I remember a Nonconformist manufacturer, in a town of the Midland counties, telling me that when he first came there, some years ago, the place had no Dissenters; but he had opened an Independent chapel in it, and now Church and Dissent were pretty equally divided, with sharp contests between them.
I said, that seemed a pity.
“A pity?” cried he; “not at all! Only think of all the zeal and activity which the collision calls forth!”
“Ah, but, my dear friend,” I answered, “only think of all the nonsense which you now hold quite firmly, which you would never have held if you had not been contradicting your adversary in it all these years!”
– Culture and Anarchy, Matthew Arnold, 1869
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