Orthodoxy: That peculiar condition where the patient can neither eliminate an old idea nor absorb a new one.

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915), the Roycroft founder and a prolific American essayist and aphorist, frequently wrote satirical “definitions” that mocked cant, dogmatism, and intellectual complacency. This quip belongs to that tradition, treating “orthodoxy” not as a neutral adherence to doctrine but as a kind of mental pathology. Hubbard’s work circulated widely in turn-of-the-century periodicals and in his collections of epigrams, where he often framed social and religious habits in the language of medicine or common sense. The line reflects the Progressive Era’s impatience with inherited certainties and Hubbard’s own contrarian, anti-authoritarian rhetorical style.

By defining orthodoxy as a “condition” in which one cannot discard old ideas or take in new ones, Hubbard portrays rigid belief as intellectual constipation: the mind is blocked both in letting go and in learning. The medical metaphor (“patient,” “eliminate,” “absorb”) implies that dogmatism is less a principled stance than a dysfunction that prevents growth. The epigram also suggests that true understanding requires two complementary capacities—critical revision of inherited views and openness to novelty. Its sting lies in recasting a socially respected label (“orthodoxy”) as a diagnosis of stagnation.