Authority

Miracles 6.6 "All over the world, until quite modern times, the direct insight of the mystics and the reasonings of the philosophers percolated to the mass of the people by **authority** and tradition; they could be received by those who were no great reasoners themselves in the concrete form of **myth** and ritual and the whole pattern of life."

Do not be scared by the word //authority//. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority--because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life. //Mere Christianity//, chapter 5, paragraph 4

"Authority exercised with humility, and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live." //Membership//, 5th paragraph from the end