Innovators, moralists and counselors of perfection have played a
noteworthy part by advocating and often by living noteworthy lives.
Reports of their sayings and doings are part of the folklore and the
history of each civilization. If they did not set the tone of their
generation, they provided it with a model toward which their less
talented, less creative fellows might aspire. If they were creative
artists their works provided models which were admired, copied and
emulated by their successors. If they were moralists or philosophers
their sayings were recorded, respected and repeated by successive
generations.
Each civilization has adopted lines of thinking and codes of action
which embody the best and most advantageous in theory and in practice.
These codes of thought, feeling and action are attributed to some
outstanding individual and passed on from generation to generation as
codes of conduct to which all right-thinking individuals may or should
aspire.
Human beings know everything about themselves except whence they came,
what they should do and whither they will go. To compensate for this
lack of knowledge and wisdom each civilization has established and
maintained religious organizations and institutions whose duty it was to
search out the truth, record it and teach it to successive generations.
In some civilizations the religious institutions have dominated the
secular.
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