Don't tear down a fence until you know why it was put up

Chesterton's rule for reform: if you find a fence across a road and can't see its purpose, that's precisely why you shouldn't remove it yet. Go away and find out why it's there — then, if it truly serves nothing, tear it down. Ignorance of a thing's purpose is not evidence it has none.

— G. K. Chesterton, The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic — 1929, 'The Drift from Domesticity'
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