We are asked to define what we mean by one-idea ism, and explain to
us how the universe is made up of atoms. With this request we will
cheerfully comply. It is to be carried away with one idea. The idea may
be a good one, or it may not; but one-ideaism, is giving an idea undue
importance. A man addicted to one-ideaism, can no more cover it than a
leopard can change his spots. If he attempts to pray, he will commence
with something else as a stepping stone, regularly paving the way and
unmistakably making his way to his favorite idea. When it is put
forth and he is delivered of it he is relieved for the time being,
especially, if he finds that it annoys some one. If you call on him for
an exhortation, a sermon, or if he writes, he may wind round and round,
trace back and forward, but it will, in spite of himself, in all his
efforts to conceal it, be manifest to all, that he takes no interest in
all he is saying, only as it subserves his purpose, in paving the way
to the one idea, the center around which the whole man revolves, and
to which his entire existence is subservient. If that one idea is not
dragged in, the man is not relieved, his burden is still upon his soul,
and he is in travail waiting to be relieved.
You will see this class of men at meetings, and conventions, both
political and religious, without the most distant idea of promoting
the objects of the meeting, convention, etc., as the case may be, but
with no higher aim than introducing their idea to notice, making the
meeting an engine, and men, met under other obligations, and with the
ostensible object of the meeting before them, instruments to carry
the _pet idea_ on the high road to fame. Sometimes this class of men,
because other men have other objects in view, are actually engaged in
some good and great work, have not time, will not be annoyed nor turned
aside to hear them nor dispute with them; or, if they do, give them but
a passing notice—think all the world afraid of them. But they need
have no fears on this score. An idea that has not force enough to burst
its way forth in the world in defiance of all fogies and conservatives,
would die a natural death, if the parent of it could get some one to
bring it forth.