the correct way of doing things, but a different way that was already tried and we could improve upon.

To look at this question by means of 'the flat world' in The World is Flat(3 ) , there are examples of how and why we need to keep trying. The flat world had changed the way business and communication is done all over the world. Instead of now using horse and buggie to deliver a handwritten letter to someone, all you have to do is type something on your computer, hit send, and it is available to the person within seconds. Would we still be using horse and buggie to deliver mail to people if we had not kept trying to improve and had questioned what was always done? I would think probably not. If we had not always questioned what we could do to improve communication, would we be where we are today?

We might want to "cultivate a skeptical faith" by finding an equal ground for different beliefs, if at all possible. Maybe we need to avoid improving a skeptical faith and possibly be skeptical of faith. During the Enlightenment(4 ) and Scientific Revolution(5 ), when the church had power as well as many beliefs disapproving discoveries in science it brought about the question; 'what criteria can we go by to help us to define what is truth'? Many of these same views and beliefs still have people in conflict today as well. The Scientific Revolution was a time when there was a lot of discovery (as well as development and improvement) in science. It gained its connection to religion during this time as well when it questioned the traditional religious views of the Universe as well as the way people understood the Bible.

The reason for people questioning and trying to define a better truth was to learn and be educated. We learned that humanists started to question and search for truth during the scientific revolution in order to better themselves in their life and to live as individuals and not only as part of a group. Humanism(6 ) made people begin to see themselves as a person who could break out of a certain way of doing things and try something new. They were not only part of a group anymore, but individual people. People tried to develop new knowledge and ways of understanding certain things. The way to do just that was and is to question things all around you. Be sure that you improve yourself and the world that you live in by finding all the knowledge that you can, in any way that you can.

In his book, Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion(7 ) , Thomas Paine says that all religious members are deists and that "they need none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence". He is saying that religious people can be sure of God by his own existence. Which means that he also is saying there is no need for questioning, because you have all of the evidence and knowledge that you need already.

Humans need knowledge. There is not a way that humans could keep gaining knowledge if they did not question and want to learn. We need to try to gain knowledge in order to advance and develop as humans as well as a world and as a whole. Humans should never accept something as it is. We need to try to improve it and make it better for themselves as well as for others in the future. To question things in life is to learn about yourself and improve things for the future. Asking is improving your life