The Muggletonian sect have a very odd way of dealing with people. If I,
the Professor, will only give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, there
shall be no question through all that persuasion that I am competent to
judge of that doctrine; nay, I shall be quoted as evidence of its
truth, while I live, and cited, after I am dead, as testimony in its
behalf; but if I utter any ever so slight Anti-Muggletonian sentiment,
then I become _incompetent to form any opinion on the matter_. This,
you cannot fail to observe, is exactly the way the pseudo-sciences go
to work, as explained in my Lecture on Phrenology. Now I hold that he
whose testimony would be accepted in behalf of the Muggletonian
doctrine has a right to be heard against it. Whoso offers me any
article of belief for my signature implies that I am competent to form
an opinion upon it; and if my positive testimony in its favor is of any
value, then my negative testimony against it is also of value.

I thought my young friend's attitude was a little too much like that of
the Muggletonians. I also remarked a singular timidity on his part lest
somebody should "unsettle" somebody's faith,--as if faith did not
require exercise as much as any other living thing, and were not all
the better for a shaking up now and then. I don't mean that it would be
fair to bother Bridget, the wild Irish girl, or Joice Heth, the
centenarian, or any other intellectual non-combatant; but all persons
who proclaim a belief which passes judgment on their neighbors must be
ready to have it "unsettled," that is, questioned at all times and by
anybody,--just as one who sets up bars across a thoroughfare must
expect to have them taken down by every one who wants to pass, if he is
strong enough.

Besides, to think of trying to waterproof the American mind against the
questions that Heaven rains down upon it shows a misapprehension of our