Humility ..., The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 334
334
Humility still has a future. It remains a tool with which we avoid squandering our force and time on idiots or on the self-destructive reflex of one-upmanship. It cautions us against the arrogant presumption that our thoughts are “primary causes,” while it leads us to the humbler probability that thought is a consequence of (1) human machinery and (2) the conditions within which that machine finds itself.