ill reverse this doctrine, and
believingly say, "Right makes might."

All I ask is the same privilege to improve upon that gentleman's
theology as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon
his politics as upon his dug-out. That is all. I ask for the human
soul the same liberty in every direction. That is the only crime I have
committed. I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us
become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there
is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the
worship of cowards and hypocrites. Honest unbelief, honest infidelity,
honest atheism, will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no
matter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench.

This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim
for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive
new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.

The religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at the wharf
of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. He delights to hear the sails of old
opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the
joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss
for him to repeat again and again: "Do not disturb my opinions. Do not
unsettle my mind; I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let
me go backward rather than forward."

As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to
take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down
in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any orthodox
harbor whatever.

After all, we are improving from age to age. The most orthodox people in
this country two hundred years ago would have been burned for the crime
of heresy. The ministers who denounce me for expressing my thought would
have been in the Inquisition themselves. Where once burned and blazed
the bivouac fires of the army of progress, now glow the altars of the
church. The religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground
occupied by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. The church
has advanced in spite, as it were, of itself. It has followed the army
of progress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep within protesting
and denouncing distance. If the church had not made great progress I
could not express my thoughts.

Man, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with whic