Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

86 Crabbed Age and Youth
" Opinion in good men," says Milton, " is
but knowledge in the making." All opinions,
properly so called, are stages on the road to
truth. It does not follow that a man will
travel any further ; but if he has really con-
sidered the world and drawn a conclusion,
he has travelled as far. This does not apply
to formulae got by rote, which are stages on
the road to nowhere but second childhood
and the grave. To have a catchword in
your mouth is not the same thing as to hold
an opinion ; still less is it the same thing as
to have made one for yourself. There are
too many of these catchwords in the world
for people to rap out upon you like an oath
and by way of an argument. They have a
currency as intellectual counters ; and many
respectable persons pay their way with
nothing else. They seem to stand for vague
bodies of theory in the background. The
imputed virtue of folios full of knockdown
arguments is supposed to reside in them,
just as some of the majesty of the British
Empire dwells in the constable's truncheon.