fatal of social diseases.... If I let myself believe
anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by
the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion
to exhibit it in outward acts. _But I cannot help doing this great wrong
toward Man, that I make myself credulous_. The danger to society is not
merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough;
but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing
things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into
savagery.

"The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the
fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support
of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to
habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me.
Men speak the truth to one another when each reveres the truth in his
own mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the
truth in my mind when I myself am careless about it, when I believe
things because I want to believe them, and because they are comforting
and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, 'Peace,' to me, when there is no
peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere
of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little
to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it
matters much to Man that I have made my neighbors ready to deceive. The
credulous man is father to the liar....

"We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false
beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to; and the
evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But
a greater and wider evil arises when the _credulous character_ is
maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons
is fostered and made permanent....

"The fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives
us the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and
pleasant to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it
is true....

"And the question which our conscience is always asking about that which
we are tempted to believe is not, 'Is it comfortable and pleasant?' but,
'Is it true?'"

The sooner moral actions and the necessity of clean, helpful, and
charitable living are put upon a basis more solid and permanent than
theology the better will it be for civilizati