Gentlemen of the Jury, our great and popular moralist, Dr. Johnson, has declared that "Truth is the basis of all excellence." This axiom is so clear and indisputable, that no intelligent man can hesitate to adopt it. How, then, can the truth, upon the various subjects interesting to human beings, be elicited? Not by letting interested men think for us, but by judging for ourselves--by collecting and examining facts and arguments, and communicating to society the impressions they respectively make upon our minds. There is no effectual mode of arriving at truth, but by the exercise of the right of free inquiry, and the unrestricted publication of the result of such inquiry. This right has been deemed of pre-eminent importance from time immemorial, and by men of all sects and parties; and although corrupt and tyrannical rulers in the past ages of the world have prosecuted honest men, and endeavoured to suppress the truth, you will find that in every case to which I shall call your attention, the intrepid advocates of truth have ultimately triumphed. Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will proceed at once to fortify myself with a few authorities,--not that I think truth depends upon great names, however numerous and illustrious they may be, but because I am determined to advance nothing that is not, in my opinion, strictly true, and sanctioned and maintained by the greatest intellects of the age.
Gentlemen, I will begin with a Bishop.
"God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us, and we must make the most of them that we can; we must judge with our own reasons, as well as see with our own eyes; and it would-be very rash, unmanly, and base in us to muffle up our own understandings, and deliver our reason and faith over to others blindfold."--Bishop Burnett's Thirty-nine Articles, A. 39.
"Gentlemen of the Jury, will you, by your verdict, consign a man to a dungeon, because he is too honest and independent to act a 'rash, unmanly, and base' part? Will you declare, by your verdict, that henceforth we shall not 'judge with our own reasons, nor see with our own eyes?' I feel confident you will not.
"Dr. Whitby, in his Last Thoughts, tells us, "that belief or disbelief can neither be a virtue or a crime, in any one who uses the best means in his power of being informed.
"If a proposition is evident, we cannot avoid believing it; and where is the merit or piety of a necessary assent? If it is not evident, we cannot help rejecting it, or doubting of it; and where is the crime of not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to us to be true?"
Gentlemen of the Jury, can you dispute the truth of the passage I have quoted from Dr. Whitby? Will you, by your verdict, pronounce it to be "a crime not to perform impossibilities, and endeavour to force us to believe what does not appear to us to be true?" Gentlemen, you cannot do it. Let us briefly trace the operations of the human mind, and we shall find that the mind is governed by a law of necessity. Are we not definitely and necessarily' affected by the circumstances which surround us? Have we power to avoid receiving impressions from the objects presented to us? If we have not, which is now universally admitted by intelligent men, then the act of perceiving, or forming ideas, is a necessary mental operation. Can we, for instance, have an idea of a man when a monkey is presented to us? Or of colours other than those which are placed before our visual organs? We cannot, if the eye be not diseased, perceive red to be green, or green red. The power of perception, therefore, appears to be perfectly involuntary--it is governed by a law of necessity.
The next operation of the mind is to form a judgment of the things perceived; and it is these two things--perceiving and judging--which constitute a man's knowledge or experience. If two bodies of different magnitudes are presented to our view, are we not compelled to judge of them according to the impression they respectively make upon the mind? It is precisely the same with men, manners, and opinions. Must we not conclude that things are what they appear to be, till we know the contrary? I would appeal to your own experience, Gentlemen, whether you do not invariably and necessarily judge of men and things according to their inherent or imaginary qualities? Some men, indeed, are puzzled to account for the diversity of judgment observable where different men examine the same subject, and from the same data; but this circumstance is easily accounted for. It results simply from this fact, that men judge of things precisely as they appear to them: and the different judgments formed of the same things are ascribable wholly to the different degrees of strength in the power of perception, and to the extent and variety of knowledge previously acquired. Perception and judgment, therefore, appear to be involuntary and necessary.
Gentlemen, if this be true, is a man who has arrived at conclusions adverse to the received opinions of society a fit subject of punishment? If not, how much less so is the bookseller who merely sells his book?
Mr. Haslam calls upon the Clergy to enter into the controversy with him, and to let reason decide between them. Why do not the Government, and the learned Attorney-General, adopt Mr. Haslam's recommendation, instead of instituting a prosecution against a bookseller who never read a line of the book till his attention was called to it by this unjust prosecution? Why do not the Government,--who patronise penny literature--who affect to be friendly to free discussion, call on the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots, to defend the Bible against the assaults of Mr. Haslam? For the learned Attorney-General to attempt to crush the free expression of opinion by prosecutions of this nature, is most unjust and impolitic. I maintain that two out of the three passages read would not support the indictment at all; and the third passage--set forth in the first count of the indictment--so far from being blasphemy, declares that the author rejects the Bible, because he looks upon it as containing statements that were insulting to God. In the passage immediately following that which is prosecuted, the author admits that the book contains some good precepts, but declares that he deems mere precepts to be useless. I will take the liberty of reading the passage to the Jury.