Many times, the best things man does are done without a plan. This is not always because of stupidity or incapacity. No. It is that his action comes from a more profound order than the mere order of thought. It is an order of the virtuous tendencies. It is an order in which the good disposition of the sense of being, the good disposition of the Catholic sense, and connaturality with virtue cause man to continuously engender habits, gestures, customs and then, schools of art, styles of life, socio-political institutions, etc. which blossom without planning being necessary.
Reason must control what continuously emerges, so as to avoid deformed things, so frequent in nature. To control, yes; to plan, no. Keep doing, and keep interpreting the result of your initial impulse, observing where it tends, how it develops. Explain it to your own eyes, and with this know how to develop the entire process. This is how one does the things that truly assume meaning.
Studying how the Middle Ages began, it is easy to perceive that planners had no part in it. It was not planned by any one. It just happened. It was the same with patriarchal society. Nobody planned it. It was born. It simply happened.
The preceding article is taken from an informal lecture Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira gave. It has been translated and adapted for publication without his revision. –Ed.