I am a believer in what I call "intellectual hospitality." A man comes to your door. If you are a gentleman and he appears to be a good man, you receive him with a smile. You ask after his health. You say: "Take a chair; are you thirsty, are you hungry, will you not break bread with me?" That is what a hospitable, good man does--he does not set the dog on him. Now, how should we treat a new thought? I say that the brain should be hospitable and say to the new thought: "Come in; sit down; I want to cross-examine you; I want to find whether you are good or bad; if good, stay; if bad, I don't want to hurt you--probably you think you are all right,--but your room is better than your company, and I will take another idea in your place." Why not? Can any man have the egotism to say that he has found it all out? No. Every man who has thought, knows not only how little he knows, but how little every other human being knows, and how ignorant, after all, the world must be.
There was a time in Europe when the Catholic Church had power. And I want it distinctly understood with this jury, that while I am opposed to Catholicism I am not opposed to Catholics--while I am opposed to Presbyterianism I am not opposed to Presbyterians. I do not fight people,--I fight ideas, I fight principles, and I never go into personalities. As I said, I do not hate Presbyterians, but Presbyterianism--that is, I am opposed to their doctrine. I do not hate a man that has the rheumatism--I hate the rheumatism when it has a man. So I attack certain principles because I think they are wrong, but I always want it understood that I have nothing against persons--nothing against victims.
There was a time when the Catholic Church was in power in the Old World. All at once there arose a man called Martin Luther, and what did the dear old Catholics think? "Oh," they said, "that man and his followers are going to hell." But they did not go. They were very good people. They may have been mistaken--I do not know. I think they were right in their opposition to Catholicism--but I have just as much objection to the religion they founded as I have to the church they left. But they thought they were right, and they made very good citizens, and it turned out that their differing from the Mother Church did not hurt them. And then after awhile they began to divide, and there arose Baptists; and-the other gentlemen, who believed in this law that is now in New Jersey, began cutting off their ears so that they could hear better; they began putting them in prison so that they would have a chance to think. But the Baptists turned out to be good folks--first rate--good husbands, good fathers, good citizens. And in a little while, in England, the people turned to be Episcopalians, on account of a little war that Henry VIII. had with the Pope,--and I always sided with the Pope in that war--but it made no difference; and in a little while the Episcopalians turned out to be just about like other folks--no worse--and, as I know of, no better.