It Often Happens That The Universal Belief

All Acts Suppose Certain Dispositions, And Habits Of Mind And Heart, Which May Be In Themselves States Of Enjoyment Or Of Wretchedness, And Which Must Be Fruitful In Other Consequences Besides Those Particular Acts.

Protection, Therefore, Against The Tyranny Of The Magistrate Is Not Enough; There Needs Protection Against The Tyranny Of The Prevailing Opinion And Feeling, Against The Tendency Of Society To Impose, By Other Means Than Civil Penalties, Its Own Ideas And Practices As Rules Of Conduct On Those Who Dissent From Them.

Any Participation, Even In The Smallest Public Function, Is Useful.

He Must Be Able To Hear Them [the Counter Arguments] From Persons Who Actually Believe Them; Who Defend Them In Earnest, And Do Their Very Utmost For Them. He Must Know Them In Their Most Plausible And Persuasive Form; He Must Feel The Whole Force Of The Difficulty Which The True View Of The Subject Has To Encounter And Dispose Of; Else He Will Never Really Possess Himself Of The Portion Of Truth Which Meets And Removes That Difficulty.

Accordingly, France Had Voltaire, And His School Of Negative Thinkers, And England (or Rather Scotland) Had The Profoundest Negative Thinker On Record, David Hume: A Man, The Peculiarities Of Whose Mind Qualified Him To Detect Failure Of Proof, And Want Of Logical Consistency, At A Depth Which French Skeptics, With Their Comparatively Feeble Powers Of Analysis And Abstractions Stop Far Short Of, And Which German Subtlety Alone Could Thoroughly Appreciate, Or Hope To Rival.