_will_ think, must think, and cannot help thinking. For example, we
must believe that things which are equal to the same thing are equal
to each other,—that a thing cannot _both_ be and not be,—that it must
_either_ be or not be. These truths are not gained by discussion; on the
contrary, discussion presupposes at least some of them, for you cannot
argue without first principles any more than you can use a lever without
a fulcrum. The prerequisites of reasoning must somehow be recognised by
the human mind before we begin to reason. So much is obvious, but then
it is obvious also that in such cases attempts at discussion cannot do
any harm. If the human mind has in it certain first principles which it
cannot help seeing, and which it accepts of itself, there is no harm in
arguing against those first principles. You may contend as long as you
like, that things which are equal to the same thing are _not_ equal to
each other, or that a thing _can_ both exist and not exist at the same
time, but you will not convince anyone. If you could convince anyone you
would do him irreparable harm, for you would hurt the basis of his mind
and destroy the use of his reason. But happily you cannot convince him.
That which the human mind cannot help thinking it cannot help thinking,
and discussion can no more remove the primary perceptions than it can
produce them. The multiplication table will remain the multiplication
table, neither more nor less, however much we may argue either for it or
against it.
But, though the denial of the real necessary perceptions of the human
mind cannot possibly do any harm, the denial of alleged necessary
perceptions is often essential to the discovery of truth. The human mind,
as experience shows, is apt to manufacture sham self-evidences. The most
obvious case is, that men perpetually ‘do sums’ wrong. If we dwell long
enough and intently enough on the truths of arithmetic they are in each
case self-evident; but, if we are too quick, or let our minds get dull,
we may make any number of mistakes. A certain deliberation and a certain
intensity are both essential to correctness in the matter. Fictitious
necessities of thought will be imposed on us without end unless we are
careful. The greatest minds are not exempt from the risk of such mistakes
even in matters most familiar to them. On the contrary, the history of
science is full of cases in which the ablest men and the most experienced
assumed that it was impossible to think things which are in matter of
fact true, and which it has since been found possible to think quite
easily. The mode in which these sham self-evidences are distinguished
from the real ones is by setting as many minds as possible to try as
often as possible whether they can help thinking the thing or not. But
such trials will never exist without discussion. So far, therefore,
the existence of self-evidences in the human mind is not a reason for
discouraging discussion, but a reason for encouraging it.
Next, it is certainly true that many conclusions which are by no means
self-evident and which are gradually obtained, nevertheless, are not
the result of discussion. For example, the opinion of a man as to the
characters of his friends and acquaintances is not the result of distinct
argument, but the aggregate of distinct impressions: it is not the result
of an investigation consciously pursued, but the effect of a multiplicity
of facts involuntarily presented; it is a definite thing and has a most
definite influence on the mind, but its origin is indefinite and not to
be traced; it is like a great fund raised in very small subscriptions and
of which the subscribers’ names are lost. But here again, though these
opinions too were not gained by discussion, their existence is a reason
for promoting discussion, not for preventing it. Every-day experience
shows that these opinions as to character are often mistaken in the last
degree. Human character is a most complex thing, and the impressions
which different people form of it are as various as the impressions
which the inhabitants of an impassable mountain have of its shape and
size. Each observer has an aggregate idea derived from certain actions
and certain sayings, but the real man has always or almost always said
a thousand sayings of a kind quite different and in a connection quite
different; he has done a vast variety of actions among ‘other men’ and
‘other minds;’ a mobile person will often seem hardly the same if you
meet him in very different societies. And how, except by discussion, is
the true character of such a person to be decided? Each observer must
bring his contingent to the list of _data_; those data must be arranged
and made use of. The certain and positive facts as to which everyone is
agreed must have their due weight: they must be combined and compared
with the various impressions as to which no two people exactly coincide.
A rough summary must be made of the whole. In no other way is it possible
to arrive at the truth of the matter. Without discussion each mind is
dependent on its own partial observation. A great man is one image—one
thing, so to speak—to his valet, another to his son, another to his wife,
another to his greatest friend. None of these must be stereotyped; all
must be compared. To prohibit discussion is to prohibit the corrective
process.
Lastly, I hold that there are first principles or first perceptions which
are neither the result of constant, though forgotten trials like those
last spoken of, nor common to all the race like the first. The most
obvious seem to me to be the principles of taste. The primary perceptions
of beauty vary much in different persons, and for different persons at
the same time, but no one can say that they are not most real and most
influential parts of human nature. There is hardly a thing made by human
hands which is not affected more or less by the conception of beauty felt
by the maker; and there is hardly a human life which would not have been
different if the idea of beauty in the mind of the man who lived it had
been different.
But certainly it would not answer to exclude subjects of taste from
discussion, and to allow one school of taste-teachers to reign alone,
and to prohibit the teaching of all rival schools. The effect would be
to fix on all ages the particular ideas of one age on a matter which is
beyond most others obscure and difficult to reduce to a satisfactory
theory. The human mind evidently differs at various times immensely in
its conclusions upon it, and there is nothing to show that the era of the
persecutor is wiser than any other era, or that his opinion is better
than anyone else’s.
The case of these variable first principles is much like that of the
‘personal equation,’ as it is called in the theory of observations. Some
observers, it is found, habitually see a given phenomenon, say the star
coming to the meridian, a little sooner than most others; some later; no
two persons exactly coincide. The first thing done when a new man comes
into an observatory for practical work is to determine whether he sees
quick or slow; and this is called the ‘personal equation.’ But, according
to the theory of persecution, the national astronomer in each country
would set up his own mind as the standard; in one country he would be a
quick man, and would not let the slow people contest what he said; in
another he would be a slow man, and would not tolerate the quick people,
or let men speak their minds; and so the astronomical observations—the
astronomical _creeds_ if I may say so—of different countries would
radically differ. But as toleration and discussion are allowed, no such
absurd result follows. The observations of different minds are compared
with those of others, and truth is assumed to lie in the mean between the
errors of the quick people and the errors of the slow ones.
No such accurate result can be expected in more complex matters. The
phenomena of astronomical observation relate only to very simple events,
and to a very simple fact about these events. But perceptions of beauty
have an infinite complexity: they are all subtle aggregates of countless
details, and about each of these details probably every mind in some
degree differs from every other one. But in a rough way the same sort of
agreement is possible. Discussion is only an organised mode, by which
various minds compare their conclusions with those of various others.
Bold and strong minds describe graphic and definite impressions: at
first sight these impressions seem wholly different. Writers of the
last century thought classical architecture altogether inferior to
Gothic; many writers now put it just the other way, and maintain a
mediæval cathedral to be a thing altogether superior in kind and nature
to anything classical. For years the world thought Claude’s landscapes
perfect. Then came Mr. Ruskin, and by his ability and eloquence he has
made a whole generation depredate them, and think Turner’s altogether
superior. The extrication of truth by such discussions is very slow; it
is often retarded; it is often thrown back; it often seems to pause for
ages. But upon the whole it makes progress, and the principle of that
progress is this:—Each mind which is true to itself, and which draws its
own impressions carefully, and which compares those impressions with the
impressions of others, arrives at certain conclusions, which as far as
that mind is concerned are ultimate, and are its highest conclusions.
These it sets down as expressively as it can on paper, or communicates by
word of mouth, and these again form data which other minds can contrast
with their own. In this incessant comparison eccentric minds fall off
on every side; some like Milton, some Wordsworth, some can see nothing
in Dryden, some find Racine intolerably dull, some think Shakespeare
barbarous, others consider the contents of the Iliad ‘battles and
schoolboy stuff.’ With history it is the same; some despise one great
epoch, some another. Each epoch has its violent partisans, who will
listen to nothing else, and who think every other epoch in comparison
mean and wretched. These violent minds are always faulty and sometimes
absurd, but they are almost always useful to mankind. They compel men
to hear neglected truth. They uniformly exaggerate their gospel; but
it generally _is_ a gospel. Carlyle said many years since of the old
Poor Law in England:—‘It being admitted then that outdoor relief should
at once cease, what means did great Nature take to make it cease? She
created various men who thought the cessation of outdoor relief the one
thing needful.’ In the same way, it being desirable that the taste of men
should be improved on some point, Nature’s instrument on that point is
some man of genius, of attractive voice and limited mind, who declaims
and insists, not only that the special improvement is a good thing in
itself, but the best of all things, and the root of all other good
things. Most useful, too, are others less apparent; shrinking, sensitive,
testing minds, of whom often the world knows nothing, but each of whom
is in the circle just near him an authority on taste, and communicates
by personal influence the opinions he has formed. The human mind of a
certain maturity, if left alone, prefers real beauty to sham beauty, and
prefers it the sooner if original men suggest new charms, and quiet men
criticise and judge of them.
But an æsthetical persecution would derange all this, for generally
the compulsive power would be in the hands of the believers in some
tradition. The State represents ‘the rough force of society,’ and is
little likely to be amenable to new charms or new ideas; and therefore
the first victim of the persecution would be the original man who was
proposing that which in the end would most improve mankind; and the next
would be the testing and discerning critic who was examining these ideas
and separating the chaff from the wheat in them. Neither would conform
to the old tradition. The inventor would be too eager; the critic too
scrupulous; and so a heavy code of ancient errors would be chained upon
mankind. Nor would the case be at all the better if by some freak of
events the propounder of the new doctrine were to gain full control,
and to prohibit all he did not like. He would try, and try in vain, to
make the inert mass of men accept or care for his new theory, and his
particular enemy would be the careful critic who went with him a little
way and then refused to go any further. If you allow persecution, the
partisans of the new sort of beauty will, if they can, attack those of
the old sort; and the partisans of the old sort will attack those of the
new sort; while both will turn on the quiet and discriminating person who
is trying to select what is good from each. Some chance taste will be
fixed for ages.
But it will be said, ‘Whoever heard of such nonsense as an æsthetical
persecution? Everybody knows such matters of taste must be left to
take care of themselves; as far as they are concerned, nobody wants to
persecute or prohibit.’ But I have spoken of matters of taste because it
is sometimes best to speak in parables. The case of morals and religion,
in which people have always persecuted and still wish to persecute, is
the very same. If there are (as I myself think there are) ultimate truths
of morals and religion which more or less vary for each mind, some sort
of standard and some kind of agreement can only be arrived at about it
in the very same way. The same comparison of one mind with another is
necessary; the same discussion; the same use of criticising minds; the
same use of original ones. The mode of arriving at truth is the same, and
also the mode of stopping it.
We now see the reason why, as I said before, religious persecution often
extirpates new doctrines, but commonly fails to maintain the belief in
old tenets. You can prevent whole classes of men from hearing of the
religion which is congenial to them, but you cannot make men believe a
religion which is uncongenial. You can prevent the natural admirers of
Gothic architecture from hearing anything of it, or from seeing it; but
you cannot make them admire classical architecture. You may prevent the
admirers of Claude from seeing his pictures, or from praising them; but
you cannot make them admirers of Turner. Just so, you may by persecution
prevent minds prone to be Protestant from being Protestant; but you will
not make men real Catholics: you may prevent naturally Catholic minds
from being Catholic; but you will not make them genuine Protestants.
You will not make those believe your religion who are predisposed by
nature in favour of a different kind of religion; you will make of
them, instead, more or less conscious sceptics. Being denied the sort
of religion of which the roots are in their minds and which they could
believe, they will for ever be conscious of an indefinite want. They will
constantly feel after something which they are never able to attain; they
will never be able to settle upon anything; they will feel an instinctive
repulsion from everything; they will be sceptics at heart, because they
were denied the creed for which their heart craves; they will live as
indifferentists, because they were withheld by force from the only creed
to which they would not be indifferent. Persecution in intellectual
countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an
intense, incessant, implacable doubt.
Upon examination, therefore, the admission that certain truths are not
gained by discussion introduces no new element into the subject. The
discussion of such truths is as necessary as of all other truths. The
only limitations are that men’s minds shall in the particular society be
mature enough to bear the discussion, and that the discussion shall not
destroy the society.
I acknowledge these two limitations to the doctrine that discussion
should be free, but I do not admit another which is often urged. It is
said that those who write against toleration should not be tolerated;
that discussion should not aid the enemies of discussion. But why not?
If there is a strong Government and a people fit for discussion, why
should not the cause be heard? We must not assume that the liberty of
discussion has no case of exception. We have just seen that there are,
in fact, several such. In each instance, let the people decide whether
the particular discussion shall go on or not. Very likely, in some cases,
they may decide wrong; but it is better that they should so decide, than
that we should venture to anticipate all experience, and to make sure
that they cannot possibly be right.
It is plain, too, that the argument, here applied to the toleration of
opinion has no application to that of actions. The human mind, in the
cases supposed, learns by freely hearing all arguments, but in no case
does it learn by trying freely all practices. Society, as we now have
it, cannot exist at all unless certain acts are prohibited. It goes on
much better because many other acts are prohibited also. The Government
must take the responsibility of saying what actions it will allow;
that is its first business, and the allowance of all would be the end
of civilisation. But it must, under the conditions specified, hear all
opinions, for the tranquil discussion of all more than anything else
promotes the progressive knowledge of truth, which is the mainspring of
civilisation.
Nor does the argument that the law should not impose a penalty on the
expression of any opinion equally prove that society should not in
many cases apply a penalty to that expression. Society can deal much
more severely than the law with many kinds of acts, because it need be
far less strict in the evidence it requires. It can take cognisance of
matters of common repute and of things of which everyone is sure, but
which nobody can prove. Particularly, it can fairly well compare the
character of the doctrine with the character of the agent, which law
can do but imperfectly, if at all. And it is certain that opinions are
evidence of the character of those who hold them—not conclusive evidence,
but still presumptive. Experience shows that every opinion is compatible
with what every one would admit to be a life fairly approvable, a
life far higher than that of the mass of men. Great scepticism and
great belief have both been found in characters whom both sceptics and
believers must admire. Still, on the whole, there is a certain kinship
between belief and character; those who disagree with a man’s fundamental
creed will generally disapprove of his habitual character. If, therefore,
society sees a man maintaining opinions which by experience it has been
led to connect with actions such as it discountenances, it is justified
in provisionally discountenancing the man who holds those opinions. Such
a man should be put to the proof to show by his life that the opinions
which he holds are not connected with really pernicious actions, as
society thinks they are. If he is visibly leading a high life, society
should discountenance him no longer; it is then clear that he did not
lead a bad life, and the idea that he did or might lead such a life was
the only reason for so doing. A doubt was suggested, but it also has
been removed. This habit of suspicion does not, on the whole, impair
free discussion; perhaps even it improves it. It keeps out the worst
disputants, men of really bad character, whose opinions are the results
of that character, and who refrain from publishing them, because they
fear what society may say. If the law could similarly distinguish between
good disputants and bad, it might usefully impose penalties on the bad.
But, of course, this is impossible. Law cannot distinguish between the
niceties of character; it must punish the publication of an opinion, if
it punishes at all, no matter whether the publisher is a good man or
whether he is a bad one. In such a matter, society is a discriminating
agent: the law is but a blind one.
To most people I may seem to be slaying the slain, and proving what no
one doubts. People, it will be said, no longer wish to persecute. But
I say, they _do_ wish to persecute. In fact, from their writings, and
still better from their conversation, it is easy to see that very many
believers would persecute sceptics, and that very many sceptics would
persecute believers. Society may be wiser; but most earnest believers and
most earnest unbelievers are not at all wiser.
_THE PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION BILL._[26]
(1874.)
If the ‘Public Worship Regulation Bill’ dealt only with subjects
theological or religious, we should not interfere in the discussion; but
it deals also with political questions, on which we do not think it right
to be silent, especially as many whom we much respect have, we think,
selected a policy of which the effect will be the reverse of what they
expect, and the success of which they may hereafter much regret.
All changes in England should be made slowly and after long discussion.
Public opinion should be permitted to ripen upon them. And the reason
is, that all the important English institutions are the relics of a
long past; that they have undergone many transformations; that, like
old houses which have been altered many times, they are full both of
conveniences and inconveniences which at first sight would not be
imagined. Very often a rash alterer would pull down the very part which
makes them habitable, to cure a minor evil or improve a defective outline.
The English Church is one of those among our institutions which, if it is
to be preserved at all, should be touched most anxiously. It is one of
our oldest institutions. Every part of it has a history, which few of us
thoroughly understand, but which we all know to be long and important.
In its political relations it has been altered many times, and each time
under circumstances of considerable complexity. The last settlement was
made more than two hundred years ago, when men’s minds were in a very
different state from what they are now: when Newton had not written, when
Locke had not thought, when physical science, as we now have it, did
not exist, when modern philosophy, for England at least, had not begun.
The railways, the telegraphs, the very common sense of these times,
would have been unintelligible in the year 1660; they would have been
still more unintelligible in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. To attempt to
enforce on us now a settlement made in times so different, is a grave
undertaking; it ought only to be made after the most ample discussion,
and when every competent person has had time to consider the effect.
We have as yet felt little inconvenience from our old law, because we
have dealt with it in a truly English manner. Always refusing to change
it explicitly, always saying that we would never so change it, we were
changing it silently all the while. Year by year this practice was
omitted, or this habit insensibly changed. Each generation differed from
its fathers; and though they might in part utter the same words, they
did not mean the same things; their intellectual life was different.
Incessant changes in science, in literature, in art, and in politics—in
all that forms thinking minds—have made it impossible that really and in
fact we should think the same things in 1874 as our ancestors in 1674 or
1774. Just as in legal theory Queen Victoria has pretty much the same
prerogative as Queen Elizabeth, so too in legal theory the English Church
may be identical with that of two hundred years ago; but the Church is
not a legal theory, it is ‘a congregation of faithful men;’ and no one of
these is in a state of mind identical, or nearly identical, with those of
two hundred years ago.