live." Let me
ask you--do you believe if that had been done that the human ears ever
would have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven?

All I claim is the same right to improve upon this barbarian's ideas of
politics and religion as upon everything else, and whether it is an
improvement or not, I have a right to suggest it--that is my doctrine.
They say to me, "God will punish you forever, if you do these things."
Very well. I will settle with Him. I had rather settle with Him than
any one of His agents. I do not like them very well. In theology I am
a granger--I do not believe in middle-men, what little business I have
with heaven I will attend to thyself. Our fathers thought, just as
many now think, that you could force men to think your way and if they
failed to do it by reason, they tried it another way. I used to read
about it when I was a boy--it did not seem to me that these things were
true; it did not seem to me that there ever was such heartless bigotry
in the heart of man, but there was and is tonight. I used to read
about it--I did not appreciate it. I never appreciated it until I saw
the arguments of those gentlemen. They used to use just such arguments
as that man in the dug-out would have used to the next man ahead of
him. This low, miserable skull--this next man was a little higher, and
this fellow behind called him a heretic, and the next was still a
little higher, and he was called an infidel. And, so it went on
through the whole row--always calling the man who was ahead an infidel
and a heretic. No man was ever called so who was behind the army of
progress. It has always been the man ahead that has been called the
heretic. Heresy is the last and best thought always. Heresy extends
the hospitality of the brain to a new idea; that is what the rotting
says to the growing; that is what the dweller in the swamp says to the
man on the sun-lit hill; that is what the man in the darkness cries out
to the grand man upon whose forehead is shining the dawn of a grander
day; that is what the coffin says to the cradle. Orthodoxy is a kind
of shroud, and heresy is a banner--orthodoxy is a frog and heresy a
star shining forever above the cradle of truth. I do not mean simply
in religion, I mean in everything, and the idea I wish to impress upon
you is that you should keep your minds open to all the influences of
nature; you should keep your minds open to reason. Hear what a man has
t