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Literary Guide and Rationalist Review London, England 1 May 1905 (page78)
The Need of Intellectual Sincerity
Foyers, N.B. March 27th, 1905
I feel obliged to say, with your permission, one word on this subject. It is my rule to blame nobody and has been ever since discovered (to my surprise and disgust) that I was not infallible. But it is a simple fact that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church; and if a few murders can bolster up a mass of rubbish, as has been the case with such monstrosities as Baabism and Christian Science, to say nothing of more obvious ones, surely the truth may expect to reap an even greater benefit. The misfortune of sceptics is that they are sceptical. Let us go as readily to the stake for our disbeliefs as in old times people did for their beliefs, and our children and our children's children will be warmed by that fire. Latimer and Ridley did assuredly light a candle; we have a chance of installing an arc light.
So much for tactics. That a man who for any reason whatever lies to his own heart thereby injures himself is a truism which nobody, since the death of Socrates, has had the impudence to dispute.
Let us not use words like cowards; who of us can assure himself that he is other?
But there need be no doubt whatever as to the right course to pursue.
Clive, for a trifling quarrel, was ready to say, with the bully's pistol at his forehead:—
Aleister Crowley |