Life, 1914-04-30 · page 8 of 44
Life — April 30, 1914 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The cartoon shows a schoolteacher addressing two students, with one child forced to apologize to another for calling him a liar. The caption reads: "Now, John, I want you to apologize to William for calling him a liar" / "I—I apologize for callin' ye wh-what ye are." The accompanying article critiques philosopher R.A.J. Balfour's lectures, satirizing intellectual over-systemization. The satire suggests that rigid philosophical thinking—forcing logical justification where none fits reality—mirrors the absurdity of the schoolroom scene: enforcing formal rules that contradict observable truth. The "red tape" metaphor refers to bureaucratic formalism that stifles honest observation and common sense, suggesting intellectuals complicate simple matters through excessive abstraction.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
NOW, JOHN, T WANT YOU TO APOLOGIZE TO WILLIAM FOR CALL! HIM A LIAR” “TT APOLOGIZE FOR CALLIN’ YE WH-WILAT YE ARE The Red Tape of the Intellect Me A. J. BALFOUR has been delivering a series of lectures on philosophy in England. We quote from his last lecture: “How docs it come about that there is a coin- cidence between a rational series which is a logical justification of beliefs and a casual serics in which reason does not appear till the latest stages?” One answer, Mr. Balfour, is to say that God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. Another answer would be to give it up. Mr. Balfour has been distinguished for many years as a philosophical thinker in the first rank of England's leading thinkers. As an all-around man, he probably stands to-day almost at the head of England’s foremost men. It is a Pity, therefore, that Mr. Balfour, distinguished as he is, should seem to be troubled with the same complaint that comes to so many of what we may term “ over intellectual men". He has yielded to the temptation to reduce the world to a system. The shore of history is strewn with the wreckage of intellects who have made this same at- tempt. , There is always a point beyond which it is not safe for any man to think, This point is usually reached when what the man says cannot be readily understood by persons of ordinary intelligence. It is a pretty fair test of any man’s intellectual capacity when he is able to make himself clear to his contemporaries, not to the smaller number of those who have tuned themselves up to an ar- tificial philosophical vocabulary, but to the greater number who understand the language of Plato, of Homer, of Shakespeare and Macaulay. comicbooks.com