3. That there are doctrines dangerous to social order, cannot be denied, unless we are to cease to believe in any influence of thought upon conduct. It is important to the State, that men should have the greatest possible horror of crime. (s. viii., nn. 3, 6, pp. 345, 348.) This horror is notably impaired when all idea of sin is taken away. Now the idea of sin vanishes with that of God. (Ethics, c, vi., s. ii., nn. 6, 7, 13, pp. 119, 123.) Therefore to pull down the idea of God among a nation of theists, whether by the wiles of a courtly Professor at a University, or by the tub-thumping blasphemy of an itinerant lecturer, is to injure the State. The tub-thumper however is the more easily reached by the civil authority, especially when his discourses raise a tumult among the people. But where attacks upon theism have become common, and unbelief is already rampant among the masses, for the State to interfere with either "leader of thought," high or low, would be a shutting of the stable-door after the steed was stolen. Similarly we should speak of those who subvert the received notions touching the sanctity of the marriage-tie and the law of external purity generally, the obligation of civil allegiance, the rights of property and of life.
4. It will be objected: "The doctrines that you wish to express as inimical to the peace of the commonwealth, possibly may be true. Did not the first heralds of Christianity trouble the peace of the Roman world?" We reply: Let the new teachers come to us as those apostolic men came, "in weakness and in fear and in much trembling," and yet withal "in the showing of the spirit and power," with an "exhortation not of uncleanness," nor upon "an occasion of covetousness," "holily and justly and without blame" (1 Cor. ii. 3, 4; 1 Thess. ii. 3, 5, 10); and we will receive them as angels of God, even to the plucking out of our own eyes, if need be, and giving to them. (Gal. iv. 15.) Any hostile reception that they may meet with at first from a misapplication of our principle, will soon be made up for by welcome and veneration. There is no principle that may not be momentarily misapplied in all good faith. But the mistake in this case will readily be rectified.
5. But, writes J. S. Mill, On Liberty, "we can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion." If we cannot, then is there no such thing as certainty upon any point of morals, politics, or religion. Assassination of tyrants, whether in public or private life, may be wickedness, or it may be a laudable outburst of public spirit, who knows? Which of us is sure that all property is not theft? Plato's views on marriage and infanticide may be correct: the Nihilist may be your true politician; and all our religious knowledge dwindles down to the confession of Protagoras: "Concerning Gods, I find no clear evidence whether they are or are not, or what manner of beings they are." These are the sceptical tremors which this denial induces. But even scepticism has its proof, which Mill furnishes as follows: "All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility." The very name infallibility has an effect upon the modern Englishman like that of Popery upon his forefathers. It shakes his nerves, obscures his judgment, and scares his seated reason to leap up from her throne. But after we have recovered from our fright, we recollect that, whereas infallibility is an all-round attribute, compassing an entire subject, certainty goes out to one particular point on the circumference; we may then be certain without being infallible. Extremely fallible as I am in geography, I am nevertheless certain that Tunis is in Africa. Silencing discussion is an assumption, not of infallibility, but of certainty. The man who never dares assume that he is certain of anything, so certain as to close his ears to all further discussion, comes nothing short of a universal sceptic.
6. We are told, free discussion promotes discovery. Yes, free discussion in philosophical circles, free discussion among competent persons. But free discussion of a subject among the incompetent and the incapable, and the passionate and the prejudiced, is not good for the cause of truth; and if the subject be practical and momentous, it is not good for the disputants either, nor for the community. If we allow that the science and practice of morality is not advanced by free debate of ethical questions in nurseries and boarding-schools, we must also bear in mind that a vast proportion of the human family remain all their lives long, for the purpose of such discussions, as incompetent as children. The multitude cannot be philosophers. They have neither time, nor intelligence, nor love of hard thinking sufficient to arrive at the final and adequate why and wherefore of their every duty. Though capable of doing right, they are quite incapable of doing so philosophically. They do it according as they are led by custom and authority. Their inheritance is the traditionary wisdom of mankind, which they live upon as an infant on his estate, not understanding whence their support comes. It is dangerous to batter them with objections against the received moral law. You will overthrow them, not confirm them by the result of your reasonings: you will perplex their intellect, you will confound their good purpose, you will awaken their evil passions. Surely it is a more necessary point to secure that right be done somehow, than that it be philosophically done. The one is difficult enough, the other quite impossible for the mass of mankind. Therefore, adapting to our purpose the old Greek oracle: "let us not disturb the foundations of popular morality: they are better undisturbed"—
[Greek: Mae kinei Kamarinan akinaetos gar ameinoon]
7. But is it not immoral to interfere with conscience, and to attempt to stifle sincere convictions? The State, we repeat, has nothing to do with conscience as such, nor with the inward convictions of any man. But if the State is sincerely convinced, that the convictions openly professed and propagated by some of its subjects are subversive of social order and public morality, whose sincere conviction is it that must carry the day in practice? It is of the essence of government that the convictions, sincere or otherwise, of the governed shall on certain practical issues be waived in the external observance in favour of the convictions of the ruling power. After all, this talk of conscience and sincere convictions is but the canting phrase of the day, according to which conscience means mere wild humour and headstrong self-will. Such teachings as those which we would have the State to suppress, e.g.: An oath is a folly: There is no law of purity: There is no harm in doing anything that does not annoy your neighbour: are not the teachings of men sincerely convinced: they deserve no respect, consideration, or tenderness on that score. We do not say, that the teachers of these monstrosities are not convinced, but that they are not honestly and conscientiously convinced: they have blinded themselves, and become the guilty authors of their own delusion. Not all strong convictions are honestly come by or virtuously entertained.
8. Arraigned for their utterances, men protest their sincerity, as parties indicted for murder do their innocence. We can set but small store by such protestations. It is a question of evidence to come from other sources than from the accused person's own mouth. A man indeed must be held to be sincere until he is proved to be the contrary. That is the general rule. But there are what Roman lawyers call præsumptiones juris; circumstances which, if proved, will induce the court to take a certain view of a case, and give judgment accordingly, unless by further evidence that view is proved to be a false one. Now when a man proclaims some blatant and atrocious error in a matter bearing directly upon public morals—and it is for the restraint of these errors alone that we are arguing—there is a decided præsumptio juris, that the error in him, however doggedly he maintains it, is not a sincere, candid, and innocently formed conviction. The light of nature is not so feeble as that, among civilized men. Let the offender be admonished and given time to think: but if, for all warning to the contrary, the wilful man will have his way, and still propagate his error to the confusion of society, he must be treated like any other virtuous and well-meaning criminal: he must be restrained and coerced to the extent that the interests of society require.
9. At the same time it must be confessed that when an error, however flagrant and pestilential, has ceased to shock and scandalize the general body of the commonwealth; when the people listen to the doctrine without indignation, and their worst sentence upon it pronounces it merely "queer," there is little hope of legal restraints there enduring long or effecting much. Penalties for the expression of opinion are available only so far as they tally with the common feeling of the country. When public opinion ceases to bear them out, it is better not to enforce them: for that were but to provoke resentment and make martyrs. No regulations can be maintained except in a congenial atmosphere. Allowance too must be made for the danger of driving the evil to burrow underground.
10. The censorship of opinions even in a model State would vary in method according to men and times. The censorship of the Press in particular might be either by Imprimatur required before printing, or by liability to prosecution after. The Imprimatur might be either for all books, or only for a certain class. It might be either obligatory, or merely matter of counsel, to obtain it. We are not to adopt promiscuously all the praiseworthy institutions of our forefathers.
Readings.—Cardinal Newman, Letter to Duke of Norfolk, § 5; The Month for June, 1883, pp. 200, seqq.