We have spoken of physical courage, or the courage of nerves; of moral
courage, or the courage of principles. Besides these there is
intellectual courage, or the courage of opinions. Let me say a few words
upon that, for surely there is nothing which we more need to understand.
The ways in which people form their opinions are most remarkable. Every
man, when he begins his reasonable life, finds certain general opinions
current in the world. He is shaped by these opinions in one way or
another, either directly or by reaction. If he is soft and plastic, like
the majority of people, he takes the opinions that are about him for his
own. If he is self-asserting and defiant, he takes the opposite of these
opinions and gives to them his vehement adherence. We know the two kinds
well, and as we ordinarily see them, the fault which is at the root of
both is intellectual cowardice. One man clings servilely to the old
ready-made opinions which he finds, because he is afraid of being
called rash and radical; another rejects the traditions of his people
from fear of being thought fearful, and timid, and a slave. The results
are very different: one is the tame conservative and the other is the
fiery iconoclast; but I beg you to see that the cause in both cases is
the same. Both are cowards. Both are equally removed from that brave
seeking of the truth which is not set upon either winning or avoiding
any name, which will take no opinion for the sake of conformity and
reject no opinion for the sake of originality; which is free,
therefore--free to gather its own convictions, a slave neither to any
compulsion nor to any antagonism. Tell me, have you never seen two
teachers, one of them slavishly adopting old methods because he feared
to be called "imitator," the other crudely devising new plans because he
was afraid of seeming conservative, both of them really cowards, neither
of them really thinking out his work? ...
The great vice of our people in their relation to the politics of the
land is cowardice. It is not lack of intelligence: our people know the
meaning of political conditions with wonderful sagacity. It is not low
morality: the great mass of our people apply high standards to the acts
of public men. But it is cowardice. It is the disposition of one part of
our people to fall in with current ways of working, to run with the
mass; and of another part to rush headlong into this or that new scheme
or policy of opposition, merely to escape the stigma of conservatism.