First Principles (1862) by the sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer, in which he suggests that ‘when passing judgment on the opinions of others’, we should be willing to concede that there is ‘a soul of truth in things erroneous’. Without humility, we are prone to misconstruing the fallibilities of others as signifiers of an intrinsic moral deficiency, what the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks described as a ‘pathological dualism’ that divides humanity into ‘the unimpeachably good’ and ‘the irredeemably bad’.
very true. a soul of truth in things erroneous
