I rather think it has
always been very much so, in bad as well as in good company; for you
remember how Milton's fallen angels amused themselves with disputing on
"providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate," and it was the same thing in
that club Goldsmith writes so pleasantly about. Indeed, why should not
people very often come, in the course of conversation, to the one subject
which lies beneath all else about which our thoughts are occupied? And
what more natural than that one should be inquiring about what another
has accepted and ceased to have any doubts concerning? It seems to me
all right that at the proper time, in the proper place, those who are
less easily convinced than their neighbors should have the fullest
liberty of calling to account all the opinions which others receive
without question. Somebody must stand sentry at the outposts of belief,
and it is a sentry's business, I believe, to challenge every one who
comes near him, friend or foe.
I want you to understand fully that I am not one of those poor nervous
creatures who are frightened out of their wits when any question is
started that implies the disturbance of their old beliefs. I manage to
see some of the periodicals, and now and then dip a little way into a new
book which deals with these curious questions you were talking about, and
others like them.
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