Excerpt from The Ethic of Freethought: A Lecture Delivered at South Place Institute on Tuesday, March 6, 1883
It is not without considerable hesitation that I venture to address you to-night. There are periods of a man's life when it is better for him to be silent - to listen to others rather than to preach himself. The world at the present time is very full of prophets; they crowd the human market-place - they set their stools at every possible comer, and perched thereon, they cry out the merits of their several wares to as large a crowd of folk as their enthusiasm can attract, or their tongue reach. Philosophers, scientists, orthodox Christians, freethinkers - wise men, fools, and fanatics, are all shouting on the market-place, teaching, creating, and destroying - perhaps working, through their very antagonism to some greater truth of whose existence they and we are alike scarce conscious. Amidst such a hubbub and clatter of truth and of falsehood, of dogma and of doubt - what right has any chance individual to set up his stool and teach his doctrine? Were it not far better for him, in the language of Uncle Remus, to "lie low"? Or if he do chance to mount, that a kindly friend should pull his stool from under him?
I feel that no man has a right to address his fellows oil one of what Carlyle would have termed the "Infinities" or "Eternities" unless he feels some special call to the task- unless he is deeply conscious of some truth which he must communicate to others, some falsehood which he must sweep away. The power of speech is scarce to be used in private without a holy fear; in public it becomes a most sacred trust which ought to be used by few of us, and only on the rarest occasions.
Hence my hesitation in addressing you this evening. I have no new truth to propound, no old falsehood to sweep away - what I can tell you, you have all probably heard before in truer and clearer words from those who may rank as prophets of our modern thought. I came here to learn rather than to teach, and my excuse for being here at all is the discussion which usually follows these papers. I am egotistical enough to hope that that discussion will be rather a sifting of your views than a criticism of mine - that it should take rather the form of debate than of mere question and answer. With this end in view I shall endeavour to avoid all controversy.
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