“  The Voice of the Intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after the endless rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which one may be still optimistic about the future of mankind; and in itself this signifies not a little…. ” 

–  Sigmund Freud   

Some said that one of the greatest contribution the Greek has made to Human Civilisation is the concept of Intellectuality ; that one can use reason and logic to examine into things and issues that arise in the course of human existence; that it is possible to analyse; discuss and argue about things in some rational and open-minded manners; and more importantly, that Intellect can serve as a reliable and credible guide to human actions and the belief that adopting such approach, over time, can often lead us to better and better answers eventually.

In addition to the above, we believe that a not-as-obvious and anot less important contribution of the Greek is its passion and faith that Intellectuality is a Virtue in its own right and that can help to guide us in terms of getting closer towards the truth; and towards the Light that would lie behind the immediate darkness that we may be facing.

Whatever one’s perspective on the above subject matter, it appears fair to say that the respect and faith human beings have towards Intellectuality have allowed human beings to preserve many of the discoveries, lessons, insights and wisdoms of the past and to keep reviewing and refining them along the long and involved journey of human civilisation.

That said, however important the role Intellectuality has played in the course of the journey of the Humanities, let us not forget that its existence is not given; nor is it necessarily the case that it can assume an important role in human affairs.

In retrospect, while probably all major human civilisations that have existed and lasted for quite some time generally contained certain elements of intellectuality, the importance different civilisations has placed on it vary quite significantly. And perhaps none of the other civilisations has placed so much importance and faith on Intellectuality as the Greek.

Indeed, one may say that Intellectuality, elevated to the level of a revered guiding force for human affairs, is quite an accidental phenomenon in human history. In a way, it was like a fire kindled by the Greek but such fire might have extinguished for about 1,000 years before the Italian monk’s accidental discovery of Cierco’s works which rekindled a resurgence in interest and passion towards the Greek culture and subsequently led to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment of various places; the rise of Science, Industrial Revolution and all that.

But for all the achievements Intellectuality has accomplished, one may still raise doubts on the actual importance it has on human affairs.  Sigmund Freud , for example, has once made the famous remark that “We may insist as often as we like that man’s intellect is powerless in comparison with his instinctual life, and we may be right in this..”

And if one examine into human history, one would probably come to the conclusion that many things human beings have done were driven more by greed, fear, hatred, jealousy and many other human instincts and human intellect looked really quite powerless against them.

Still, we have identified 10 thinkers in history who are of particular importance and significance to Our Endeavor. We would also want to highlight that deeds are just as important as thoughts and they can often reinforce each other. Indeed, some deeds are follow up actions from thoughts and we see thoughts and deeds as an integrated whole. In history, there have been men of ideas and men of actions and we believe one may say that they together have created a significant portion of the world of Humanities we find today. 

Meanwhile, regarding the issue raised by Freud, we think one may also say that one swing factor for the answer is the time horizo​​n one takes. Yes, man’s Intellect is probably powerless in comparison with his instinctual life in the short run, yet the dynamics could change somewhat over time, if only because intellectual ideas could well penetrate and permeate into our instincts over time so that subconsciously, human beings may well be able to internalise many intellectual ideas and inspirations provided by human deeds without ourselves knowing and being conscious of that.

As such, it is worth noting that while Freud has remarked that “….man’s intellect is powerless in comparison with his instinctual life, and we may be right in this..”, there is a follow up second part in his remark on such subject matter which he wrote:  “ Nevertheless, there is something peculiar about this weakness. The Voice of the Intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after the endless rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points which we may be optimistic about the future of mankind, and in itself this signifies not a little…”

Indeed, as Keynes has remarked “ The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else…..sooner or later, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”

So, we seek to collect, preserve and disseminate some of the greatest ideas and deeds we can discern and can have access to from the heritage of the entire Humanities, by which we mean All Those Who Have Lived ; from All Walks Of Life , East and West , Past and Present.

These ideas in turn have penetrated and permeated into what Our endeavor is about and how we are going to do it.  Among the thoughts and deeds we have discerned, those of the 10 thinkers are of particular importance and significance as, collectively, they provide the intellectual foundation upon which we seek to build on; and to assimilate and integrate the thoughts and deeds of others. This however does not mean that those outside of these 10 thinkers are necessarily of less importance and significance.  

Someone seems to have once said something like this:  ideas are like children in that once they are born, they will assume lives of their own. To us, we see all the thoughts and deeds we have collected as great ones which have beauty in their own rights and we are not sure if it is a good idea , or whether it is possible at all, to compare and rank them. Our encounters with these ideas are driven by our own journeys of lives which have idiosyncrastic and accidental elements and it just so happens that we come to know the thoughts and deeds of some people and thinkers more than others. Our main idea is to understand and appreciate these ideas as best we can first, and we do not seek so much to rank, to compare, lesser still to evaluate or judge.

Importantly, these thoughts and deeds also constitute what we see as intellectual assets  which we use for our endeavor and we also see as an important component of what we mean by Wealth and Happiness for the entire Humanities.