Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/161

 HARRIET MARTINEAU.

"FEELING, as I do, daily comfort in the knowledge of some things which I should once have shrunk from supposing, it would be weak—as foolish as cowardly— ever again to shrink from knowing anything that is true, or to have any preferences whatever among unascertained matters of speculation or fact.” ("Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development,” page 12.)

“From the moment a man desires to find the truth on one side rather than another, it is all over with him as a philosopher.” (Ibid, page 11.)

In these brave utterances may be found the keynote of Harriet Martineau’s life and character: a life which has been from phys-