ldren against fathers. Strange that a
follower of his should object to a man differing in opinion from
his parents! The truth is, logic knows nothing of consanguinity;
facts have no relatives but other facts; and these facts do not
depend upon the character of the person who states them, or upon
the position of the discoverer. And this leads me to another branch
of the same subject.

The ministers are continually saying that certain great men--kings,
presidents, statesmen, millionaires--have believed in the inspiration
of the Bible. Only the other day, I read a sermon in which Carlyle
was quoted as having said that "the Bible is a noble book." That
all may be and yet the book not be inspired. But what is the simple
assertion of Thomas Carlyle worth? If the assertion is based upon
a reason, then it is worth simply the value of the reason, and the
reason is worth just as much without the assertion, but without
the reason the assertion is worthless. Thomas Carlyle thought,
and solemnly put the thought in print, that his father was a greater
man than Robert Burns. His opinion did Burns no harm, and his
father no good. Since reading his "Reminiscences," I have no great
opinion of his opinion. In some respects he was undoubtedly a
great man, in others a small one.

No man should give the opinion of another as authority and in place
of fact and reason, unless he is willing to take all the opinions
of that man. An opinion is worth the warp and woof of fact and
logic in it and no more. A man cannot add to the truthfulness of
truth. In the ordinary business of life, we give certain weight
to the opinion of specialists--to the opinion of doctors, lawyers,
scientists, and historians. Within the domain of the natural, we
take the opinions of our fellow-men; but we do not feel that we
are absolutely bound by these opinions. We have the right to re-
examine them, and if we find they are wrong we feel at liberty to
say so. A doctor is supposed to have studied medicine; to have
examined and explored the questions entering into his profession;
but we know that doctors are often mistaken. We also know that
there are many schools of medicine; that these schools disagree
with one another, and that the doctors of each school disagree with
one another. We also know that many patients die, and so far as
we know, these patients have not come back to tell us whether the
doctors killed them or not. The grave generally preve