* * * * *

"It seems to me your observations are nothing but opinions," said Mrs.
Boyzy to me the other evening. She called it o-pin-ions. Women have
an art of expressing contempt by syllabic emphasis that men never
acquire. It is their failure to accomplish this that induces men to
substitute profanity. Nevertheless, as that excellent woman remarked,
the things I say in these papers are for the most part opinions. But
what of that; what moves the world but opinions--what has moved it up
to where it is now, but opinions? Where would the world be if it were
not for new opinions; where would men be? Suppose every public man
clung to precedents in public affairs; every politician pinned his
faith on his party policy, and every preacher planted himself on
orthodoxy--all with a determination to go no further. 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