"The time is come,"
says Mr. Mill in his autobiography, "in which it is the duty of all
qualified persons to speak their minds about popular religious beliefs."
The reason which he assigns is that they would thus destroy the "vulgar
prejudice" that unbelief is connected with bad qualities of head and
heart. It is, I venture to remark, still more important to destroy the
belief of sceptics themselves that in these matters a system of pious
frauds is creditable or safe. Effeminating and corrupting as all
equivocation comes to be in the long run, there are other evils behind.
Who can see without impatience the fearful waste of good purpose and
noble aspiration caused by our reticence at a time when it is of primary
importance to turn to account all the forces which make for the
elevation of mankind? How much intellect and zeal runs to waste in the
spasmodic effort of good men to cling _to_ the last fragments of
decaying systems, to galvanize dead formulae into some dim semblance of
life! Society will not improve as it might when those who should be
leaders of progress are staggering backward and forward with their eyes
passionately reverted to the past.
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