The mind not trained for that work is no more competent to do it than are lawyers and farmers competent to make successful clothes without learning the tailor's trade.

There are seventy-five million men and women among us who do not know how to cut out and make a dress-suit, and they would not think of trying; yet they all think they can competently think out a political or religious scheme without any apprenticeship to the business, and many of them believe they have actually worked that miracle.

But, indeed, the truth is, almost all the men and women of our nation or of any other get their religion and their politics where they get their astronomy--entirely at second hand.

Being untrained, they are no more able to intelligently examine a dogma or a policy than they are to calculate an eclipse.
Men are usually competent thinkers along the lines of their specialized training only.

Within these limits alone are their opinions and judgments valuable; outside of these limits they grope and are lost--usually without knowing it.