A
man's real thoughts are a great rarity. If I don't agree with you, I
shall like to hear you."
The Doctor began; and in order to give his thoughts more connectedly, we
will omit the conversational breaks, the questions and comments of the
clergyman, and all accidental interruptions.
"When the old ecclesiastics said that where there were three doctors
there were two atheists, they lied, of course. They called everybody
that differed from them atheists, until they found out that not
believing in God wasn't nearly so ugly a crime as not believing in some
particular dogma; then they called them _heretics_, until so many good
people had been burned under that name that it began to smell too strong
of roasting flesh,--and after that _infidels_, which properly means
people without faith, of whom there are not a great many in any place or
time. But then, of course, there was some reason why doctors shouldn't
think about religion exactly as ministers did, or they never would have
made that proverb. It's very likely that something of the same kind is
true now; whether it is so or not, I am going to tell you the reasons
why it would not be strange, if doctors should take rather different
views from clergymen about some matters of belief. I don't, of course,
mean all doctors nor all clergymen. Some doctors go as far as any old
New-England divine, and some clergymen agree very well with the doctors
that think least according to rule.
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