260 The Hthics of Opinion. 
“A. K.H.B.” proceeds: —“To emancipate a certain large class 
“of our countrymen from cruel penal laws, would bea national 
“sin ; so, once upon a time, declared many worthy men and 
“worthy old women. By-and-bye, the nation discerned that 
“it was not a sin, but a duty.” That was when its know- 
ledge was sufficiently increased. ‘Some day the king’s mails 
“will go by railway, and railways will be the great highroads 
‘of this country ;” so said old George Stephenson: and for 
“thinking so, and saying so, he was hounded down as a 
“mischievous fool. Read the reports of the abuse heaped on 
“that great man, before the committee of Parliament on the 
“ Liverpool and Manchester railway: and you will see how 
“perilous a thing it is for a man to be a great deal wiser 
“than his generation. Yes, it is an awful charge, to be the 
“only man that knows some great truth, flatly opposed to the 
“common way of thinking. Hither you must bea miserable 
“sneak, shamming a conformity with errors and prejudices 
“you despise : or you must set your face to a lifelong strife, 
“ obloquy, and misrepresentation.” * Good! but whatdoes all 
this tend to prove, but that we have no test whatever of the 
justness of new opinions, which must not give way to that of 
their stability, or more extensive adoption, as men become 
generally wiser? And that the novelty of an opinion, and 
the fact that it violently shocks the prejudices of good persons, 
do not constitute sufficient reasons for refusing to submit it 
to experiment ; or at least to severe, open, and impartial 
investigation and discussion. That subjects usually esteemed 
sacred cannot be excluded from the category, is conclusively 
proved by ‘“A.K.H.B.,” when he adduces more than one 
pointed illustration of that description. 
But “ A.K.H.B.,” instead of endeavouring to help us out of 
the difficulty in which he landed us, and of reverting to the 
case of the man whom society hanged, which obviously called 
for the explanation he failed to offer, goes off “ to think of some 
‘ofthe ways in which people have been found to treat such as 
“ differed from them in opinion.’ Let us attend to the mur- 
derer’s case. “A.K.H.B.” said distinctly, that the man in 
question “ ACTED ON HIS BELIEF ” ; thus indirectly or directly 
admitting that he was therefore blameless, and he does not 
blame him. Yet he says, hanging him “ SERVED HIM RIGHT.” 
So say I. I accept “ A.K.H.B’s” statement of the case, of his 
“ difficulty,’ but I decline to pass it by without offering a 
* Longmans, p. 319. + Ibid, p. 320. 
