Freely we have received; freely, therefore, let us take as much
more as we can get, and let it be a stand-up fight between ourselves and
posterity to see whether it can get rid of us or no. If it can, let it;
if it cannot, it must put up with us. It can better care for itself than
we can for ourselves when the breath is out of us.
Not the least important duty, he continued, of posterity towards itself
lies in passing righteous judgement on the forbears who stand up before
it. They should be allowed the benefit of a doubt, and peccadilloes
should be ignored; but when no doubt exists that a man was engrainedly
mean and cowardly, his reputation must remain in the Purgatory of Time
for a term varying from, say, a hundred to two thousand years. After a
hundred years it may generally come down, though it will still be under a
cloud. After two thousand years it may be mentioned in any society
without holding up of hands in horror. Our sense of moral guilt varies
inversely as the squares of its distance in time and space from
ourselves.
Not so with heroism; this loses no lustre through time and distance. Good
is gold; it is rare, but it will not tarnish. Evil is like dirty
water--plentiful and foul, but it will run itself clear of taint.
The Doctor having thus expatiated on his own opinions concerning heaven
and hell, concluded by tilting at those which all right-minded people
hold among ourselves.
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