"He who cannot reason is defenceless; he who fears to reason
has a coward mind; he who will not reason is willing to be
deceived and will deceive all who listen to him."
--Maxim of Free Thought.
FREE THOUGHT is founded upon reason. It is the exercise of reason,
without which free thought is free foolishness. Free thought being
the precursor of Secularism, it is necessary first to describe its
principles and their limitation. Free thought means independent
self-thinking. Some say all thought is free since a man can think what
he pleases and no one can prevent him, which is not true. Unfortunately
thinking can be prevented by subtle spiritual intimidation, in earlier
and even in later life.
When a police agent found young Mazzini in the fields of Genoa,
apparently meditating, his father's attention was called to the
youth. His father was told that the Austrian Government did not permit
thinking. The Inquisition intimidated nations from thinking. The priests
by preventing instruction and prohibiting books, limited thinking.
Archbishop Whately shows that no one can reason without words, and since
speech can be, and is, disallowed and made penal, the highway of
thought can be closed. No one can think to any purpose without inquiry
concerning his subject, and inquiry can be made impossible. It is of
little use that any one thinks who cannot verify his ideas by comparison
with those of his compeers. To prevent this is to discourage thought. In
fact thousands are prevented thinking by denying them the means and the
facilities of thinking.
Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal
penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does
not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not
authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he
is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law,
nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society--whose opinion appals so many. He
who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save
the fear of error.
Fearlessness is the essential condition of effective thought. If Satan
sits at the top of the Bible with perdition open underneath it, into
which its readers will be pushed who may doubt what they find in its
pages, the right of private judgment is a snare. A man is a fool who
inquires at this risk. He had better accept at once the superstition of
the first priest he meets. It is not conceivable how a Christian can be
a _free_ thinker.
He who is afraid to know both sides of a question cannot think upon
it. Christians do not, as a rule, want to know what can be said against
their views, and they keep out of libraries all books which would inform
others. Thus such Christians cannot think freely, and are against others
doing it. Doubt comes of thinking; the Christian commonly regards doubt
as sin. How can he be a free thinker who thinks thinking is a sin?
Free thought implies three things as conditions of truth:
1. Free inquiry, which is the pathway to truth.
2. Free publicity to the ideas acquired, in order to learn whether they
are useful--which is the encouragement of truth.
3. The free discussion of convictions without which it is not possible
to know whether they are true or false, which is the verification of
truth.
A man is not a man unless he is a thinker; he is a fool having no ideas
of his own. If he happens to live among men who do think, he browses
like an animal on their ideas. He is a sort of kept man being supported
by the thoughts of others. He is what in England is called a pauper, who
subsists upon "outdoor relief," allowed him by men of intellect.
Without the right of publicity, individual thought, however praiseworthy
and however perfect, would be barren to the community. Algernon Sidney
said: "The best legacy I can leave my children is free speech and the
example of using it."
The clergy of every denomination are unfriendly to its use. The soldiers
of the cross do not fight adversaries in the open. Mr. Gladstone alone
among eminent men of piety has insisted upon the duty of the Church to
prove its claims in discussion. In his Introduction to his address at
the Liverpool College (1872 or 1873) he said: "I wish to place on record
my conviction that belief cannot now be defended by reticence any more
than by railing, or by any privileges or assumption." Since the day of
Milton there has been no greater authority on the religious wisdom of
debate.
Thought, even theological, is often useless, ill-informed, foolish,
mischievous, or even wicked; and he alone who submits it to free
criticism gives guarantees that he means well, and is self-convinced. By
criticism alone comes exposure, correction, or confirmation. The right
of criticism is the sole protection of the community against error
of custom, ignorance, prejudice, or incompetence. It is not until a
proposition has been generally accepted after open and fair examination,
that it can be considered as established and can safely be made a ground
of action or belief.*
* See Formation of Opinions, by Samuel Bailey.
These are the implementary rights of thought. They are what grammar is
to the writer, which teaches him how to express himself, but not what
to say. These rights are as the rules of navigation to the mariner. They
teach him how to steer a ship but do not instruct him where to steer to.
The full exercise of these rights of mental freedom is what training
in the principles of jurisprudence is to the pleader, but it does not
provide him with a brief. It is conceivable that a man may come to be a
master of independent thinking and never put his powers to use; just as
a man may know every rule of grammar and yet never write a book. In
the same way a man may pass an examination in the art of navigation and
never take command of a vessel; or he may qualify for a Barrister, be
called to the Bar and never plead in any court. We know from experience
that many persons join in the combat for the right of intellectual
freedom for its own sake, without intending or caring to use the right
when won. Some are generous enough to claim and contend for these rights
from the belief that they may be useful to others. This is the first
stage of free thought, and, as has been said, many never pass beyond it.
Independent thinking is concerned primarily with removing obstacles to
its own action, and in contests for liberty of speech by tongue and
pen. The free mind fights mainly for its own freedom. It may begin in
curiosity and may end in intellectual pride--unless conscience takes
care of it. Its nature is iconoclastic and it may exist without ideas of
reconstruction.
Though a man goes no further, he is a better man than he who never went
as far. He has acquired a new power, and is sure of his own mind.
Just as one who has learned to fence, or to shoot, has a confidence in
encountering an adversary, which is seldom felt by one who never had
a sword in hand, or practised at a target. The sea is an element of
recreation to one who has learned to swim; it is an element of death to
one ignorant of the art. Besides, the thinker has attained a courage
and confidence unknown to the man of orthodox mind. Since God (we are
assured) is the God of truth, the honest searcher after truth has God on
his side, and has no dread of the King of Perdition--the terror of all
Christian people--since the business of Satan is with those who are
content with false ideas; not with those who seek the true. If it be a
duty to seek the truth and to live the truth, honest discussion, which
discerns it, identifies it, clears it, and establishes it, is a form
of worship of real honor to God and of true service to man. If the
clergyman's speech on behalf of God is rendered exact by criticism, the
criticism is a tribute, and no mean tribute to heaven. Thus the free
exercise of the rights of thought involve no risk hereafter.
Moreover, so far as a man thinks he gains. Thought implies enterprise
and exertion of mind, and the result is wealth of understanding, to
be acquired in no other way. This intellectual property like other
property, has its rights and duties. The thinker's right is to be left
in undisturbed possession of what he has earned; and his duty is
to share his discoveries of truth with mankind, to whom he owes his
opportunities of acquiring it.
Free expression involves consideration for others, on principle.
Democracy without personal deference becomes a nuisance; so free speech
without courtesy is repulsive, as free publicity would be, if not mainly
limited to reasoned truth. Otherwise every blatant impulse would have
the same right of utterance as verified ideas. Even truth can only claim
priority of utterance, when its utility is manifest. As the number and
length of hairs on a man's head is less important to know, than the
number and quality of the ideas in his brain.
True free thought requires special qualities to insure itself
acceptance. It must be owned that the thinker is a disturber. He is a
truth-hunter, and there is no telling what he will find. Truth is an
exile which has been kept out of her kingdom, and Error is a usurper in
possession of it; and the moment Truth comes into her right, Error has
to give up its occupancy of her territory; and as everybody consciously,
or unconsciously harbors some of the emissaries of the usurper, they
do not like owning the fact, and they dispute the warrant of truth
to search their premises, though to be relieved of such deceitful and
costly inmates would be an advantage to them.
An inalienable attribute of free thought, which no theology possesses,
is absolute toleration of all ideas put forward in the interests of
public truth, and submitted to public discussion. The true free thinker
is in favor of the free action of all opinion which injures no one else,
and of putting the best construction he can on the acts of others, not
only because he has thereby less to tolerate, but from perceiving that
he who lacks tolerance towards the ideas of others has no claim for
the tolerance of his own. The defender of toleration must himself be
tolerant. Condemning the coercion of ideas, he is pledged to combat
error only by reason. Vindictiveness towards the erring is not only
inconsistency, it is persecution. Thus free thought is not only
self-defence against error but, by the toleration it imposes, is itself
security for respectfulness in controversy.