CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the
Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical
Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits
of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over
the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed,
in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical
controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely
soon to make itself recognized as the vital question of the future.
It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense, it has
divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but in the stage
of progress into which the more civilized portions of the species
have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and
requires a different and more fundamental treatment.
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous
feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest
familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But
in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes
of subjects, and the government. By liberty, was meant protection
against the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived
(except in some of the popular governments of Greece) as in a
necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled.
They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste,
who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest; who,
at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the governed,
and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not desire,
to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its oppressive
exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly
dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against
their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent
the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by
innumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal
of prey stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down.
But as the king of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying
upon the flock than any of the minor harpies, it was indispensable
to be in a perpetual attitude of defence against his beak and
claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the
power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the
community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.
It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition
of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which
it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe,
and which, if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general
rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally
a later expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks;
by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort
supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition
to some of the more important acts of the governing power. To
the first of these modes of limitation, the ruling power, in most
European countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit. It
was not so with the second; and to attain this, or when already
in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely, became
everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And
so long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by another,
and to be ruled by a master, on condition of being guaranteed
more or less efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry
their aspirations beyond this point.
A time, however, came in the progress of human affairs, when men
ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors
should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves.
It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of
the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their
pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete
security that the powers of government would never be abused to
their disadvantage. By degrees, this new demand for elective and
temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions
of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded,
to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power
of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power
emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons
began to think that too much importance had been attached to the
limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was a resource
against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those
of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should
be identified with the people; that their interest and will should
be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need
to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its
tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually responsible
to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust
them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be
made. Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated,
and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of thought, or
rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last generation
of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which, it
still apparently predominates. Those who admit any limit to what
a government may do, except in the case of such governments as
they think ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions
among the political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone
of sentiment might by this time have been prevalent in our own
country, if the circumstances which for a time encouraged it had
continued unaltered.
But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons,
success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have
concealed from observation. The notion, that the people have no
need to limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic,
when popular government was a thing only dreamed about, or read
of as having existed at some distant period of the past. Neither
was that notion necessarily disturbed by such temporary aberrations
as those of the French Revolution, the worst of which were the
work of an usurping few, and which, in any case, belonged, not
to the permanent working of popular institutions, but to a sudden
and convulsive outbreak against monarchical and aristocratic despotism.
In time, however, a democratic republic came to occupy a large
portion of the earth's surface, and made itself felt as one of
the most powerful members of the community of nations; and elective
and responsible government became subject to the observations
and criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It was now
perceived that such phrases as "self-government," and
"the power of the people over themselves," do not express
the true state of the case. The "people" who exercise
the power, are not always the same people with those over whom
it is exercised, and the "self-government" spoken of,
is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the
rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the
will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people;
the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted
as the majority; the people, consequently, may desire to oppress
a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against
this, as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore,
of the power of government over individuals, loses none of its
importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable
to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. This
view of things, recommending itself equally to the intelligence
of thinkers and to the inclination of those important classes
in European society to whose real or supposed interests democracy
is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and
in political speculations "the tyranny of the majority"
is now generally included among the evils against which society
requires to be on its guard.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first,
and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through
the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived
that when society is itself the tyrant --society collectively,
over the separate individuals who compose it--its means of tyrannizing
are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of
its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its
own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right,
or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle,
it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds
of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such
extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating
much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul
itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate
is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny
of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of
society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own
ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from
them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the
formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways,
and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model
of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of
collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that
limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable
to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political
despotism.
But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general
terms, the practical question, where to place the limit--how to
make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and
social control--is a subject on which nearly everything remains
to be done. All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends
on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the
first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects
for the operation of law. What these rules should be, is the principal
question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the most
obvious cases, it is one of those which least progress has been
made in resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any two countries,
have decided it alike; and the decision of one age or country
is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age and country
no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject
on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain
among themselves appear to them self-evident and selfjustifying.
This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of the
magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb
says a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first.
The effect of custom, in preventing any misgiving respecting the
rules of conduct which mankind impose on one another, is all the
more complete because the subJect is one on which it is not generally
considered necessary that reasons should be given, either by one
person to others, or by each to himself. People are accustomed
to believe and have been encouraged in the belief by some who
aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings,
on subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render
reasons unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them
to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling
in each person's mind that everybody should be required to act
as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like them to
act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard
of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct,
not supported by reasons, can only count as one person's preference;
and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal to a similar
preference felt by other people, it is still only many people's
liking instead of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own preference,
thus supported, is not only a perfectly satisfactory reason, but
the only one he generally has for any of his notions of morality,
taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his religious
creed; and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that.
Men's opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blamable,
are affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their
wishes in regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous
as those which determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes
their reason--at other times their prejudices or superstitions:
often their social affections, not seldom their antisocial ones,
their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but
most commonly, their desires or fears for themselves--their legitimate
or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant
class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates
from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority.
The morality between Spartans and Helots, between planters and
negroes, between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers,
between men and women, has been for the most part the creation
of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments thus
generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members
of the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where,
on the other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendency,
or where its ascendency is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments
frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority.
Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both
in act and forbearance which have been enforced by law or opinion,
has been the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences
or aversions of their temporal masters, or of their gods. This
servility though essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives
rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men
burn magicians and heretics. Among so many baser influences, the
general and obvious interests of society have of course had a
share, and a large one, in the direction of the moral sentiments:
less, however, as a matter of reason, and on their own account,
than as a consequence of the sympathies and antipathies which
grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which had little
or nothing to do with the interests of society, have made themselves
felt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great force.
The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion
of it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined
the rules laid down for general observance, under the penalties
of law or opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance
of society in thought and feeling, have left this condition of
things unassailed in principle, however they may have come into
conflict with it in some of its details. They have occupied themselves
rather in inquiring what things society ought to like or dislike,
than in questioning whether its likings or dislikings should be
a law to individuals. They preferred endeavouring to alter the
feelings of mankind on the particular points on which they were
themselves heretical, rather than make common cause in defence
of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case in which the
higher ground has been taken on principle and maintained with
consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is that
of religious belief: a case instructive in many ways, and not
least so as forming a most striking instance of the fallibility
of what is called the moral sense: for the odium theologicum,
in a sincere bigot, is one of the most unequivocal cases of moral
feeling. Those who first broke the yoke of what called itself
the Universal Church, were in general as little willing to permit
difference of religious opinion as that church itself. But when
the heat of the conflict was over, without giving a complete victory
to any party, and each church or sect was reduced to limit its
hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already occupied;
minorities, seeing that they had no chance of becoming majorities,
were under the necessity of pleading to those whom they could
not convert, for permission to differ. It is accordingly on this
battle-field, almost solely, that the rights of the individual
against society have been asserted on broad grounds of principle,
and the claim of society to exercise authority over dissentients
openly controverted. The great writers to whom the world owes
what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom
of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely
that a human being is accountable to others for his religious
belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they
really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere
been practically realized, except where religious indifference,
which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels,
has added its weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all
religious persons, even in the most tolerant countries, the duty
of toleration is admitted with tacit reserves. One person will
bear with dissent in matters of church government, but not of
dogma; another can tolerate everybody, short of a Papist or an
Unitarian; another, every one who believes in revealed religion;
a few extend their charity a little further, but stop at the belief
in a God and in a future state. Wherever the sentiment of the
majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to have abated
little of its claim to be obeyed.
In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our political history,
though the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier, that of law is
lighter, than in most other countries of Europe; and there is
considerable jealousy of direct interference, by the legislative
or the executive power with private conduct; not so much from
any just regard for the independence of the individual, as from
the still subsisting habit of looking on the government as representing
an opposite interest to the public. The majority have not yet
learnt to feel the power of the government their power, or its
opinions their opinions. When they do so, individual liberty will
probably be as much exposed to invasion from the government, as
it already is from public opinion. But, as yet, there is a considerable
amount of feeling ready to be called forth against any attempt
of the law to control individuals in things in which they have
not hitherto been accustomed to be controlled by it; and this
with very little discrimination as to whether the matter is, or
is not, within the legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch
that the feeling, highly salutary on the whole, is perhaps quite
as often misplaced as well grounded in the particular instances
of its application.
There is, in fact, no recognized principle by which the propriety
or impropriety of government interference is customarily tested.
People decide according to their personal preferences. Some, whenever
they see any good to be done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly
instigate the government to undertake the business; while others
prefer to bear almost any amount of social evil, rather than add
one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental
control. And men range themselves on one or the other side in
any particular case, according to this general direction of their
sentiments; or according to the degree of interest which they
feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the government
should do; or according to the belief they entertain that the
government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer;
but very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently
adhere, as to what things are fit to be done by a government.
And it seems to me that, in consequence of this absence of rule
or principle, one side is at present as often wrong as the other;
the interference of government is, with about equal frequency,
improperly invoked and improperly condemned.
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle,
as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with
the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the
means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or
the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that
the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or
collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any
of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for
which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His
own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or
even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him,
or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but
not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case
he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is
desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some
one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he
is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the
part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right,
absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual
is sovereign.
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is
meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties.
We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the
age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those
who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others,
must be protected against their own actions as well as against
external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration
those backward states of society in which the race itself may
be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the
way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom
any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the
spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients
that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism
is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians,
provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified
by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no
application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind
have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.
Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to
an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find
one. But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being
guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a
period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here
concern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in
that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible
as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security
of others.
It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could
be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right as a
thing independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate
appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the
largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a
progressive being. Those interests, I contend, authorize the subjection
of individual spontaneity to external control, only in respect
to those actions of each, which concern the interest of other
people. If any one does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima
facie case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal penalties
are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There are
also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may
rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence
in a court of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence,
or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society
of which he enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts
of individual beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's
life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill-usage,
things which whenever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may
rightfully be made responsible to society for not doing. A person
may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction,
and in neither case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
The latter case, it is true, requires a much more cautious exercise
of compulsion than the former. To make any one answerable for
doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for
not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception.
Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify
that exception. In all things which regard the external relations
of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests
are concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector.
There are often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility;
but these reasons must arise from the special expediencies of
the case: either because it is a kind of case in which he is on
the whole likely to act better, when left to his own discretion,
than when controlled in any way in which society have it in their
power to control him; or because the attempt to exercise control
would produce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent.
When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of responsibility,
the conscience of the agent himself should step into the vacant
judgment-seat, and protect those interests of others which have
no external protection; judging himself all the more rigidly,
because the case does not admit of his being made accountable
to the judgment of his fellowcreatures.
But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished
from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending
all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects
only himself, or, if it also affects others, only with their free,
voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I say
only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance: for
whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and
the objection which may be grounded on this contingency, will
receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate
region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain
of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most
comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute
freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or
speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of
expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different
principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an
individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as
much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting
in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable
from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and
pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character;
of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow;
without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what
we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct
foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each
individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination
among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving
harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of
full age, and not forced or deceived.
No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected,
is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely
free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The
only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our
own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive
others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is
the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental
or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other
to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to
live as seems good to the rest.
Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons,
may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands
more directly opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion
and practice. Society has expended fully as much effort in the
attempt (according to its lights) to compel people to conform
to its notions of personal, as of social excellence. The ancient
commonwealths thought themselves entitled to practise, and the
ancient philosophers countenanced, the regulation of every part
of private conduct by public authority, on the ground that the
State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline
of every one of its citizens, a mode of thinking which may have
been admissible in small republics surrounded by powerful enemies,
in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal
commotion, and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy
and self-command might so easily be fatal, that they could not
afford to wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom.
In the modern world, the greater size of political communities,
and above all, the separation between the spiritual and temporal
authority (which placed the direction of men's consciences in
other hands than those which controlled their worldly affairs),
prevented so great an interference by law in the details of private
life; but the engines of moral repression have been wielded more
strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in self-regarding,
than even in social matters; religion, the most powerful of the
elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling,
having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a
hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct,
or by the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern reformers
who have placed themselves in strongest opposition to the religions
of the past, have been noway behind either churches or sects in
their assertion of the right of spiritual domination: M. Comte,
in particular, whose social system, as unfolded in his Traite
de Politique Positive, aims at establishing (though by moral more
than by legal appliances) a despotism of society over the individual,
surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the
most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.
Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is
also in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch
unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the
force of opinion and even by that of legislation: and as the tendency
of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen
society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment
is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear,
but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable. The disposition
of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens, to impose
their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others,
is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some
of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is hardly
ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as
the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier
of moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must
expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.
It will be convenient for the argument, if, instead of at once
entering upon the general thesis, we confine ourselves in the
first instance to a single branch of it, on which the principle
here stated is, if not fully, yet to a certain point, recognized
by the current opinions. This one branch is the Liberty of Thought:
from which it is impossible to separate the cognate liberty of
speaking and of writing. Although these liberties, to some considerable
amount, form part of the political morality of all countries which
profess religious toleration and free institutions, the grounds,
both philosophical and practical, on which they rest, are perhaps
not so familiar to the general mind, nor so thoroughly appreciated
by many even of the leaders of opinion, as might have been expected.
Those grounds, when rightly understood, are of much wider application
than to only one division of the subject, and a thorough consideration
of this part of the question will be found the best introduction
to the remainder. Those to whom nothing which I am about to say
will be new, may therefore, I hope, excuse me, if on a subject
which for now three centuries has been so often discussed, I venture
on one discussion more.
CHAPTER II OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
THE time, it is to be hoped, is gone by when any defence would
be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of
the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument,
we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature
or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to
prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what
arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question,
besides, has been so often and so triumphantly enforced by preceding
writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place.
Though the law of England, on the subject of the press, is as
servile to this day as it was in the time of the Tudors, there
is little danger of its being actually put in force against political
discussion, except during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrection
drives ministers and judges from their propriety;[1] and, speaking
generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be apprehended
that the government, whether completely responsible to the people
or not, will often attempt to control the expression of opinion,
except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the general
intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore, that the
government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks
of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what
it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people
to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government.
The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more
title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious,
when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition
to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only
one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more
justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the
power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion
a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be
obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury,
it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted
only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing
the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human
race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who
dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If
the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of
exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost
as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression
of truth, produced by its collision with error.
It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each
of which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to
it. We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring
to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it
would be an evil still.
First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority
may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course
deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority
to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other
person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion,
because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their
certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing
of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation
may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse
for being common.
Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their
fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical
judgment, which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every
one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary
to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit
the supposition that any opinion of which they feel very certain,
may be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge
themselves to be liable. Absolute princes, or others who are accustomed
to unlimited deference, usually feel this complete confidence
in their own opinions on nearly all subjects. People more happily
situated, who sometimes hear their opinions disputed, and are
not wholly unused to be set right when they are wrong, place the
same unbounded reliance only on such of their opinions as are
shared by all who surround them, or to whom they habitually defer:
for in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his own solitary
judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on the
infallibility of "the world" in general. And the world,
to each individual, means the part of it with which he comes in
contact; his party, his sect, his church, his class of society:
the man may be called, by comparison, almost liberal and largeminded
to whom it means anything so comprehensive as his own country
or his own age. Nor is his faith in this collective authority
at all shaken by his being aware that other ages, countries, sects,
churches, classes, and parties have thought, and even now think,
the exact reverse. He devolves upon his own world the responsibility
of being in the right against the dissentient worlds of other
people; and it never troubles him that mere accident has decided
which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance,
and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London,
would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. Yet it
is as evident in itself as any amount of argument can make it,
that ages are no more infallible than individuals; every age having
held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only
false but absurd; and it is as certain that many opinions, now
general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many,
once general, are rejected by the present.
The objection likely to be made to this argument, would probably
take some such form as the following. There is no greater assumption
of infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error, than
in any other thing which is done by public authority on its own
judgment and responsibility. Judgment is given to men that they
may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be
told that they ought not to use it at all? To prohibit what they
think pernicious, is not claiming exemption from error, but fulfilling
the duty incumbent on them, although fallible, of acting on their
conscientious conviction. If we were never to act on our opinions,
because those opinions may be wrong, we should leave all our interests
uncared for, and all our duties unperformed. An objection which
applies to all conduct can be no valid objection to any conduct
in particular.
It is the duty of governments, and of individuals, to form the
truest opinions they can; to form them carefully, and never impose
them upon others unless they are quite sure of being right. But
when they are sure (such reasoners may say), it is not conscientiousness
but cowardice to shrink from acting on their opinions, and allow
doctrines which they honestly think dangerous to the welfare of
mankind, either in this life or in another, to be scattered abroad
without restraint, because other people, in less enlightened times,
have persecuted opinions now believed to be true. Let us take
care, it may be said, not to make the same mistake: but governments
and nations have made mistakes in other things, which are not
denied to be fit subjects for the exercise of authority: they
have laid on bad taxes, made unjust wars. Ought we therefore to
lay on no taxes, and, under whatever provocation, make no wars?
Men, and governments, must act to the best of their ability. There
is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance
sufficient for the purposes of human life. We may, and must, assume
our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own conduct: and
it is assuming no more when we forbid bad men to pervert society
by the propagation of opinions which we regard as false and pernicious.
I answer, that it is assuming very much more. There is the greatest
difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with
every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted,
and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.
Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion,
is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth
for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with
human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.
When we consider either the history of opinion, or the ordinary
conduct of human life, to what is it to be ascribed that the one
and the other are no worse than they are? Not certainly to the
inherent force of the human understanding; for, on any matter
not self-evident, there are ninety-nine persons totally incapable
of judging of it, for one who is capable; and the capacity of
the hundredth person is only comparative; for the majority of
the eminent men of every past generation held many opinions now
known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things which
no one will now justify. Why is it, then, that there is on the
whole a preponderance among mankind of rational opinions and rational
conduct? If there really is this preponderance--which there must
be, unless human affairs are, and have always been, in an almost
desperate state--it is owing to a quality of the human mind, the
source of everything respectable in man, either as an intellectual
or as a moral being, namely, that his errors are corrigible. He
is capable of rectifying his mistakes by discussion and experience.
Not by experience alone. There must be discussion, to show how
experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices
gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments,
to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it.
Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments
to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then,
of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can
be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only
when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand.
In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of
confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind
open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has
been his practice to listen to all that could be said against
him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself,
and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious.
Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being
can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by
hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety
of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at
by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom
in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect
to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting
and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others,
so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice,
is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for,
being cognizant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against
him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers knowing
that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of
avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon
the subject from any quarter--he has a right to think his judgment
better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not
gone through a similar process.
It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind,
those who are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find
necessary to warrant their relying on it, should be submitted
to by that miscellaneous collection of a few wise and many foolish
individuals, called the public. The most intolerant of churches,
the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint,
admits, and listens patiently to, a "devil's advocate."
The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous
honors, until all that the devil could say against him is known
and weighed. If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted
to be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance
of its truth as they now do. The beliefs which we have most warrant
for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to
the whole world to prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not
accepted, or is accepted and the attempt fails, we are far enough
from certainty still; but we have done the best that the existing
state of human reason admits of; we have neglected nothing that
could give the truth a chance of reaching us: if the lists are
kept open, we may hope that if there be a better truth, it will
be found when the human mind is capable of receiving it; and in
the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach to truth,
as is possible in our own day. This is the amount of certainty
attainable by a fallible being, and this the sole way of attaining
it.
Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments
for free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to
an extreme;" not seeing that unless the reasons are good
for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. Strange that
they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility when
they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects
which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular
principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because
it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is
certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one
who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted,
is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are
the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other
side.
In the present age--which has been described as "destitute
of faith, but terrified at scepticism,"--in which people
feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they
should not know what to do without them--the claims of an opinion
to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its
truth, as on its importance to society. There are, it is alleged,
certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable to well-being,
that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold those beliefs,
as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a case
of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty,
something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant,
and even bind, governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed
by the general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and
still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken
these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is
thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such
men would wish to practise. This mode of thinking makes the justification
of restraints on discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines,
but of their usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to
escape the responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge
of opinions. But those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive
that the assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from one
point to another. The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter
of opinion: as disputable, as open to discussion and requiring
discussion as much, as the opinion itself. There is the same need
of an infallible judge of opinions to decide an opinion to be
noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the opinion condemned
has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will not do to
say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or
harmlessness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its
truth. The truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would
know whether or not it is desirable that a proposition should
be believed, is it possible to exclude the consideration of whether
or not it is true? In the opinion, not of bad men, but of the
best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful:
and can you prevent such men from urging that plea, when they
are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine which they
are told is useful, but which they believe to be false? Those
who are on the side of received opinions, never fail to take all
possible advantage of this plea; you do not find them handling
the question of utility as if it could be completely abstracted
from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all, because
their doctrine is "the truth," that the knowledge or
the belief of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be
no fair discussion of the question of usefulness, when an argument
so vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other. And
in point of fact, when law or public feeling do not permit the
truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are just as little tolerant
of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they allow is an extenuation
of its absolute necessity or of the positive guilt of rejecting
it.
In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying a hearing
to opinions because we, in our own judgment, have condemned them,
it will be desirable to fix down the discussion to a concrete
case; and I choose, by preference, the cases which are least favourable
to me--in which the argument against freedom of opinion, both
on the score of truth and on that of utility, is considered the
strongest. Let the opinions impugned be the belief in a God and
in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of
morality. To fight the battle on such ground, gives a great advantage
to an unfair antagonist; since he will be sure to say (and many
who have no desire to be unfair will say it internally), Are these
the doctrines which you do not deem sufficiently certain to be
taken under the protection of law? Is the belief in a God one
of the opinions, to feel sure of which, you hold to be assuming
infallibility? But I must be permitted to observe, that it is
not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I
call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to
decide that question for others, without allowing them to hear
what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate
this pretension not the less, if put forth on the side of my most
solemn convictions. However positive any one's persuasion may
be, not only of the falsity, but of the pernicious consequences--not
only of the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions
which I altogether condemn) the immorality and impiety of an opinion;
yet if, in pursuance of that private judgment, though backed by
the public judgment of his country or his cotemporaries, he prevents
the opinion from being heard in its defence, he assumes infallibility.
And so far from the assumption being less objectionable or less
dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this
is the case of all others in which it is most fatal. These are
exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit
those dreadful mistakes which excite the astonishment and horror
of posterity. It is among such that we find the instances memorable
in history, when the arm of the law has been employed to root
out the best men and the noblest doctrines; with deplorable success
as to the men, though some of the doctrines have survived to be
(as if in mockery) invoked, in defence of similar conduct towards
those who dissent from them, or from their received interpretation.
Mankind can hardly be too often reminded, that there was once
a man named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and
public opinion of his time, there took place a memorable collision.
Born in an age and country abounding in individual greatness,
this man has been handed down to us by those who best knew both
him and the age, as the most virtuous man in it; while we know
him as the head and prototype of all subsequent teachers of virtue,
the source equally of the lofty inspiration of Plato and the judicious
utilitarianism of Aristotle, "i maestri di color che sanno,"
the two headsprings of ethical as of all other philosophy. This
acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers who have since
lived--whose fame, still growing after more than two thousand
years, all but outweighs the whole remainder of the names which
make his native city illustrious --was put to death by his countrymen,
after a judicial conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety,
in denying the gods recognized by the State; indeed his accuser
asserted (see the "Apologia") that he believed in no
gods at all. Immorality, in being, by his doctrines and instructions,
a "corrupter of youth." Of these charges the tribunal,
there is every ground for believing, honestly found him guilty,
and condemned the man who probably of all then born had deserved
best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal.
To pass from this to the only other instance of judicial iniquity,
the mention of which, after the condemnation of Socrates, would
not be an anti-climax: the event which took place on Calvary rather
more than eighteen hundred years ago. The man who left on the
memory of those who witnessed his life and conversation, such
an impression of his moral grandeur, that eighteen subsequent
centuries have done homage to him as the Almighty in person, was
ignominiously put to death, as what? As a blasphemer. Men did
not merely mistake their benefactor; they mistook him for the
exact contrary of what he was, and treated him as that prodigy
of impiety, which they themselves are now held to be, for their
treatment of him. The feelings with which mankind now regard these
lamentable transactions, especially the latter of the two, render
them extremely unjust in their judgment of the unhappy actors.
These were, to all appearance, not bad men--not worse than men
most commonly are, but rather the contrary; men who possessed
in a full, or somewhat more than a full measure, the religious,
moral, and patriotic feelings of their time and people: the very
kind of men who, in all times, our own included, have every chance
of passing through life blameless and respected. The high-priest
who rent his garments when the words were pronounced, which, according
to all the ideas of his country, constituted the blackest guilt,
was in all probability quite as sincere in his horror and indignation,
as the generality of respectable and pious men now are in the
religious and moral sentiments they profess; and most of those
who now shudder at his conduct, if they had lived in his time
and been born Jews, would have acted precisely as he did. Orthodox
Christians who are tempted to think that those who stoned to death
the first martyrs must have been worse men than they themselves
are, ought to remember that one of those persecutors was Saint
Paul.
Let us add one more example, the most striking of all, if the
impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom and virtue
of him who falls into it. If ever any one, possessed of power,
had grounds for thinking himself the best and most enlightened
among his cotemporaries, it was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute
monarch of the whole civilized world, he preserved through life
not only the most unblemished justice, but what was less to be
expected from his Stoical breeding, the tenderest heart. The few
failings which are attributed to him, were all on the side of
indulgence: while his writings, the highest ethical product of
the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they differ
at all, from the most characteristic teachings of Christ. This
man, a better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense of the word,
than almost any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns who have
since reigned, persecuted Christianity. Placed at the summit of
all the previous attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered
intellect, and a character which led him of himself to embody
in his moral writings the Christian ideal, he yet failed to see
that Christianity was to be a good and not an evil to the world,
with his duties to which he was so deeply penetrated. Existing
society he knew to be in a deplorable state. But such as it was,
he saw or thought he saw, that it was held together and prevented
from being worse, by belief and reverence of the received divinities.
As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it his duty not to suffer society
to fall in pieces; and saw not how, if its existing ties were
removed, any others could be formed which could again knit it
together. The new religion openly aimed at dissolving these ties:
unless, therefore, it was his duty to adopt that religion, it
seemed to be his duty to put it down. Inasmuch then as the theology
of Christianity did not appear to him true or of divine origin;
inasmuch as this strange history of a crucified God was not credible
to him, and a system which purported to rest entirely upon a foundation
to him so wholly unbelievable, could not be foreseen by him to
be that renovating agency which, after all abatements, it has
in fact proved to be; the gentlest and most amiable of philosophers
and rulers, under a solemn sense of duty, authorized the persecution
of Christianity. To my mind this is one of the most tragical facts
in all history. It is a bitter thought, how different a thing
the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Christian
faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the
auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine. But
it would be equally unjust to him and false to truth, to deny,
that no one plea which can be urged for punishing anti-Christian
teaching, was wanting to Marcus Aurelius for punishing, as he
did, the propagation of Christianity. No Christian more firmly
believes that Atheism is false, and tends to the dissolution of
society, than Marcus Aurelius believed the same things of Christianity;
he who, of all men then living, might have been thought the most
capable of appreciating it. Unless any one who approves of punishment
for the promulgation of opinions, flatters himself that he is
a wiser and better man than Marcus Aurelius--more deeply versed
in the wisdom of his time, more elevated in his intellect above
it--more earnest in his search for truth, or more single-minded
in his devotion to it when found;--let him abstain from that assumption
of the joint infallibility of himself and the multitude, which
the great Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result.
Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of punishment
for restraining irreligious opinions, by any argument which will
not justify Marcus Antoninus, the enemies of religious freedom,
when hard pressed, occasionally accept this consequence, and say,
with Dr. Johnson, that the persecutors of Christianity were in
the right; that persecution is an ordeal through which truth ought
to pass, and always passes successfully, legal penalties being,
in the end, powerless against truth, though sometimes beneficially
effective against mischievous errors. This is a form of the argument
for religious intolerance, sufficiently remarkable not to be passed
without notice.
A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be persecuted
because persecution cannot possibly do it any harm, cannot be
charged with being intentionally hostile to the reception of new
truths; but we cannot commend the generosity of its dealing with
the persons to whom mankind are indebted for them. To discover
to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which
it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken
on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important
a service as a human being can render to his fellow-creatures,
and in certain cases, as in those of the early Christians and
of the Reformers, those who think with Dr. Johnson believe it
to have been the most precious gift which could be bestowed on
mankind. That the authors of such splendid benefits should be
requited by martyrdom; that their reward should be to be dealt
with as the vilest of criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable
error and misfortune, for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth
and ashes, but the normal and justifiable state of things. The
propounder of a new truth, according to this doctrine, should
stand, as stood, in the legislation of the Locrians, the proposer
of a new law, with a halter round his neck, to be instantly tightened
if the public assembly did not, on hearing his reasons, then and
there adopt his proposition. People who defend this mode of treating
benefactors, can not be supposed to set much value on the benefit;
and I believe this view of the subject is mostly confined to the
sort of persons who think that new truths may have been desirable
once, but that we have had enough of them now.
But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution,
is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one
another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience
refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution.
If not suppressed forever, it may be thrown back for centuries.
To speak only of religious opinions: the Reformation broke out
at least twenty times before Luther, and was put down. Arnold
of Brescia was put down. Fra Dolcino was put down. Savonarola
was put down. The Albigeois were put down. The Vaudois were put
down. The Lollards were put down. The Hussites were put down.
Even after the era of Luther, wherever persecution was persisted
in, it was successful. In Spain, Italy, Flanders, the Austrian
empire, Protestantism was rooted out; and, most likely, would
have been so in England, had Queen Mary lived, or Queen Elizabeth
died. Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics
were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. No reasonable
person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated
in the Roman empire. It spread, and became predominant, because
the persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time,
and separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed propagandism.
It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth,
has any inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against
the dungeon and the stake. Men are not more zealous for truth
than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of
legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping
the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has,
consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished
once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will
generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of
its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances
it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand
all subsequent attempts to suppress it.
It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers
of new opinions: we are not like our fathers who slew the prophets,
we even build sepulchres to them. It is true we no longer put
heretics to death; and the amount of penal infliction which modern
feeling would probably tolerate, even against the most obnoxious
opinions, is not sufficient to extirpate them. But let us not
flatter ourselves that we are yet free from the stain even of
legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at least for its
expression, still exist by law; and their enforcement is not,
even in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible
that they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857,
at the summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate
man,[2] said to be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations
of life, was sentenced to twenty-one months imprisonment, for
uttering, and writing on a gate, some offensive words concerning
Christianity. Within a month of the same time, at the Old Bailey,
two persons, on two separate occasions,[3] were rejected as jurymen,
and one of them grossly insulted by the judge and one of the counsel,
because they honestly declared that they had no theological belief;
and a third, a foreigner,[4] for the same reason, was denied justice
against a thief. This refusal of redress took place in virtue
of the legal doctrine, that no person can be allowed to give evidence
in a court of justice, who does not profess belief in a God (any
god is sufficient) and in a future state; which is equivalent
to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded from the protection
of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or assaulted with
impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar opinions,
be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity,
if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption
on which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a
person who does not believe in a future state; a proposition which
betokens much ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since
it is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in
all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honor);
and would be maintained by no one who had the smallest conception
how many of the persons in greatest repute with the world, both
for virtues and for attainments, are well known, at least to their
intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule, besides, is suicidal,
and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence that atheists
must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who are
willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of
publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood.
A rule thus self-convicted of absurdity so far as regards its
professed purpose, can be kept in force only as a badge of hatred,
a relic of persecution; a persecution, too, having the peculiarity
that the qualification for undergoing it is the being clearly
proved not to deserve it. The rule, and the theory it implies,
are hardly less insulting to believers than to infidels. For if
he who does not believe in a future state necessarily lies, it
follows that they who do believe are only prevented from lying,
if prevented they are, by the fear of hell. We will not do the
authors and abettors of the rule the injury of supposing, that
the conception which they have formed of Christian virtue is drawn
from their own consciousness.
These, indeed, are but rags and remnants of persecution, and may
be thought to be not so much an indication of the wish to persecute,
as an example of that very frequent infirmity of English minds,
which makes them take a preposterous pleasure in the assertion
of a bad principle, when they are no longer bad enough to desire
to carry it really into practice. But unhappily there is no security
in the state of the public mind, that the suspension of worse
forms of legal persecution, which has lasted for about the space
of a generation, will continue. In this age the quiet surface
of routine is as often ruffled by attempts to resuscitate past
evils, as to introduce new benefits. What is boasted of at the
present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow
and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry;
and where there is the strongest permanent leaven of intolerance
in the feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the
middle classes of this country, it needs but little to provoke
them into actively persecuting those whom they have never ceased
to think proper objects of persecution.[5] For it is this--it
is the opinions men entertain, and the feelings they cherish,
respecting those who disown the beliefs they deem important, which
makes this country not a place of mental freedom. For a long time
past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that they strengthen
the social stigma. It is that stigma which is really effective,
and so effective is it, that the profession of opinions which
are under the ban of society is much less common in England, than
is, in many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk
of judicial punishment. In respect to all persons but those whose
pecuniary circumstances make them independent of the good will
of other people, opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as
law; men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means
of earning their bread. Those whose bread is already secured,
and who desire no favors from men in power, or from bodies of
men, or from the public, have nothing to fear from the open avowal
of any opinions, but to be ill-thought of and illspoken of, and
this it ought not to require a very heroic mould to enable them
to bear. There is no room for any appeal ad misericordiam in behalf
of such persons. But though we do not now inflict so much evil
on those who think differently from us, as it was formerly our
custom to do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever
by our treatment of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic
philosophy rose like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination
over the whole intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to
the lions, but the Christian Church grew up a stately and spreading
tree, overtopping the older and less vigorous growths, and stifling
them by its shade. Our merely social intolerance, kills no one,
roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to
abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical
opinions do not perceptibly gain or even lose, ground in each
decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue
to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons
among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general
affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And
thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds,
because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning
anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed,
while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason
by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient
plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all
things going on therein very much as they do already. But the
price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the
sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state
of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring
intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and
grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt,
in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can
of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally
renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and
logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.
The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere
conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth whose arguments
on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not
those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative,
do so by narrowing their thoughts and interests to things which
can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles,
that is, to small practical matters, which would come right of
themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and
enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until
then; while that which would strengthen and enlarge men's minds,
free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.
Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is
no evil, should consider in the first place, that in consequence
of it there is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical
opinions; and that such of them as could not stand such a discussion,
though they may be prevented from spreading, do not disappear.
But it is not the minds of heretics that are deteriorated most,
by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox
conclusions. The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics,
and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason
cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute what the world loses
in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters,
who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train
of thought, lest it should land them in something which would
admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among them we
may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtile
and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating
with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources
of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his
conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps,
to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who
does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to
follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth
gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation,
thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only
hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. Not
that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that freedom
of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much, and even
more indispensable, to enable average human beings to attain the
mental stature which they are capable of. There have been, and
may again be, great individual thinkers, in a general atmosphere
of mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be,
in that atmosphere, an intellectually active people. Where any
people has made a temporary approach to such a character, it has
been because the dread of heterodox speculation was for a time
suspended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles are
not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest questions
which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot
hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which
has made some periods of history so remarkable. Never when controversy
avoided the subjects which are large and important enough to kindle
enthusiasm, was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations,
and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary
intellect to something of the dignity of thinking beings. Of such
we have had an example in the condition of Europe during the times
immediately following the Reformation; another, though limited
to the Continent and to a more cultivated class, in the speculative
movement of the latter half of the eighteenth century; and a third,
of still briefer duration, in the intellectual fermentation of
Germany during the Goethian and Fichtean period. These periods
differed widely in the particular opinions which they developed;
but were alike in this, that during all three the yoke of authority
was broken. In each, an old mental despotism had been thrown off,
and no new one had yet taken its place. The impulse given at these
three periods has made Europe what it now is. Every single improvement
which has taken place either in the human mind or in institutions,
may be traced distinctly to one or other of them. Appearances
have for some time indicated that all three impulses are well-nigh
spent; and we can expect no fresh start, until we again assert
our mental freedom.
Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and dismissing
the Supposition that any of the received opinions may be false,
let us assume them to be true, and examine into the worth of the
manner in which they are likely to be held, when their truth is
not freely and openly canvassed. However unwillingly a person
who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion
may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that however
true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly
discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as
formerly) who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly
to what they think true, though he has no knowledge whatever of
the grounds of the opinion, and could not make a tenable defence
of it against the most superficial objections. Such persons, if
they can once get their creed taught from authority, naturally
think that no good, and some harm, comes of its being allowed
to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they make it
nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely
and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and
ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible,
and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are
apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument.
Waiving, however, this possibility--assuming that the true opinion
abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice, a belief independent
of, and proof against, argument--this is not the way in which
truth ought to be held by a rational being. This is not knowing
the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more,
accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth.
If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be cultivated,
a thing which Protestants at least do not deny, on what can these
faculties be more appropriately exercised by any one, than on
the things which concern him so much that it is considered necessary
for him to hold opinions on them? If the cultivation of the understanding
consists in one thing more than in another, it is surely in learning
the grounds of one's own opinions. Whatever people believe, on
subjects on which it is of the first importance to believe rightly,
they ought to be able to defend against at least the common objections.
But, some one may say, "Let them be taught the grounds of
their opinions. It does not follow that opinions must be merely
parroted because they are never heard controverted. Persons who
learn geometry do not simply commit the theorems to memory, but
understand and learn likewise the demonstrations; and it would
be absurd to say that they remain ignorant of the grounds of geometrical
truths, because they never hear any one deny, and attempt to disprove
them." Undoubtedly: and such teaching suffices on a subject
like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to be said on
the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of the evidence
of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side.
There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on
every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the
truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting
reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other
explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory
instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and
it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one:
and until this is shown and until we know how it is shown, we
do not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn
to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion,
politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths
of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling
the appearances which favor some opinion different from it. The
greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record
that he always studied his adversary's case with as great, if
not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero
practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated
by all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth.
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute
them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the
opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he
has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position
for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents
himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like
the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination.
Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries
from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied
by what they offer as refutations. This is not the way to do justice
to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own
mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe
them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for
them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive
form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the
true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of, else
he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which
meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of
what are called educated men are in this condition, even of those
who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may
be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have
never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who
think differently from them, and considered what such persons
may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense
of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess.
They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify the
remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly
conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two
apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred.
All that part of the truth which turns the scale, and decides
the judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers
to; nor is it ever really known, but to those who have attended
equally and impartially to both sides, and endeavored to see the
reasons of both in the strongest light. So essential is this discipline
to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents
of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine
them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most
skilful devil's advocate can conjure up.
To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion
may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind
in general to know and understand all that can be said against
or for their opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it
is not needful for common men to be able to expose all the misstatements
or fallacies of an ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there
is always somebody capable of answering them, so that nothing
likely to mislead uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. That
simple minds, having been taught the obvious grounds of the truths
inculcated on them, may trust to authority for the rest, and being
aware that they have neither knowledge nor talent to resolve every
difficulty which can be raised, may repose in the assurance that
all those which have been raised have been or can be answered,
by those who are specially trained to the task.
Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed
for it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding
of truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the
argument for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this
doctrine acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance
that all objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how
are they to be answered if that which requires to be answered
is not spoken? or how can the answer be known to be satisfactory,
if the objectors have no opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory?
If not the public, at least the philosophers and theologians who
are to resolve the difficulties, must make themselves familiar
with those difficulties in their most puzzling form; and this
cannot be accomplished unless they are freely stated, and placed
in the most advantageous light which they admit of. The Catholic
Church has its own way of dealing with this embarrassing problem.
It makes a broad separation between those who can be permitted
to receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must accept
them on trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what
they will accept; but the clergy, such at least as can be fully
confided in, may admissibly and meritoriously make themselves
acquainted with the arguments of opponents, in order to answer
them, and may, therefore, read heretical books; the laity, not
unless by special permission, hard to be obtained. This discipline
recognizes a knowledge of the enemy's case as beneficial to the
teachers, but finds means, consistent with this, of denying it
to the rest of the world: thus giving to the elite more mental
culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to the
mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental
superiority which its purposes require; for though culture without
freedom never made a large and liberal mind, it can make a clever
nisi prius advocate of a cause. But in countries professing Protestantism,
this resource is denied; since Protestants hold, at least in theory,
that the responsibility for the choice of a religion must be borne
by each for himself, and cannot be thrown off upon teachers. Besides,
in the present state of the world, it is practically impossible
that writings which are read by the instructed can be kept from
the uninstructed. If the teachers of mankind are to be cognizant
of all that they ought to know, everything must be free to be
written and published without restraint.
If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of free
discussion, when the received opinions are true, were confined
to leaving men ignorant of the grounds of those opinions, it might
be thought that this, if an intellectual, is no moral evil, and
does not affect the worth of the opinions, regarded in their influence
on the character. The fact, however, is, that not only the grounds
of the opinion are forgotten in the absence of discussion, but
too often the meaning of the opinion itself. The words which convey
it, cease to suggest ideas, or suggest only a small portion of
those they were originally employed to communicate. Instead of
a vivid conception and a living belief, there remain only a few
phrases retained by rote; or, if any part, the shell and husk
only of the meaning is retained, the finer essence being lost.
The great chapter in human history which this fact occupies and
fills, cannot be too earnestly studied and meditated on.
It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines
and religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality
to those who originate them, and to the direct disciples of the
originators. Their meaning continues to be felt in undiminished
strength, and is perhaps brought out into even fuller consciousness,
so long as the struggle lasts to give the doctrine or creed an
ascendency over other creeds. At last it either prevails, and
becomes the general opinion, or its progress stops; it keeps possession
of the ground it has gained, but ceases to spread further. When
either of these results has become apparent, controversy on the
subject flags, and gradually dies away. The doctrine has taken
its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of the admitted
sects or divisions of opinion: those who hold it have generally
inherited, not adopted it; and conversion from one of these doctrines
to another, being now an exceptional fact, occupies little place
in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of being, as at first,
constantly on the alert either to defend themselves against the
world, or to bring the world over to them, they have subsided
into acquiescence, and neither listen, when they can help it,
to arguments against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if
there be such) with arguments in its favor. From this time may
usually be dated the decline in the living power of the doctrine.
We often hear the teachers of all creeds lamenting the difficulty
of keeping up in the minds of believers a lively apprehension
of the truth which they nominally recognize, so that it may penetrate
the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the conduct. No
such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still fighting
for its existence: even the weaker combatants then know and feel
what they are fighting for, and the difference between it and
other doctrines; and in that period of every creed's existence,
not a few persons may be found, who have realized its fundamental
principles in all the forms of thought, have weighed and considered
them in all their important bearings, and have experienced the
full effect on the character, which belief in that creed ought
to produce in a mind thoroughly imbued with it. But when it has
come to be an hereditary creed, and to be received passively,
not actively--when the mind is no longer compelled, in the same
degree as at first, to exercise its vital powers on the questions
which its belief presents to it, there is a progressive tendency
to forget all of the belief except the formularies, or to give
it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed
with the necessity of realizing it in consciousness, or testing
it by personal experience; until it almost ceases to connect itself
at all with the inner life of the human being. Then are seen the
cases, so frequent in this age of the world as almost to form
the majority, in which the creed remains as it were outside the
mind, encrusting and petrifying it against all other influences
addressed to the higher parts of our nature; manifesting its power
by not suffering any fresh and living conviction to get in, but
itself doing nothing for the mind or heart, except standing sentinel
over them to keep them vacant.
To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the deepest
impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, without
being ever realized in the imagination, the feelings, or the understanding,
is exemplified by the manner in which the majority of believers
hold the doctrines of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean
what is accounted such by all churches and sects--the maxims and
precepts contained in the New Testament. These are considered
sacred, and accepted as laws, by all professing Christians. Yet
it is scarcely too much to say that not one Christian in a thousand
guides or tests his individual conduct by reference to those laws.
The standard to which he does refer it, is the custom of his nation,
his class, or his religious profession. He has thus, on the one
hand, a collection of ethical maxims, which he believes to have
been vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his government;
and on the other, a set of every-day judgments and practices,
which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not so great
a length with others, stand in direct opposition to some, and
are, on the whole, a compromise between the Christian creed and
the interests and suggestions of worldly life. To the first of
these standards he gives his homage; to the other his real allegiance.
All Christians believe that the blessed are the poor and humble,
and those who are illused by the world; that it is easier for
a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of heaven; that they should judge not, lest
they be judged; that they should swear not at all; that they should
love their neighbor as themselves; that if one take their cloak,
they should give him their coat also; that they should take no
thought for the morrow; that if they would be perfect, they should
sell all that they have and give it to the poor. They are not
insincere when they say that they believe these things. They do
believe them, as people believe what they have always heard lauded
and never discussed. But in the sense of that living belief which
regulates conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the
point to which it is usual to act upon them. The doctrines in
their integrity are serviceable to pelt adversaries with; and
it is understood that they are to be put forward (when possible)
as the reasons for whatever people do that they think laudable.
But any one who reminded them that the maxims require an infinity
of things which they never even think of doing would gain nothing
but to be classed among those very unpopular characters who affect
to be better than other people. The doctrines have no hold on
ordinary believers--are not a power in their minds. They have
an habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which
spreads from the words to the things signified, and forces the
mind to take them in, and make them conform to the formula. Whenever
conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to direct
them how far to go in obeying Christ.
Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, but far
otherwise, with the early Christians. Had it been thus, Christianity
never would have expanded from an obscure sect of the despised
Hebrews into the religion of the Roman empire. When their enemies
said, "See how these Christians love one another" (a
remark not likely to be made by anybody now), they assuredly had
a much livelier feeling of the meaning of their creed than they
have ever had since. And to this cause, probably, it is chiefly
owing that Christianity now makes so little progress in extending
its domain, and after eighteen centuries, is still nearly confined
to Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even with the strictly
religious, who are much in earnest about their doctrines, and
attach a greater amount of meaning to many of them than people
in general, it commonly happens that the part which is thus comparatively
active in their minds is that which was made by Calvin, or Knox,
or some such person much nearer in character to themselves. The
sayings of Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing
hardly any effect beyond what is caused by mere listening to words
so amiable and bland. There are many reasons, doubtless, why doctrines
which are the badge of a sect retain more of their vitality than
those common to all recognized sects, and why more pains are taken
by teachers to keep their meaning alive; but one reason certainly
is, that the peculiar doctrines are more questioned, and have
to be oftener defended against open gainsayers. Both teachers
and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is no
enemy in the field.
The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all traditional
doctrines--those of prudence and knowledge of life, as well as
of morals or religion. All languages and literatures are full
of general observations on life, both as to what it is, and how
to conduct oneself in it; observations which everybody knows,
which everybody repeats, or hears with acquiescence, which are
received as truisms, yet of which most people first truly learn
the meaning, when experience, generally of a painful kind, has
made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting under some
unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person call to
mind some proverb or common saying familiar to him all his life,
the meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does
now, would have saved him from the calamity. There are indeed
reasons for this, other than the absence of discussion: there
are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized,
until personal experience has brought it home. But much more of
the meaning even of these would have been understood, and what
was understood would have been far more deeply impressed on the
mind, if the man had been accustomed to hear it argued pro and
con by people who did understand it. The fatal tendency of mankind
to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful,
is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well
spoken of "the deep slumber of a decided opinion."
But what! (it may be asked) Is the absence of unanimity an indispensable
condition of true knowledge? Is it necessary that some part of
mankind should persist in error, to enable any to realize the
truth? Does a belief cease to be real and vital as soon as it
is generally received--and is a proposition never thoroughly understood
and felt unless some doubt of it remains? As soon as mankind have
unanimously accepted a truth, does the truth perish within them?
The highest aim and best result of improved intelligence, it has
hitherto been thought, is to unite mankind more and more in the
acknowledgment of all important truths: and does the intelligence
only last as long as it has not achieved its object? Do the fruits
of conquest perish by the very completeness of the victory?
I affirm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number of doctrines
which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on
the increase: and the well-being of mankind may almost be measured
by the number and gravity of the truths which have reached the
point of being uncontested. The cessation, on one question after
another, of serious controversy, is one of the necessary incidents
of the consolidation of opinion; a consolidation as salutary in
the case of true opinions, as it is dangerous and noxious when
the opinions are erroneous. But though this gradual narrowing
of the bounds of diversity of opinion is necessary in both senses
of the term, being at once inevitable and indispensable, we are
not therefore obliged to conclude that all its consequences must
be beneficial. The loss of so important an aid to the intelligent
and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the necessity
of explaining it to, or defending it against, opponents, though
not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the
benefit of its universal recognition. Where this advantage can
no longer be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers
of mankind endeavoring to provide a substitute for it; some contrivance
for making the difficulties of the question as present to the
learner's consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him by a
dissentient champion, eager for his conversion.
But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have
lost those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, so magnificently
exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this
description. They were essentially a negative discussion of the
great questions of philosophy and life, directed with consummate
skill to the purpose of convincing any one who had merely adopted
the commonplaces of received opinion, that he did not understand
the subject --that he as yet attached no definite meaning to the
doctrines he professed; in order that, becoming aware of his ignorance,
he might be put in the way to attain a stable belief, resting
on a clear apprehension both of the meaning of doctrines and of
their evidence. The school disputations of the Middle Ages had
a somewhat similar object. They were intended to make sure that
the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary correlation)
the opinion opposed to it, and could enforce the grounds of the
one and confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests
had indeed the incurable defect, that the premises appealed to
were taken from authority, not from reason; and, as a discipline
to the mind, they were in every respect inferior to the powerful
dialectics which formed the intellects of the "Socratici
viri:" but the modern mind owes far more to both than it
is generally willing to admit, and the present modes of education
contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies the place
either of the one or of the other. A person who derives all his
instruction from teachers or books, even if he escape the besetting
temptation of contenting himself with cram, is under no compulsion
to hear both sides; accordingly it is far from a frequent accomplishment,
even among thinkers, to know both sides; and the weakest part
of what everybody says in defence of his opinion, is what he intends
as a reply to antagonists. It is the fashion of the present time
to disparage negative logic --that which points out weaknesses
in theory or errors in practice, without establishing positive
truths. Such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as
an ultimate result; but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge
or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly;
and until people are again systematically trained to it, there
will be few great thinkers, and a low general average of intellect,
in any but the mathematical and physical departments of speculation.
On any other subject no one's opinions deserve the name of knowledge,
except so far as he has either had forced upon him by others,
or gone through of himself, the same mental process which would
have been required of him in carrying on an active controversy
with opponents. That, therefore, which when absent, it is so indispensable,
but so difficult, to create, how worse than absurd is it to forego,
when spontaneously offering itself! If there are any persons who
contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion
will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen
to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what
we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty
or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labor
for ourselves.
It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes which
make diversity of opinion advantageous, and will continue to do
so until mankind shall have entered a stage of intellectual advancement
which at present seems at an incalculable distance. We have hitherto
considered only two possibilities: that the received opinion may
be false, and some other opinion, consequently, true; or that,
the received opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite
error is essential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of
its truth. But there is a commoner case than either of these;
when the conflicting doctrines, instead of being one true and
the other false, share the truth between them; and the nonconforming
opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, of which
the received doctrine embodies only a part. Popular opinions,
on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom
or never the whole truth. They are a part of the truth; sometimes
a greater, sometimes a smaller part, but exaggerated, distorted,
and disjoined from the truths by which they ought to be accompanied
and limited. Heretical opinions, on the other hand, are generally
some of these suppressed and neglected truths, bursting the bonds
which kept them down, and either seeking reconciliation with the
truth contained in the common opinion, or fronting it as enemies,
and setting themselves up, with similar exclusiveness, as the
whole truth. The latter case is hitherto the most frequent, as,
in the human mind, one-sidedness has always been the rule, and
many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion,
one part of the truth usually sets while another rises. Even progress,
which ought to superadd, for the most part only substitutes one
partial and incomplete truth for another; improvement consisting
chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more wanted,
more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which it displaces.
Such being the partial character of prevailing opinions, even
when resting on a true foundation; every opinion which embodies
somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits,
ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error
and confusion that truth may be blended. No sober judge of human
affairs will feel bound to be indignant because those who force
on our notice truths which we should otherwise have overlooked,
overlook some of those which we see. Rather, he will think that
so long as popular truth is one-sided, it is more desirable than
otherwise that unpopular truth should have one-sided asserters
too; such being usually the most energetic, and the most likely
to compel reluctant attention to the fragment of wisdom which
they proclaim as if it were the whole.
Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed,
and all those of the uninstructed who were led by them, were lost
in admiration of what is called civilization, and of the marvels
of modern science, literature, and philosophy, and while greatly
overrating the amount of unlikeness between the men of modern
and those of ancient times, indulged the belief that the whole
of the difference was in their own favor; with what a salutary
shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau explode like bombshells in
the midst, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided opinion,
and forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with
additional ingredients. Not that the current opinions were on
the whole farther from the truth than Rousseau's were; on the
contrary, they were nearer to it; they contained more of positive
truth, and very much less of error. Nevertheless there lay in
Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated down the stream of opinion
along with it, a considerable amount of exactly those truths which
the popular opinion wanted; and these are the deposit which was
left behind when the flood subsided. The superior worth of simplicity
of life, the enervating and demoralizing effect of the trammels
and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have never
been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote;
and they will in time produce their due effect, though at present
needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by
deeds, for words, on this subject, have nearly exhausted their
power.
In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of
order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both
necessary elements of a healthy state of political life; until
the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as
to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing
what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away.
Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies
of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the
other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity.
Unless opinions favorable to democracy and to aristocracy, to
property and to equality, to co-operation and to competition,
to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to
liberty and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms
of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced
and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance
of both elements obtaining their due; one scale is sure to go
up, and the other down. Truth, in the great practical concerns
of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and combining
of opposites, that very few have minds sufficiently capacious
and impartial to make the adjustment with an approach to correctness,
and it has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between
combatants fighting under hostile banners. On any of the great
open questions just enumerated, if either of the two opinions
has a better claim than the other, not merely to be tolerated,
but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which happens
at the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is
the opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected
interests, the side of human well-being which is in danger of
obtaining less than its share. I am aware that there is not, in
this country, any intolerance of differences of opinion on most
of these topics. They are adduced to show, by admitted and multiplied
examples, the universality of the fact, that only through diversity
of opinion is there, in the existing state of human intellect,
a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth. When there are
persons to be found, who form an exception to the apparent unanimity
of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the right,
it is always probable that dissentients have something worth hearing
to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something by
their silence.
It may be objected, "But some received principles, especially
on the highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truths.
The Christian morality, for instance, is the whole truth on that
subject and if any one teaches a morality which varies from it,
he is wholly in error." As this is of all cases the most
important in practice, none can be fitter to test the general
maxim. But before pronouncing what Christian morality is or is
not, it would be desirable to decide what is meant by Christian
morality. If it means the morality of the New Testament, I wonder
that any one who derives his knowledge of this from the book itself,
can suppose that it was announced, or intended, as a complete
doctrine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a preexisting
morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which
that morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wider and
higher; expressing itself, moreover, in terms most general, often
impossible to be interpreted literally, and possessing rather
the impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the precision of
legislation. To extract from it a body of ethical doctrine, has
never been possible without eking it out from the Old Testament,
that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but in many respects
barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people. St. Paul,
a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the doctrine
and filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a preexisting
morality, namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his advice
to Christians is in a great measure a system of accommodation
to that; even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to
slavery. What is called Christian, but should rather be termed
theological, morality, was not the work of Christ or the Apostles,
but is of much later origin, having been gradually built up by
the Catholic Church of the first five centuries, and though not
implicitly adopted by moderns and Protestants, has been much less
modified by them than might have been expected. For the most part,
indeed, they have contented themselves with cutting off the additions
which had been made to it in the Middle Ages, each sect supplying
the place by fresh additions, adapted to its own character and
tendencies. That mankind owe a great debt to this morality, and
to its early teachers, I should be the last person to deny; but
I do not scruple to say of it, that it is, in many important points,
incomplete and one-sided, and that unless ideas and feelings,
not sanctioned by it, had contributed to the formation of European
life and character, human affairs would have been in a worse condition
than they now are. Christian morality (so called) has all the
characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against
Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive
rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence
from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts
(as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates
unduly over "thou shalt." In its horror of sensuality,
it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised
away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and
the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to
a virtuous life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients,
and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially
selfish character, by disconnecting each man's feelings of duty
from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except so far as a
self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them.
It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates
submission to all authorities found established; who indeed are
not to be actively obeyed when they command what religion forbids,
but who are not to be resisted, far less rebelled against, for
any amount of wrong to ourselves. And while, in the morality of
the best Pagan nations, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate
place, infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely
Christian ethics that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed
or acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that
we read the maxim--"A ruler who appoints any man to an office,
when there is in his dominions another man better qualified for
it, sins against God and against the State." What little
recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern
morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian;
as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity,
high-mindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honor, is
derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our education,
and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which
the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience.
I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are
necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics, in every manner
in which it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a
complete moral doctrine which it does not contain, do not admit
of being reconciled with it. Far less would I insinuate this of
the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself. I believe that the
sayings of Christ are all, that I can see any evidence of their
having been intended to be; that they are irreconcilable with
nothing which a comprehensive morality requires; that everything
which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them, with
no greater violence to their language than has been done to it
by all who have attempted to deduce from them any practical system
of conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent with this, to
believe that they contain and were meant to contain, only a part
of the truth; that many essential elements of the highest morality
are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended
to be provided for, in the recorded deliverances of the Founder
of Christianity, and which have been entirely thrown aside in
the system of ethics erected on the basis of those deliverances
by the Christian Church. And this being so, I think it a great
error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian doctrine
that complete rule for our guidance, which its author intended
it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide. I believe,
too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil,
detracting greatly from the value of the moral training and instruction,
which so many wellmeaning persons are now at length exerting themselves
to promote. I much fear that by attempting to form the mind and
feelings on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those
secular standards (as for want of a better name they may be called)
which heretofore coexisted with and supplemented the Christian
ethics, receiving some of its spirit, and infusing into it some
of theirs, there will result, and is even now resulting, a low,
abject, servile type of character, which, submit itself as it
may to what it deems the Supreme Will, is incapable of rising
to or sympathizing in the conception of Supreme Goodness. I believe
that other ethics than any one which can be evolved from exclusively
Christian sources, must exist side by side with Christian ethics
to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that the Christian
system is no exception to the rule that in an imperfect state
of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity
of opinions. It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the
moral truths not contained in Christianity, men should ignore
any of those which it does contain. Such prejudice, or oversight,
when it occurs, is altogether an evil; but it is one from which
we cannot hope to be always exempt, and must be regarded as the
price paid for an inestimable good. The exclusive pretension made
by a part of the truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested
against, and if a reactionary impulse should make the protestors
unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness, like the other, may
be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians would teach
infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be
just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact,
known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary
history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable
moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not
know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith.
I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of
enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils
of religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every truth which
men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted,
inculcated, and in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth
existed in the world, or at all events none that could limit or
qualify the first. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions
to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but
is often heightened and exacerbated thereby; the truth which ought
to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all the more violently
because proclaimed by persons regarded as opponents. But it is
not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more
disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works
its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of
the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable
evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen to
both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden
into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of
truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are
few mental attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which
can sit in intelligent judgment between two sides of a question,
of which only one is represented by an advocate before it, truth
has no chance but in proportion as every side of it, every opinion
which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates,
but is so advocated as to be listened to.
We have now recognized the necessity to the mental wellbeing of
mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom
of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four
distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may,
for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume
our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and
very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the
general or prevailing opinion on any object is rarely or never
the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions
that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the
whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously
and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive
it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension
or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly,
the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being
lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character
and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious
for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth
of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal
experience.
Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to
take notice of those who say, that the free expression of all
opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be
temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much
might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed
bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose
opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence
is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that
every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult
to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on
the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though an important
consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a more fundamental
objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an opinion, even
though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and may justly
incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind are
such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal,
to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue
sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the
elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But
all this, even to the most aggravated degree, is so continually
done in perfect good faith, by persons who are not considered,
and in many other respects may not deserve to be considered, ignorant
or incompetent, that it is rarely possible on adequate grounds
conscientiously to stamp the misrepresentation as morally culpable;
and still less could law presume to interfere with this kind of
controversial misconduct. With regard to what is commonly meant
by intemperate discussion, namely, invective, sarcasm, personality,
and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve
more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally
to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment
of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing
they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will
be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest
zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from
their use, is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively
defenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any
opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively
to received opinions. The worst offence of this kind which can
be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the
contrary opinion as bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort,
those who hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because
they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but themselves
feels much interest in seeing justice done them; but this weapon
is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack a
prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to themselves,
nor if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their own
cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received
can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and
the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which
they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing
ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of
the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing
contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.
For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more
important to restrain this employment of vituperative language
than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to choose,
there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks
on infidelity, than on religion. It is, however, obvious that
law and authority have no business with restraining either, while
opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by
the circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one,
on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in whose
mode of advocacy either want of candor, or malignity, bigotry
or intolerance of feeling manifest themselves, but not inferring
these vices from the side which a person takes, though it be the
contrary side of the question to our own; and giving merited honor
to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to
see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions
really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing
back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favor.
This is the real morality of public discussion; and if often violated,
I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who
to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who conscientiously
strive towards it. [1] These words had scarcely been written,
when, as if to give them an emphatic contradiction, occurred the
Government Press Prosecutions of 1858. That illjudged interference
with the liberty of public discussion has not, however, induced
me to alter a single word in the text, nor has it at all weakened
my conviction that, moments of panic excepted, the era of pains
and penalties far political discussion has, in our own country,
passed away. For, in the first place, the prosecutions were not
persisted in; and in the second, they were never, properly speaking,
political prosecutions. The offence charged was not that of criticizing
institutions, or the acts or persons of rulers, but of circulating
what was deemed an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of Tyrannicide.
If the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered. It would, therefore, be irrelevant and out of place to examine here, whether the doctrine of Tyrannicide deserves that title. I shall content myself with saying, that the subject has been at all times one of the open questions of morals, that the act of a private citizen in striking down a criminal, who, by raising himself above the law, has placed himself beyond the reach of legal punishment or control, has been accounted by whole nations, and by some of the best and wisest of men, not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue and that, right or wrong, it is not of the nature of assassination but of civil war. As such, I hold that the instigation to it, in a specific case, may be a proper subject of punishment, but only if an ov