The world would
come to a standstill. There would be no progress. Opinions are the
lever that works the world. Precedents become mouldy, politicians
change with the times, and creeds advance with the public thought.
What do we care what a man thought two hundred years ago, when we have
what a man thinks to-day? What is to us the policy of a political party
when the moss has commenced to grow over it. Who would attempt to
enforce in this day the medieval creeds and religious practices and
church government? What are we put here for, if it is not to learn,
every year, every day, every hour if we can. And of what use is all
this learning if we are not to advance by means of it? And how could
we move a step if we did not tell our neighbor what we think we have
learned--that is, tell him our opinions. I say to you, Madam (and I
say it the more freely that she is out of hearing), that opinions rule
the world, and while it may be possible that mine do not rule my own
household, it impairs their value no more than imprisonment and
persecution did those of other philosophers in the past. An opinion
is a valuable thing--in its information if it is true, in the mental
exercise it gives in combating it, if it is error, and in any event
as a feather that indicates which way the wind is blowing--in what
direction the blind mole of man's finite judgment is groping around
its prison in search of an outlet to the infinite.
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