I. The Duty of Inquiry.--A shipowner was about to send to sea an
emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not over-well built at the
first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed
repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not
seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy;
he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled
and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before
the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy
reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through
so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to
suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would
put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all
these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for
better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous
suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways
he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was
thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light
heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their
strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when
she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.
What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of
the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in
the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in
no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence
as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning
it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although
in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think
otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked
himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it.
Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not
unsound after all; that she made her voyage safely, and many others
after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her owner? Not one jot. When
an action is once done, it is right or wrong forever; no accidental
failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. The
man would not have been innocent, he would only have been not found
out. The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his
belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it;
not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a
right to believe on such evidence as was before him.
There was once an island in which some of the inhabitants professed
a religion teaching neither the doctrine of original sin nor that of
eternal punishment. A suspicion got abroad that the professors of this
religion had made use of unfair means to get their doctrines taught
to children. They were accused of wresting the laws of their country
in such a way as to remove children from the care of their natural
and legal guardians; and even of stealing them away and keeping them
concealed from their friends and relations. A certain number of men
formed themselves into a society for the purpose of agitating the
public about this matter. They published grave accusations against
individual citizens of the highest position and character, and did
all in their power to injure these citizens in the exercise of their
professions. So great was the noise they made, that a Commission
was appointed to investigate the facts; but after the Commission
had carefully inquired into all the evidence that could be got,
it appeared that the accused were innocent. Not only had they been
accused on insufficient evidence, but the evidence of their innocence
was such as the agitators might easily have obtained, if they had
attempted a fair inquiry. After these disclosures the inhabitants
of that country looked upon the members of the agitating society,
not only as persons whose judgment was to be distrusted, but also as
no longer to be counted honorable men. For although they had sincerely
and conscientiously believed in the charges they had made, yet they had
no right to believe on such evidence as was before them. Their sincere
convictions, instead of being honestly earned by patient inquiring,
were stolen by listening to the voice of prejudice and passion.
Let us vary this case also, and suppose, other things remaining as
before, that a still more accurate investigation proved the accused
to have been really guilty. Would this make any difference in the
guilt of the accusers? Clearly not; the question is not whether their
belief was true or false, but whether they entertained it on wrong
grounds. They would no doubt say, 'Now you see that we were right
after all; next time perhaps you will believe us.' And they might be
believed, but they would not thereby become honorable men. They would
not be innocent, they would only be not found out. Every one of them,
if he chose to examine himself in foro conscientiæ, would know that he
had acquired and nourished a belief, when he had no right to believe
on such evidence as was before him; and therein he would know that
he had done a wrong thing.
It may be said, however, that in both of these supposed cases it is
not the belief which is judged to be wrong, but the action following
upon it. The shipowner might say, 'I am perfectly certain that my
ship is sound, but still I feel it my duty to have her examined,
before trusting the lives of so many people to her.' And it might be
said to the agitator, 'However convinced you were of the justice of
your cause and the truth of your convictions, you ought not to have
made a public attack upon any man's character until you had examined
the evidence on both sides with the utmost patience and care.'
In the first place, let us admit that, so far as it goes, this
view of the case is right and necessary; right, because even when
a man's belief is so fixed that he cannot think otherwise, he still
has a choice in regard to the action suggested by it, and so cannot
escape the duty of investigating on the ground of the strength of his
convictions; and necessary, because those who are not yet capable
of controlling their feelings and thoughts must have a plain rule
dealing with overt acts.
But this being premised as necessary, it becomes clear that it is not
sufficient, and that our previous judgment is required to supplement
it. For it is not possible so to sever the belief from the action it
suggests as to condemn the one without condemning the other. No man
holding a strong belief on one side of a question, or even wishing
to hold a belief on one side, can investigate it with such fairness
and completeness as if he were really in doubt and unbiased; so that
the existence of a belief not founded on fair inquiry unfits a man
for the performance of this necessary duty.
Nor is that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon
the actions of him who holds it. He who truly believes that which
prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it,
he has committed it already in his heart. If a belief is not realized
immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the
future. It goes to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which
is the link between sensation and action at every moment of all our
lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that no part
of it can be isolated from the rest, but every new addition modifies
the structure of the whole. No real belief, however trifling and
fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares
us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it
before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train
in our inmost thoughts, which may some day explode into overt action,
and leave its stamp upon our character forever.
And no one man's belief is in any case a private matter which concerns
himself alone. Our lives are guided by that general conception of
the course of things which has been created by society for social
purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes
of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age
to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a
precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handed on to the next one,
not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its
proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief
of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and
an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in
which posterity will live.
In the two supposed cases which have been considered, it has been
judged wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, or to nourish belief
by suppressing doubts and avoiding investigation. The reason of this
judgment is not far to seek: it is that in both these cases the belief
held by one man was of great importance to other men. But forasmuch
as no belief held by one man, however seemingly trivial the belief,
and however obscure the believer, is ever actually insignificant or
without its effect on the fate of mankind, we have no choice but to
extend our judgment to all cases of belief whatever. Belief, that
sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits
into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being,
is ours not for ourselves, but for humanity. It is rightly used on
truths which have been established by long experience and waiting
toil, and which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless
questioning. Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and
direct their common action. It is desecrated when given to unproved
and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of
the believer; to add a tinsel splendor to the plain straight road of
our life and display a bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown the
common sorrows of our kind by a self-deception which allows them not
only to cast down, but also to degrade us. Whoso would deserve well of
his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief with
a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest
on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.
It is not only the leader of men, statesman, philosopher, or poet,
that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers
in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to
kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every
hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs
which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity
of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of
questioning all that we believe.
It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which comes out
of it is often a very bitter thing. It leaves us bare and powerless
where we thought that we were safe and strong. To know all about
anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances. We
feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely
what to do, no matter what happens, than when we have lost our way and
do not know where to turn. And if we have supposed ourselves to know
all about anything, and to be capable of doing what is fit in regard
to it, we naturally do not like to find that we are really ignorant
and powerless, that we have to begin again at the beginning, and try
to learn what the thing is and how it is to be dealt with--if indeed
anything can be learnt about it. It is the sense of power attached
to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and
afraid of doubting.
This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the
belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly
earned by investigation. For then we may justly feel that it is common
property, and holds good for others as well as for ourselves. Then
we may be glad, not that I have learned secrets by which I am safer
and stronger, but that we men have got mastery over more of the
world; and we shall be strong, not for ourselves, but in the name
of Man and in his strength. But if the belief has been accepted on
insufficient evidence, the pleasure is a stolen one. Not only does
it deceive ourselves by giving us a sense of power which we do not
really possess, but it is sinful, because it is stolen in defiance of
our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such beliefs
as from a pestilence, which may shortly master our own body and then
spread to the rest of the town. What would be thought of one who,
for the sake of a sweet fruit, should deliberately run the risk of
bringing a plague upon his family and his neighbors?
And, as in other such cases, it is not the risk only which has to
be considered; for a bad action is always bad at the time when it is
done, no matter what happens afterward. Every time we let ourselves
believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control,
of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer
severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs
and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born
when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But a greater
and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained
and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is
fostered and made permanent. If I steal money from any person,
there may be no harm done by the mere transfer of possession; he
may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money
badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong toward Man, that
I make myself dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should
lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves; for
then it must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to do
evil that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come,
that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby. In like manner,
if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may
be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all,
or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I
cannot help doing this great wrong toward Man, that I make myself
credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe
wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become
credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into
them; for then it must sink back into savagery.
The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the
fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support
of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to
habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to
me. Men speak the truth to one another when each reveres the truth
in his own mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend
revere the truth in my mind when I myself am careless about it,
when I believe things because I want to believe them, and because
they are comforting and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, 'Peace,'
to me, when there is no peace? By such a course I shall surround
myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I
must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet
illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have
made my neighbors ready to deceive. The credulous man is father to
the liar and the cheat; he lives in the bosom of this his family,
and it is no marvel if he should become even as they are. So closely
are our duties knit together, that whoso shall keep the whole law,
and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere and for any one, to believe
anything upon insufficient evidence.
If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or
persuaded of afterward, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which
arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and
the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards
as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without
disturbing it--the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.
If this judgment seems harsh when applied to those simple souls who
have never known better, who have been brought up from the cradle
with a horror of doubt, and taught that their eternal welfare depends
on what they believe, then it leads to the very serious question,
Who hath made Israel to sin?
It may be permitted me to fortify this judgment with the sentence
of Milton--
'A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only
because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determine, without
knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth
he holds becomes his heresy.'