"For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor."
The above statement drawn from Preface to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth is indicative of an unfortunate reality. Our intellects have been blunted, but Wordsworth was a poet and so he acknowledges, as must we, that our emotions have also been equally blunted. In fact, I'd say that our sense in general have grown corroded through lack of use or else corrupted by misuse. C.S. Lewis observed that "our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak." This torpor to which we've succumbed is critical in our society. Quiter literally it is a crisis. Hebrews 5:14 urges us to keep our senses (both intellect and emotion) trained "to discern good and evil." The word for discernment in the original is diakrisis which has to do with "dividing a crisis."
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