d be a lost man professionally; and if a
clergyman, on being called on to award a prize for good conduct in
the village school, were to say, "I am afraid I cannot say who is the
best-behaved child, because I really do not know what good conduct is;
but I will gladly take the teacher's word as to which child has
caused least inconvenience," he would probably be unfrocked, if not
excommunicated. And yet no honest and intellectually capable doctor or
parson can say more. Clearly it would not be wise of the doctor to say
it, because optimistic lies have such immense therapeutic value that a
doctor who cannot tell them convincingly has mistaken his profession.
And a clergyman who is not prepared to lay down the law dogmatically
will not be of much use in a village school, though it behoves him all
the more to be very careful what law he lays down. But unless both the
clergyman and the doctor are in the attitude expressed by these speeches
they are not fit for their work. The man who believes that he has more
than a provisional hypothesis to go upon is a born fool. He may have
to act vigorously on it. The world has no use for the Agnostic who wont
believe anything because anything might be false, and wont deny anything
because anything might be true. But there is a wide difference between
saying, "I believe this; and I am going to act on it," or, "I dont
believe it; and I wont act on it," and saying, "It is true; and it is
my duty and yours to act on it," or, "It is false; and it is my duty
and yours to refuse to act on it." The difference is as great as that
between the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed. When you repeat
the Apostles' Creed you affirm that you believe certain things. There
you are clearly within your rights. When you repeat the Athanasian
Creed, you affirm that certain things are so, and that anybody who
doubts that they are so cannot be saved. And this is simply a piece of
impudence on your part, as you know nothing about it except that as good
men as you have never heard of your creed. The apostolic attitude is
a desire to convert others to our beliefs for the sake of sympathy and
light: the Athanasian attitude is a desire to murder people who dont
agree with us. I am sufficient of an Athanasian to advocate a law
for the speedy execution of all Athanasians, because they violate the
fundamental proposition of my creed, which is, I repeat, that all
living creatures are experiments. The precise formula fo