I believe that this realm of thought is not a democracy, where the majority rule; it is not a republic. It is a country with one inhabitant. This brain is the world in which my mind lives, and my mind is the sovereign of that realm. We are all kings, and one man balances the rest of the world as one drop of water balances the sea. Each soul is crowned. Each soul wears the purple and the tiara; and only those are good citizens of the intellectual world who give to every other human being every right that they claim for themselves, and only those are traitors in the great realm of thought who abandon reason and appeal to force. If now I have got out of your minds the idea that you must abuse your neighbors to keep on good terms with God, then the question of religion is exactly like every question--I mean of thought, of mind--I have nothing to say now about action. Is there authority in the world of art? Can a legislature pass a law that a certain picture is beautiful, and can it pass a law putting in the penitentiary any impudent artistic wretch who says that to him it is not beautiful? Precisely the same with music. Our ears are not all the same; we are not touched by the same sounds--the same beautiful memories* do not arise. Suppose you have an authority in music? You may make men, it may be, by offering them office or by threatening them with punishment, swear that they all like that tune--but you never will know till the day of your death whether they do or not. The moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites--and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks. So in the great realm of religion, there can be no force. No one can be compelled to pray. No matter how you tie him down, or crush him down on his face or on his knees, it is above the power of the human race to put in that man, by force, the spirit of prayer. You cannot do it. Neither can you compel anybody to worship a God. Worship rises from the heart like perfume from a flower. It cannot obey; it cannot do that which some one else commands. It must be absolutely true to the law of its own nature. And do you think any God would be satisfied with compulsory worship? Would he like to see long rows of poor, ignorant slaves on their terrified knees repeating words without a soul--giving him what you might call the shucks of sound? Will any God be satisfied with that? And so I say, we must be as free in one department of thought as another. Now, I take the next step, and that is, that the rights of all are absolutely equal. I have the same right to give you my opinion that you have to give me yours. I have no right to compel you to hear, if you do not want to. I have no right to compel you to speak if you do not want to. If you do not wish to know my thought, I have no right to force it upon you.