Kant against cant

I have, at various points in this book, already referred to the great influence tradition has on the evaluation of facts and ideas, even in Social Democracy. I say expressly ‘even in Social Democracy’, because the power of tradition is a very widespread phenomenon from which no party, no literary or artistic tendency, is free, and which has a profound influence even on most of the sciences. Moreover, it is unlikely that it will ever be completely rooted out. There is always a lapse of time before people recognise that tradition is so far distant from the actual facts that they are prepared to discard it. Until this happens, or until it can happen without damage to the case in hand, tradition is normally the most powerful means of uniting those not otherwise bound together by any strong and continuous interest or external pressure. Hence the intuitive preference which all men of action have for tradition, however revolutionary their objectives may be. ‘Never swop horses whilst crossing a stream.’ This saying of Lincoln's is rooted in the same thought as Lassalle's well-known condemnation of ‘the nagging spirit of liberalism’, the ‘disease of individual opining and wanting to know better’. While tradition is essentially preservative, criticism is almost always destructive. When, therefore, the time comes to take important action, even criticism fully justified by the facts can be wrong and therefore reprehensible.