ought to bear independent testimony. The modern idea is that cosmic
truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says.
The former freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter frees
inquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating.
Never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men
as now, when, for the first time, any one can discuss it. The old
restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion.
Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it.
Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions,
has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed.
Sixty years ago it was bad taste to be an avowed atheist.
Then came the Bradlaughites, the last religious men, the last men
who cared about God; but they could not alter it. It is still bad
taste to be an avowed atheist. But their agony has achieved just this--
that now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.
Emancipation has only locked the saint in the same tower of silence
as the heresiarch. Then we talk about Lord Anglesey and the weather,
and call it the complete liberty of all the creeds.

But there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them--
who think that the most practical and important thing about a man
is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady
considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still
more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general
about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers,
but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy.
We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos
affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.
In the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man
because he preached some immoral attitude; in the nineteenth century we