The most
useful and effective dissenters are those who were in the beginning
children of the Faith. The individual who is too weak to assert himself
with the help of an established technical tradition is assuredly too
weak to assert himself without it. The authoritative technical tradition
associated with any one of the arts of civilization is merely the net
result of the accumulated experience of mankind in a given region. That
experience may or may not have been exhaustive or adequately defined;
but in any event its mastery by the individual is merely a matter of
personal and social economy. It helps to prevent the individual from
identifying his whole personal career with unnecessary mistakes. It
provides him with the most natural and serviceable vehicle for
self-expression. It supplies him with a language which reduces to the
lowest possible terms the inevitable chances of misunderstanding. It is
society's nearest approach to an authentic standard in relation to the
liberal arts and occupations; and just so far as it is authentic society
is justified in imposing it on the individual.
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