390 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 



universal truths which it concerns mankind to know, 

 we should seek to diffuse it at all hazards; even if we 

 only know something more than the limited circle which 

 we can hope to influence amongst which our life is cast, 

 we should try to share our superior truth and knowledge ; 

 yet should we do so in this case with especial care and 

 caution, lest we do more harm than good to the ultimate 

 cause of truth, if not harm to our friends in disturbing 

 their mental peace, while a regard for their happiness 

 constitutes at least as weighty an obligation as that we 

 are under to the spread of unwelcome truth. 



We should aim at the good of our kind, beginning 

 with our friends, and we are also to aim at the spread 

 of truth ; and hence may easily result a collision of 

 duties difficult to reconcile. There is, indeed, but one 

 mode of partial reconciliation possible, namely, by adopt- 

 ing a qualification like to that laid down as applicable 

 in the case of justice. We must maintain that while 

 the truth, naked and unveiled, will ultimately be for the 

 good of the world and mankind ; and while, therefore, a 

 Socrates, a Luther, a Spinoza, must and should proclaim 

 it, though it bring not peace but a sword to men, 

 and not peace but perturbation within the proclaimer's 

 breast; yet that the like is not asked from the mass 

 of men, save as seconders and supporters of the superior 

 men. Nor are even superior men bound at all times, 

 and to all men, to speak the faith that is in them. There 

 should be fit occasion and fit audience. All men are 

 under obligation, with the known exceptions, to veracity, 

 without which no society could exist ; but all men are 

 not called upon to be either the apostles or martyrs of 

 truth, nor yet, except possibly once in the course of 

 centuries, to take up arms in her behalf and fight. 



2. Neither science nor evolution can have anything 



