Negative capability

The capacity to be in uncertainty, mystery and doubt, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason (John Keats). This is a form of imaginative questioning that is more rewarding than the discovery of facts and reasons, and implies the ability to work with the imagination, without the necessity of seeking out facts and reasons. It is a questioning that involves the questioner in the matter of thought so deeply that he becomes, in a sense, one with it. At this point knowing is no longer divorced from being: we know the way we are and we are the way we know. The meaning may be extended to include the capacity to live with mistakes and failures without being disheartened or dismayed. It is an attitude of mind which learners cultivate to help them to relate more appropriately to their mistakes as experience. Without such decent doubt, there can be no questioning, no learning, and no deliberate change.