We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature.
A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters;
his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and
explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object,
the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost.
Everything matters--except everything.

Examples are scarcely needed of this total levity on the subject
of cosmic philosophy. Examples are scarcely needed to show that,
whatever else we think of as affecting practical affairs, we do
not think it matters whether a man is a pessimist or an optimist,
a Cartesian or a Hegelian, a materialist or a spiritualist.
Let me, however, take a random instance. At any innocent tea-table
we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living."
We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day;
nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man
or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed,
the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given
medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced
for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines;
doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal
Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins.
Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist
will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced
that theories do not matter.

This was certainly not the idea of those who introduced our freedom.
When the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, their idea
was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be made.
Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one