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Freedom of 7%ought
and of Speech
A Lecture before the Society for Ethical Culture
of Chicago, December 6, 1891
BY WILLIAM MACKINTIRE SALTER
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Preedom of 7%ought
and of Speech
A Lecture before the Society for Ethical Culture
of Chicago, December 6, 1891
JR Y WILLIAM M.4 CKWAVTIRE SAL TEA’
CHICAGO
CHARLES H. KERR cºr CO., Publishers,
175 Dearborn Street
1892
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND OF
SPEECH.
A LECTURE BEFORE THE SOCIETY FOR ETHICAL
CULTURE of CHICAGo, DECEMBER 6, 1891, BY
WILLIAM M. SALTER.
It is the destiny of man to act from
impulses within his own breast. A
stone or a clod lies where it is placed;
if it moves, it is set in motion by
some force outside it or by some other
object. It has no will of its own, no
thought or purpose of its own. So
at least it would seem; and so we are
accustomed to speak. The mystery
of life is that a living thing has, as it
were, a fount or well of motion and
energy in itself; it is not wholly di-
rected or controlled by outside influ-
ences—and so the smallest insect, the
commonest shrub or weed ranks
higher than those inanimate objects
that have to be pushed or driven to
be moved at all. It is the preroga-
tive of man to be the highest type of
living thing we know ; and by this
4.
we mean that that internal spring
that exists in all living creatures is in
him in fullestmeasure; that he has most
powers of thought and will and pur-
pose, that he can do and produce
things that are absolutely unintelli-
gible from any mere observation of
outside forces acting upon him, that
he can even antagonize some influ-
ences instead of being shaped by them,
in brief, that he is an independent,
self-acting self-regulating being.
This is the nature of man and what
dignity thereby attaches to him l It
is impossible to sever the notion of
dignity from the ideas of power, of re-
serves of inner strength, of ruling
instead of being ruled. Yielding, fear-
ing, copying, conforming, even too
much eagerness to please another are
not compatible with dignity. The first
element in it is self-respect, a sense of
our own worth and significance, a de-
termination to be ourselves. There
is always this charm in the manners
and bearing of those who have be-
longed to the ruling or noble class in
the past. They have been free to as-
sert themselves, they have not taken
fashion from others, but made it, they
would not brook constraint; they were
jealous of their rights, their independ-
ence. Nothing admirable in this
5
world seems to be without its base
side and those who so stoutly stood
for their own rights often trampled on
the rights of others; and hence
“nobles” and “kings” are not words
that sound well in our ears. And
yet if we wish to find exhibitions of
one of the most important elements of
manhood, we have to look at the de-
meanor of the noble or ruling, rather
than the servile or subject class. And
I may add that the true significance of
democracy is not so much in abolishing
kings and nobles and reducing them
to the level of subjects along with
the rest, as in elevating all men
to equality with the old-time rulers,
in making every citizen a ruler and
abolishing the subject-class altogether.
Every man to rule himself, to have
complete liberty and independence,
so far as he does not infringe on
the equal liberty and independence of
others—that is the ideal meaning of
Democracy; it is but a name for those
political conditions which best corre-
spond to the moral demand that every
one should have free scope for the
development of his individuality,
should become in the largest sense a
free and independent being.’
It is from this standpoint that I ap-
proach the subject of Freedom of
6
Thought and of Speech. I would
consider it under two heads ; first, in
respect to any outside authority which
would claim to limit such freedom;
secondly, as a matter of private duty
and obligation—more briefly, first, as
a public, secondly, as a private ques-
tion.
It may seem as if, accurately speak-
ing, thought were always free, since it
is necessarily our own personal posses-
sion, hidden within ourselves and not
capable of being touched or regulated
by any force from without. In one
sense this is true; there can be no di-
rect control of our thought as there
may be of our action or our speech—
our thought is a spiritual quantity,
an internal energy absolutely una-
menable to external law. An au-
thority in church or state may shut
our mouths or impede our actions,
but it can not put a chain on our
thoughts; they are beyond its power.
Thought can only be used by thought,
not by force; yet there may be in-
ternal hindrances to thought almost
as effectual as if they were external
ones. Suppose you have an idea that
it is wrong to think—may not think-
ing in you be almost as paralyzed as
if some external force took away from
you the power of thinking 2 Or
7
suppose penalties are held up to you
in case you do think—penalties either
of bodily injury or of loss of property
or of public disfavor, or, perhaps, of
grave loss and punishment in another
state of existence ; may you not be
afraid to think—and may not such
fear deter you from turning your
thoughts in certain directions almost
as truly as if some force prevented
you ? It takes a man in whom the
bent and instinct for thinking are
strong, or whose courage is great, to
run the chance of forming opinions
upon which his family and friends
must frown, which must exclude him
from the social circles he is accustomed
to—not to say, bring personal ruin to
him in this world and everlasting
punishment in the next. Most men
are not above fear and thus thinking
may be chained in them, though the
chains are all within.
No, thought is not necessarily free
any more than speech or action. Free-
dom of thought is an ideal to work
for, it is something about which there
needs to be speech and agitation—in a
word, something that ought to be,
rather than commonly is.
There is no foundation for the no-
tion that any doctrine or belief which
has ever been held is so sacred that it
8
is wrong to think or question or in-
quire about it. Let us say it boldly,
there is no subject too sacred for
thought. If any doctrine is so spoken
of, it may be taken for granted that
it fears thought, fears that it will be
undermined, that its baselessness will
be exposed when the light of thought
is brought to bear upon it. Sacred is
a word misapplied to the things of the
mind, to objects, that is, as the ob-
ject of contemplation ; sacred is only
a proper term in relation to feelings
and to action. Sacred is what we
should have respect and reverence for
(and really we are not called on to
flave respect and reverence for any-
thing that is hot to the mind indis-
putably true); sacred is what we are
bound by, and it is impossible that we
should feel rationally bound by any-
thing which the mind does not first
approve. There are laws we are sa-
credly bound by ; there are ideas we
dare not scoff at, ridicule or make
light of there are sacred limits to
action and to feeling ; but there are
no limits to thought, and from thought
all limits, valid for other parts of our
nature, and the idea of sacredness itself
are derived. Not only have we a
right to think and inquire about what
the church says of Jesus, or what
9
Jesus says of himself; not only have
we a right to ask as to the reasonable-
ness and truth of every creed and of
every book of Scripture; but we have
a right to ask as to the evidence for
the being of a God, as to the grounds
for the hope of a life beyond the grave,
as to the existence and authority of
duty itself. There is no corner of the
universe too holy for the mind to ex-
plore; and as the poet says:
“He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all,”
so there is no sacred and no profane
to the thought that overleaps all bar-
riers and craves to hold all truth in
its embrace.
The moral teacher can not work too
vigorously to dispel the notion that
disbelief of any given dogma or creed
is sin. For if we have a right to
think on all subjects, so we have a
right to come to whatever conclusion
seems rational to us and to hold it.
For a church to say, Whoever does
not accept this or that doctrine I teach,
let him be anathema, is to outrage the
rights of conscience and to rob itself
of the title of being a holy institution.
No one can be anathematized who
does not sin against his own con-
IO
science, who is not false to the light
that is shining in his own breast. A
reprobation that does not simply re-
inforce the reprobation I more or less
clearly, more or less energetically give
myself, or know I ought to give, is
not only an offense, it is, if I have any
strength and robustness of moral feel-
ing, meaningless to me. Many are
those who will concede—for does not
Scripture say it 2—that we have a
right to prove all things, holding
fast those which are good, but are so
sure that they have already in their
hands what is good and true that they
are impatient and intolerant of any
doubt of it. They want you to think,
but if your thoughts do not tally with
theirs, they are worthless. They give
you freedom, but it is freedom to
walk in the path they mark out for
you. The ordinary Protestant will
say that the Bible is the only rule of
faith, but if you do not agree with
him in his interpretation of the Bible,
it is practically almost the same to
him as if you had no common ground
with him at all. But real freedom is
using one’s own intellectual powers
and calling no man master; real free-
dom is thinking out one's thoughts
for one's self and arriving at a real, in-
dependent, personal conviction.
II
For this is what I mean by freedom
of thought ; not a set of special opin-
ions, but a method ; not the conclu-
sions we arrive at, but a spirit of
thinking. Freedom of thought is
not what is sometimes called “free-
thought.” Free thought, as the phrase
is often used both in the old world
and the new, means a certain set of
beliefs (or disbeliefs). The “free
thinkers” of France, for example,
(according to a little book which has
recently emanated from among them)
hold that nothing supernatural exists,
that nature comprises all there is ;
they deny Providence; they discredit
the hypothesis of a soul distinct from
the body, and denounce and combat
belief in immortality; they proclaim
that the religions of the world are im-
moral. But without saying whether
these positions are true or false, they
are not what I mean by freedom of
thought any more than any set of
Christian dogmas. I can imagine men
thinking freely who are skeptical
of all this so called free thought, just
as I can imagine men thinking freely
who are skeptical of the Nicene and
Apostles' creeds. To be free in think-
ing means to use one's own eyes and
to think with one’s own head—and
not to slavishly follow any Pope,
I2
Catholic or secular ; to have a first-
hand view of the world and not be
yoked into, or repeat by rote the
words of any party or sect.
Of course, it does not follow that
the conclusions of every one who uses
his own mind will be true ; and so
the advocates of authority everywhere
are given to pointing out the dangers
attending human weakness and falli-
bility. But what assurance is there
that the advocates of authority do not
partake themselves of human failings?
Those who are most absolute and
dogmatic in their assertions — who
will assure us that the rock of abso-
lute truth is under their feet, or that
they are not making up in emphasis
what they lack in clear and certain
conviction ? It is observable that the
man of this century who probably
knew more than any other English-
speaking person of the life and his-
tory and evolution of the animal
world, was of all men the most mod-
est, cautious, and willing to be cor-
rected—Charles Darwin. But grant-
ing the possibility of error when we
dare to think for ourselves, I am
ready to say that it is even better to
err than not to use one's own mind at
all. It is like a child’s learning to
walk ; it is better to fall than never
I3
to learn to stand up, or to go unas-
sisted on its way. How much de-
pends on what we think of most
importance in the world ! Is some
idea, some truth, some theory of most
importance and are men of worth only
as they apprehend it, believe it and
hold to it? Or are men themselves,
their growth, the unfolding of their
powers, their attaining all that they
might attain through effort and strug-
gle and defeat and conquest, of the
most importance? I confess that for
me all abstract truths pale into insig-
nificance compared with man ; they
have not the worth of man, of one
actual, living, eager, restless, unsat-
isfied human soul. Granted he
does not get the truth at once ; the
important thing is for him to search
for it, to become intellectually quick-
ened and alive, to develop his powers
by using them. Better is one man in
error, yet searching for the truth,
than a dozen men holding the abso-
lute truth, who yet hold it not be-
cause it is the truth, but because they
have been taught it and would deem
it a sin to question or to doubt it.
Society has not yet been educated to
this point of view ; it has not yet
learned the supreme importance of in-
dividual development and the sacred-
I4.
ness of individual rights; and it still
visits with disfavor (to use no stronger
term) those who dare overhaul its
stock notions, no matter how earnest,
honest and intelligent they may be.
But if it is right to think and to
form one's own conclusions—if this
is real freedom, whatever those con-
clusions may be ; then all honor to
those who fling away their fears
and dare be true to their own mind.
It ought not to be necessary to say
this in a land of Protestant traditions;
but it is well known that there are
Protestants as bigoted and intolerant
as any other class of religious believ-
ers have been ; and it is still necessary
to stand for the spirit of Protestantism
rather than the letter, to speak for
liberty of conscience in the widest
sense of the term, and to protest
against any bar, social as well as
ecclesiastical, being placed on one
who will see truth with his own eyes
and is earnest and conscientious in
searching for it.
Nowhere is the need for courage
greater, nowhere are the forces against
independence of mind stronger, than
when one essays to have opinions of
his own on social and economic ques-
tions. It sometimes seems as if the
real religion of this day and genera-
I5
tion were a religion of property; for
even men who are liberal in spirit as
to matters of theology will question
your right to think that the present
organization of society is anywise rad-
ically unsound. There is not only an
orthodoxy in religion ; there is an
orthodoxy in social philosophy, from
which you depart only at your peril—
yes, while physical indignities are no
longer inflicted for heresy in theology,
at least in civilized communities, you
may for heresy in economics — at
least if you utter it—have violent
hands laid on you and be fined
or marched into jail. Liberty of
thought on some fundamental ques-
tions is not wanted by a good many
people. In Pennsylvania it is almost
a social sin to question the policy of
a protective tariff; if you will pardon
such a reference, a paper edited by a
University professor there once said,
à propos of a book of mine, that it was
as much of a mistake to think that
ethics could exist without theology
as that an industrial system was pos-
sible save on a basis of protection.*
*Speaking of Pennsylvania, an incident has oc-
curred there since this lecture was first given, which
shows the amusingly narrow spirit which sometimes
prevails. The Young Men's Christian Association of
Philadelphia has refused to allow the International
Journal of Ethics to have an office in the building—
though the Journal is entirely unsectarian and has
I6
Society wants to have you think
as it thinks; the majority wants
to rule and since the other world
is not so certain as it used to be,
it will forgive you for having your
own opinions in that sphere, if only
as to this present world you will
not feel at liberty to doubt that what
the majority establishes is best. Yet
what men make; what comes from no
divine ordination, but is the result of
the play of human forces and inter-
ests, it would seem as if we had a
most obvious right to inquire about
and ask the rational basis for.
Heaven and hell, if God, the perfect
good, establishes them, might be held
to be beyond the realm of valid criti-
cism ; but social and political insti-
tutions on this earth, statutes or
laws, yes, government itself, are our
work, the issue of our thoughts and
the product of our hands, and ’tis ab-
among its contributors Christian believers and Pro-
fessors in orthodox theological seminaries; in fact
the alarm seemed to be over the word “ethics.” We
must remember, however, that bigotry is always
more or less unintelligent and is apt to commit now
and then some bett.se. I have recently seen an-
nounced a book by an eminent evangelical clergy-
man of England (Rev. Hugh Price Hughes) entitled
Ethical Christianity—and have wondered whether
anything with so suspicious a sound would be put
into the library within those supersacred walls. To
think of young men, whose minds need to be so
carefully guarded from all contaminating influences,
having within reach a book on Ethical Christianity
17
surd to say that we may not reason
and argue, with liberty to approve
and disapprove, any, even the most
apparently necessary and supposedly
sacred of them. Property, the family,
the state—we may turn our thoughts
on them and ask what is the justifi-
cation for them ; and according as
our conclusions are favorable or unfav-
orable, or partly favorably and partly
unfavorably, we may seek to keep, or
to modify, or to abolish them. There is
no law over thought in the social any
more than the religious sphere; there
is no dictum prescribing how far a
man may think and what shall be his
conclusions — public opinion or the
laws (if there be any) to the contrary
notwithstanding. It is entire liberty
that is our right, our imprescriptible
right growing out of our nature and
dignity as human beings.
Is such freedom dangerous 2 Are
we liable to go wrong in making use
of it 2 But who will assure us that
the present order is in all ways right?
Who will give a guarantee for the
opinions of the majority ? Yes, we
may go wrong in seeking for what is
rational and just in social life; that
is the common human liability—but
it is better to go wrong while we are :
seeking for what is right, than to be in
I8 º
the wrong because we do not think at
all; yes, better so than to be accident-
ally in the right, only because we
took our tone from those about us and
dared not think for ourselves. Better
were a lot of cranks, I sometimes
think, with their odd ideas, so they
be honestly and unaffectedly their
own and the result of their own
thinking, than a whole community
each of whom was afraid to differ from
the rest and repeated parrot-like what
all the rest were saying. Better mis-
guided men than those whose God, as
the Scripture says, is their belly, and
who don’t want any thoughts that
would interfere with good digestion.
It is for those who would live the life
nature calls (or, as we may put it,
God means) them to live, to bring
all they are asked to believe to the
bar of their own mind, to accept what
seems good to them and to reject what
seems bad, to assert and thereby ex-
ercise and develop their own powers,
to have a wholesome pride of reason
and a scorn of subserviency, to be, in
a word, free men in the world of
thought.
I have spoken of freedom of thought.
But the essential principles I have
advocated are equally good in appli-
cation to freedom of speech, which I
I9
now proceed to consider. The opin-
ions a man gains he should be free to
express. . It is a part of our intellect-
ual education and discipline to utter
what we think and thus have the
chance of being corrected if we are
wrong. Moreover, the truths we dis-
cover or the views we form do not al-
together belong to ourselves, but
should be our contribution to the in-
tellectual capital of the race to be
used, revised or rejected as the col-
lective mind may determine. To put
a check on the individual’s utterance
is to do a wrong to him and to inflict
a possible injury on Society. Those
communities are most developed and
contain the highest and most varied
types of individuality where speech is
freest. It is hardly too much to say
that no sincere and intelligent thinker,
however eccentric his views may have
been, failed to contribute something
to the ideal treasures of the race,
something that had he been prevented
from uttering, humanity would be the
poorer for having lost. It is not a
question of what we approve, but of
how many views we are willing should
have a hearing. Only Omniscience
could know everything in advance; we
human beings know only in part and
see only in part, nor can we tell always
2O
at the moment what is gold and what
is dross, what is wheat and what are
tares, and we do best as Jesus said his
church should do, to let the tares
grow up with the wheat and trust to
the selective power of time and the
future to separate the one from the
other and decide on the final merits of
any opinion.
These principles are of extensive
application and I see not how we can
draw the line, short of those abuses of
freedom which the common conscience
of men pronounces wrong. Freedom
of speech does not mean freedom to
incite to violence any more than free-
dom of action means freedom to com-
mit violence. Freedom must consist
with other men's freedom ; and all
violence (save against a trespasser)
is contrary to this fundamental law.
Freedom of speech, too, does not mean
the right to wantonly injure another
person’s reputation ; nor to pander to
the obscene lusts of people. Govern-
ment has the right to so far limit free-
dom, not as a power over against indi-
viduals, but as a re-inforcement of the
conscience of individuals—transgress-
ors of this kind, knowing themselves
that they are in the wrong. But
short of this limit, it appears to me,
government should allow entire free-
2I
dom and it is a usurpation for it to do
otherwise. What is a matter of con-
science, of moral conviction to an in-
dividual, government has no business
to interfere with the expression of, no
matter how much a majority of its
citizens may disapprove of it.
Earnest individuals here and there,
come to atheistic conclusions as the re-
sult of their thinking ; they should be
free to teach atheism—I am sure, and I
think a rational religion will some day
recognize it, that the mental treasury
of the race is richer for some ideas
atheists have put into it; and whether
this is true or not, they have the right
to speak and teach all the same.
Some may even hold that there is no
such thing as duty or obligation ;
though it is hard, if not impossible for
me to put myself in their place, they
should be free to teach this all the
same. So there are those who hon-
estly hold that interest is wrong, that
profits are “unpaid labor,” that rent
is robbery of what belongs to all, that
government itself, even a government
of the majority, necessarily tends to
tyranny, since it leagues itself with
the strongest class in the community
and but gives that class an added tool
by which to lord it over the rest. You
can not prevent these opinions by for-
22
bidding their utterance; unless I am
much mistaken, each one of them has
something to say for itself that the
world would do well to listen to ; to
shut off socialism, or anarchism, or
whatever the revolutionary proposi-
tion may go by the name of, and pre-
vent its coming to the light and air,
to “jump on it,” (to use the language
that one hears in some quarters,) would
be as thoughtless and as harmful to
the best interests of humanity as such
suppression is after all in this age of
the world, at bottom, impossible.
It seems to me men have a poor idea
of the rightfulness and legitimacy of
their cherished institutions, if they
are not willing that they should be
criticised in the full light of day. Is
it possible they are afraid 2 There
were many business men in Chicago
who even looked askance at our inno-
cent Economic Conferences. They
did not want discussion and a stirring
up of things; they thought their
brother business men who lent a help-
ing hand were cranky. But why
should they have been uneasy, if they
Knew all they had was honestly and
honorably theirs? Why should not
any man be ready to give an account
of himself, if he has innocence and
white hands 2 Every one who resents
23
attacks on property betrays his lack
of faith in the reasonableness of that
institution ; for what is reasonable
need not fear fullest discussion ; he
gives fresh confidence to his enemies.
Government officials who will not al-
low speeches against government be-
tray their own sense of weakness and
bad conscience; for if government is a
benefit, if it is an instrument of equal
justice and protection for all alike,
rich and poor, ignorant and learned,
it need no more mind the railings of
those who abuse it than a big New-
foundland dog cares for the barkings
of insignificant curs; and those who
are most solicitous for their dignity, I
seem to have observed, are those who
are not fully conscious of a good basis
for it.
The question of anarchy has re-
cently come to the front again in
Chicago. I do not wish to give an
opinion about matters of fact in-
volved ; but, as a matter of principle,
I would say that people have a perfect
right to be anarchists, have a right to
meet as anarchists (just as much as if
they were socialists), have a right to
teach and preach anarchy—have a
right, not only morally, but, let us be
thankful, under the constitution and
the laws. What anarchists have not a
24
right to do is to incite to violence, to
stir up those passions that would lead
to murder and arson ; to do this they
have no more a moral than a constitu-
tional right. But such incitement to
violence makes no necessary part of
anarchism; it is questionable whether
such incitement has ever been made,
save in unguarded moments such as
all earnest followers of a cause may
have, and as defenders of “law and
order ’’ have had in as full measure
as any others; I mean it is question-
able whether such force, as the anar-
chists who were hung did recommend
the use of, was more than resistance
to unjust and unlawful attacks on the
workingmen on the part of the au-
thorities; this point of distinction was
never carefully considered by the
court which passed sentence on the
men—yet it is a capital point, for re-
sistance to unlawful aggression on the
part of those in power is an admitted
right of the citizen as such. I may
say that when a policeman makes an
unlawful attack upon you, you may
resist him, resist him violently ; I can
even conceive of circumstances where
it would be your duty to do so—and
it were wholesome for the community
if this sort of anarchism were more
prevalent than it is. A free govern-
25
ment is nothing, if there is not on the
part of the citizens constant watchful-
ness of those who are in power (unless
happily they have become so moral-
ized that they never overstep the
bounds); a free man who allows him-
self to be insulted or injured by an
officer of the law, is not fit to be a
free man.
It is not, friends (and I believe
I speak in the highest interests of
our political institutions in saying
it)—it is not the commerce of a city
that really makes it great, it is not
splendid blocks of brick or stone, it
is not magnificent boulevards and
parks; it is the quality of independent
manhood that is in the midst of it, it is
the number of those, who, while they
Rnow their duties, know also their .
rights, and will sacrifice everything
to maintain them. What were an
American, an heir of the Revolution,
a spiritual descendant of those, who
in the immortal Declaration of Inde-
pendence, placed man before govern-
ment, and made government but an
instrument for securing to him his
inalienable rights, what were such
an one to live for, if he saw his country-
men becoming meek and submissive
before misuse of power in high places,
if the spirit of resistance and of honest
26
wrath died out in their hearts, if they
made a fetich of “law and order,”
and on its altar sacrificed every senti-
ment of manly self-respect? No,
there are no such limits to freedom of
speech, as, perhaps, the majority in
the community would like to enforce ;
those have their rights, who be-
lieve mankind would be better off
with no government, who inveigh
against our government as it actually
exists, who would like to create a
public sentiment that would end it,
and who believe that in the ending of
it more or less violence will be inevit-
able; they are within their rights
when they say that citizens have a
right to repel unlawful aggression by
the police now ; they only go beyond
their rights when they incite to un-
provoked attacks on the police, or on
anybody’s person or property ; for
that, they are legally as they are mor-
ally responsible, and if there is any-
body who takes them seriously, they
should be arrested. You may believe
anarchists (so far as they are within
" legal limits) are in the wrong ; I do
believe they are in the wrong ; but
what we think, or what an over-
whelming majority in the land thinks,
does not strip them of their rights—
their rights to meet, to teach, to agi-
27
tate; and if they are to unlearn their
views, it will be only by the methods
of argument and persuasion, and
above all, by having a living exam-
ple before their eyes of a government
pure and clean, a government that
never oversteps its proper bounds or,
if it does, that promptly confesses
itself to have been in the wrong,
a government that is as jealous of the
rights of the obscurest citizen as of
those of the richest and most influen-
tial.
I have spoken of liberty of thought
and speech thus far as a public mat-
ter, i. e., so far as outside authorities
may try to limit it. And now as I
turn to say a word about the more
private and personal aspects of the
question, I wish to explain that free-
dom. to think and to speak does not
mean for a man of conscience, intel-
lectual lawlessness and license. The
realm of conscience is totally distinct
from that of political and ecclesi-
astical authority; it has laws and
is not without restrictions of its
own. It may be that no external "
authority has a right to limit us at
all (save to the extent I have already
described); and yet before the bar of
our own conscience we know that we
Bave not the right to think or say
28
anything we choose, but only what
accords with our best perceptions of
truth and justice. There is no law
over thought, I have said ; but there
are laws involved in thought and de-
rived from it, which we are in honor
bound by. No one has, morally
speaking, the right to think illogic-
ally, inconsistently, without due re-
gard to facts or under the influence of
his passions and prejudices. This is
a rule no law of church or state can
enforce; none the less, every one who
is honest and who stops to think feels
it. It is an obligation which in the
nature of the case can only be en-
forced by the individual concerned.
And it is, perhaps, as important to say
that we should have some conscience
over ourselves in thinking and speak-
ing, as to maintain that no external
authority should interfere with us to
overawe us and restrain us. No one
can tell how much error there is in the
world, simply because persons do not
seek the truth. I asked one of Chica-
... go's prominent business men at the
time of the anarchists’ trial if he had
considered whether the evidence was
sufficient to justify the execution of
the men. He said he did not care about
the evidence; they ought to be hung.
Many do not think at all in capital
29
moments of their lives, or in the face of
grave questions,—or, if they use their
reason, it is only that they may jus-
tify preconceived opinions, blind in-
stincts and resentments. They are
free thus to do, so far as the law is
concerned (and should be free); yet
such freedom, from any moral stand-
point, is a worthless freedom. There
may thus be the freest institutions,
with thoughtless and selfish persons
living under them. If we are to be
worthy of our freedom we must put
intelligence and conscience into all
we do. We must regard the laws
within all the more because we resent
restraints upon us from without.
Only thus do we contribute to that
great end I asserted at first, only thus
do we gain a real development of
our nature, only thus do we rise to
those intellectual and moral heights,
toward which we are called and beck-
oned.
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In the Destinies of America. By
HUBBARD. 480 pages of new facts and
tion in American politics. , Radical
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for the great reform movement. The
for the Presidential campaign of 1892.
$1.50; paper, 50 cents.
The Rice Mills of Port Mystery.
By B. F. HEUSTON. A romance of the twentieth
century, embodying the most telling argument
against a protective tariff that has appeared in
many a day. Paper, 206 pages, 50 cents.
Manual Training in Education.
By JAMES VILA BLAKE. A summary of the rea-
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of the public school system. Square 18mo, 94
pages; cloth, 50 cents; paper, 25 cents.
The Philosophy of a Strike.
By N. A. DUNNING. Paper, 8vo, 8 pages, 5 cents.
Compulsory Education.
An address. By FRANCIs ELLINGwooD ABBOT.
Paper 18mo, 15 pages, 5 cents.
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IN PREPARATION:
First Steps
III
Philosophy
(Physical and Ethical)
By WILLIAM MACKINTIRE SALTER.
This little book aims to answer in a thorough-
going and scientific way two fundamental inquiries,
What is Matter? and What is Duty? Clear notions
on these points constitute, in the author's judgment,
indispensable preliminary steps to any sound think-
ing in philosophy. What degree of success he at-
tains his readers and critics must judge. He avoids
technical language and puts his thoughts in simple
and popular form. The book is not so much, for
philosophers as for ordinary men and women who
are feeling their way to an intelligible and satisfac-
tory view of the world.
The book will contain about 150 pages, neatly
bound in cloth, and will be mailed to any address
for one dollar. The first edition will be ready about
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CHARLES H. KERR & CO.,
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