uin for them. The man who puts
his shirt on Potosi must believe in that animal, and each of the other
men putting their last garments upon other quadrupeds must believe in
them quite as sincerely. They are all serious, and most of them are
wrong. But one of them is right. One of the faiths is justified; one of
the horses does win; not always even the dark horse which might stand
for Agnosticism, but often the obvious and popular horse of Orthodoxy.
Democracy has its occasional victories; and even the Favourite has been
known to come in first. But the point here is that something comes in
first. That there were many beliefs does not destroy the fact that there
was one well-founded belief. I believe (merely upon authority) that the
world is round. That there may be tribes who believe it to be triangular
or oblong does not alter the fact that it is certainly some shape, and
therefore not any other shape. Therefore I repeat, with the wail of
imprecation, don't say that the variety of creeds prevents you from
accepting any creed. It is an unintelligent remark.

(5) Don't (if any one calls your doctrine mad, which is likely enough),
don't answer that madmen are only the minority and the sane only the
majority. The sane are sane because they are the corporate substance of
mankind; the insane are not a minority because they are not a mob. The
man who thinks himself a man thinks the next man a man; he reckons his
neighbour as himself. But the man who thinks he is a chicken does not
try to look through the man who thinks he is glass. The man who thinks
himself Jesus Christ does not quarrel with the man who thinks himself
Rockefeller; as would certainly happen if the two had ever met. But
madmen never meet. It is the only thing they cannot do. They can talk,
they can inspire, they can fight, they can found religions; but they
cannot meet. Maniacs can never be the majority; for the simple reason
that they can never be even a minority. If two madmen had ever agreed
they might have conquered the world.

(6) Don't say that the idea of human equality is absurd, because some
men are tall and some short, some clever and some stupid. At the height
of the French Revolution it was noticed that Danton was tall and Murat
short. In the wildest popular excitement of America it is known that
Rockefeller is stupid and that Bryan is clever. The doctrine of human
equality reposes upon this: That there is no man really clever who has
not found that