To the man himself,
therefore, in whose mind it arose, an opinion will always represent and
recall the spirit whose form it is,--so long, at least, as the man
remains true to his better self. Hence, a man's opinion may be for him
invaluable, the needle of his moral compass, always pointing to the
truth whence it issued, and whose form it is. Nor is the man's opinion
of the less value to him that it may change. Nay, to be of true value,
it must have in it not only the possibility, but the necessity of
change: it must change in every man who is alive with that life which,
in the New Testament, is alone treated as life at all. For, if a man's
opinion be in no process of change whatever, it must be dead, valueless,
hurtful Opinion is the offspring of that which is itself born to grow;
which, being imperfect, must grow or die. Where opinion is growing, its
imperfections, however many and serious, will do but little hurt; where
it is not growing, these imperfections will further the decay and
corruption which must already have laid hold of the very heart of the
man. But it is plain in the world's history that what, at some given
stage of the same, was the embodiment in intellectual form of the
highest and deepest of which it was then spiritually capable, has often
and speedily become the source of the most frightful outrages upon
humanity.
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