Where is "contempt prior to investigation," and who does the Big Book say said it?
In short:
- It's the last line of the Big Book's Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" (p. 568). The book credits the quotation to Herbert Spencer.
- Our sources have none of Spencer's writings, so it can't check whether he said or wrote it. This page reports only what the A.A. books print.
- In place, it follows the appendix's warning about the alcoholic who shuts his mind: any alcoholic who can honestly face his problems "can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts" (p. 568), and "He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial." (p. 568)
- The quotation was in the Big Book before Appendix II. It heads a first-edition personal story, "An Artist's Concept" (1939), which was dropped in 1955 and reprinted in Experience, Strength and Hope (2003).
The quotation as printed
The Big Book prints it as a principle "which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance" (p. 568), and names it: "that principle is contempt prior to investigation" (p. 568). Below it: "—Herbert Spencer" (p. 568).
The appendix around it
Appendix II is short (pp. 567–568). In order: 1. The book uses "spiritual experience" and "spiritual awakening" for the personality change that brings recovery, which shows up "in many different forms" (p. 567). 2. The first printing gave many readers the impression these changes had to be sudden and spectacular; "Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous." (p. 567) 3. Most experiences are what William James called the "educational variety" (p. 567), developing slowly. Members find they have tapped an inner resource they come to identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves (pp. 567–568). 4. "Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover" (p. 568), unless he closes his mind to all spiritual concepts. "He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial." (p. 568) 5. "We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program." (p. 568) "Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable." (p. 568) 6. The Spencer quotation.
So the quotation closes an appendix whose last warning is against a closed mind: the only thing it says can defeat an alcoholic is intolerance or belligerent denial (p. 568).
Its first appearance in the book
"An Artist's Concept" was one of the personal stories in the first edition. Experience, Strength and Hope (2003) reprints the stories from Part One that were "deleted when the second edition of Alcoholics Anonymous was published" (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003). The story opens with the same Spencer quotation, and its writer comments that it is "descriptive of the mental attitudes of many alcoholics when the subject of religion, as a cure, is first brought to their attention" (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003). So the line was used by a member in 1939, about the same resistance Appendix II later speaks to.
When Appendix II was written
Appendix II says it was written after the first printing, which had left readers with the wrong impression (p. 567). The Preface says "The second edition added the appendices" (p. xi), and the second edition was published in 1955 (p. xi). By the book's own account, then, the appendix and its use of the quotation are from after 1950, while the quotation itself was already in the 1939 story.
Does the context change the reading?
It confirms it. The line is usually used to mean: don't dismiss something before you've looked into it, especially the spiritual side of the program. That's how the appendix uses it, and how the 1939 story used it. As printed, the principle itself is general ("a bar against all information," p. 568); the book applies it to closing one's mind to all spiritual concepts. Who first said it is a separate question our sources can't settle.
Read it yourself
- Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" (pp. 567–568), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
- Preface (p. xi): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_preface.pdf
- Experience, Strength and Hope and the full Big Book are sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org.
- Related: What is the "spiritual awakening" in Step 12? · Do I have to be religious to work the Steps?
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" | 567–568 | written after the first printing (p. 567); added with the second edition, 1955 (Preface, p. xi). After 1950. |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Preface | xi | fourth edition, 2001 |
| "An Artist's Concept," first-edition personal story, reprinted in Experience, Strength and Hope | — | story 1939; reprint 2003 |
Page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001).
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book and Experience, Strength and Hope are © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.