“Dixie Editor” v. UDC on Muzzey’s history (1921)
The battle over, and discovery of, our history continues today.
…rerum cognoscere causas (Latin for “…to know the causes of things”) — Virgil, ‘Georgics’ (29 BCE)
Bertrand Russell used to preach the “will to doubt.” For “what is wanted is not the will to believe,” he argued, “but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.” We should always be open to new ideas and evidence, but doubt is required because “none of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error.” Thus to obtain Virgil’s fortunate understanding of things, as best we can, we must exercise “the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas” (Carl Sagan).
Virgil’s phrase appears on the title page of the 1920 revised edition of the history of the United States by David Saville Muzzey (1870–1965). A future leader in Felix Adler’s ethical culture movement who was later accused of being a “bolshevik” during the Red Scare, Muzzey was a Hardard-educated historian from Massachusetts. In 1921, his history of the United States was being used by a majority of North Carolina (and other state) school districts. When he died in 1965 his “view of…
