hromatic and exigent eloquence
at its finest flower. This is the "conspiracy" he sets forth in all the
panoply of his characteristic italics, dashes, _sforzando_ interjections
and exclamation points.

Well, an idea is an idea. The present one may be right and it may be
wrong. One thing is quite certain: that no progress will be made against
it by denouncing it as merely immoral. If it is ever laid at all, it
must be laid evidentially, logically. The notion to the contrary is
thoroughly democratic; the mob is the most ruthless of tyrants; it is
always in a democratic society that heresy and felony tend to be most
constantly confused. One hears without surprise of a Bismarck
philosophizing placidly (at least in his old age) upon the delusion of
Socialism and of a Frederick the Great playing the hose of his cynicism
upon the absolutism that was almost identical with his own person, but
men in the mass never brook the destructive discussion of their
fundamental beliefs, and that impatience is naturally most evident in
those societies in which men in the mass are most influential. Democracy
and free speech are not facets of one gem; democracy and free speech are
eternal enemies. But in any battle between an institution and an idea,
the idea, in the long run, has the better of it. Here I do not venture
into the absurdity of arguing that, as the world wags on, the truth
always survives. I believe nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, it
seems to me that an idea that happens to be true--or, more exactly, as
near to truth as any human idea can be, and yet remain generally
intelligible--it seems to me that such an idea carries a special and
often fatal handicap. The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It
soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the
truth into a universe of false appearances--of complex and irrational
phenomena, defectively grasped. But though an idea that is true is thus
not likely to prevail, an idea that is _attacked_ enjoys a great
advantage. The evidence behind it is now supported by sympathy, the
sporting instinct, sentimentality--and sentimentality is as powerful as
an army with banners. One never hears of a martyr in history whose
notions are seriously disputed today. The forgotten ideas are those of
the men who put them forward soberly and quietly, hoping fatuously that
they would conquer by the force of their truth; these are the ideas that
we now struggle to rediscover