84 BEING AND FACULTIES OF MAN. 



opinions are as good as the opinions of others ; for all 

 opinions are utterly worthless, and there is but one set of 

 fools greater than those who pertinaciously insist on 

 having their opinions respected, namely, those who 

 respect them. If there be noisy discussion and intem- 

 perate language it is sure to be over an opinion indis- 

 creetly maintained, and not over a truth that it is held, 

 for opinionative people spend many words and much 

 labour to prove Nothing. They may as well rest assured 

 at once that Truth is everything, and that, besides Truth, 

 there is only Error. But if they will not discipline their 

 own minds to appreciate this fact, how can they expect to 

 be armed by accurate logical habit to correct the errors 

 fallen into, or, worse and more dangerous still, the 

 impostures practised by others ? It ought ever to be re- 

 membered that opinion* are conclusions in the dark, and 

 before the truth is ascertained, about which all minds may 

 justifiably differ. 



Assertion of Opinion, therefore, provokes only certain 

 and inevitable defeat, for in such encounters the person 

 who merely disputes the Opinion is not and never can be 

 in the wrong. It is the person who asserts the Opinion 

 who is in error, for the simple reason that Opinion is not 

 truth, and that in the absence of the truth the Opinion 

 cannot justifiably be insisted on. After the truth is 

 apparent, and can no longer be resisted, the region of 

 Opinion disappears, and anything but Conviction is im- 

 possible. 



So much, then, for the proposition tliat every one is 

 entitled to have his own Opinion, which is only the most 

 arrogant assertion that can possibly bo propounded by 

 those who are determined at all hazards to stick to and 

 justify their errors, and inflict on others their own im- 

 perious, petulant, and blundering wilfulncss. Truth, and 

 that manifestation of it which justifies Conviction, will 



