world in the same way that the motions of the heavenly bodies, which were at first matters of mere curiosity to a few shepherds, were soon connected by the imaginations of men with human affairs, and rendered subservient to gross and wretched superstitions. The influence of delusions will be always detrimental to happiness, inasmuch as they have a tendency to withdraw men's attention from those subjects in which their welfare is really implicated, and lead to eccentric modes of action, incompatible with the regular and beneficial course of duty and discretion. They are liable, too, to be exalted into sacred articles of faith, and to swell into an imaginary importance, which rouses all the energy of the passions in their support. It is thus that discord and dissension, intolerance and persecution, have sometimes been the bitter fruits of what was, at first, an apparently harmless and improbable dream. Nor is it to be forgotten, that delusions of this kind could never prevail without some weakness of understanding or imperfection of knowledge, incompatible with a thorough insight into the means of happiness, and therefore inconsistent with the highest state of felicity. A belief in them would necessarily involve logical errors, the consequences of which could not be confined to a single subject, but would extend themselves to others, where they might be highly injurious. The same fallacious principles which deluded mankind on one occasion, with perhaps little detriment, would carry them from the direct path of their real interest, in affairs where such aberrations might be of vital importance.”—Pp. 110-112.

This subject is continued in the Third Section, in which the author meets the question, Whether his position of the advantages of truth and the mischiefs of error is corroborated by the experience of mankind? Opinions, it is alleged, can have but a feeble influence on the happiness of private life. Beyond the circle of common knowledge, which is forced on every mind, says the objector, truth and error can be of importance only to speculative men: the results on a large scale are much the same, whatever men believe or disbelieve.

"But if he reason thus, he will overlook a thousand points at which the state of moral, theological and political opinions, touches on public welfare and private happiness. Knowledge of truth is essential to correctness of practice; and this is true, not only of individuals, but of communities. The prevalence of error

may, therefore, be expected to manifest itself in absurd and pernicious practices and institutions; and we have only to look into the history of superstition and barbarism, to see its effects on the happiness of private life. Although that happiness may essentially depend on the qualities of individuals and their peculiar circumstances, is it of no importance that it should be secured from the violent interference of others? that even the chances of evil should be lessened? Is it no advantage to be free from the gloomy fears of superstition, to be absolved from the burden of fanatical rites, from absurd and mischievous institutions, from oppressive laws, and from a state of society in which unmeaning ceremonies are substituted for the duties of virtue? Is unrestrained liberty of innocent action, and security of property and existence, worthless? Is it nothing to be removed from the risk of the dungeon and the stake, for the conscientious profession of opinions; to be rid of the alternative of the scaffold on the one hand, and, on the other, (of) the sacrifice of conscience and honour ?"-Pp. 115, 116.

"Let him that is sceptical as to the vast importance of truth, cast his eye down the long catalogue of crimes and cruelties which stain the annals of the past, and examine the melioration which has taken place in the practices of the world, and he will not again inquire into the nature of those advantages which follow the destruction of error. All the liberality of thinking which now prevails, the spirit of resistance to tyranny, the contempt of priestcraft, the comparative rarity and mildness of religious persecution, the mitigation of national prejudices, the disappearance of a number of mischievous superstitions, the abolition of superfluous, absurd and sanguinary laws, are so many exemplifications of the benefits resulting from the progress of moral and political truth. They are triumphs, all of them, over established error, and imply, respectively, either the removal of a source of misery or a positive addition to the sources of happiness." -Pp. 117, 118.

The author pertinently refers, in further illustration of his principle, to the evils that have flowed from false notions in political economy, and from the capital error in morals, before exposed, that guilt may be incurred by mere opinions.

Section IV., is "On Freedom of Discussion as the Means of attaining Truth." Admitting the perniciousness of error, it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the sole end of

inquiry ought to be the advancement of truth, whatever be the result to established systems. How is truth to be attained? We have no absolute standard, no unerring test of truth; but we have faculties to discern it, and it is only by the unrestrained use of these faculties that we can hope to succeed in the pursuit. No individual mind, however, is so acute and comprehensive, so free from passion and prejudice, and placed in such favourable circumstances, as in any complex question to see all the possible arguments on both sides in their full force. Hence the co-operation of various minds becomes indispensably requisite; and the greater the number of inquirers, the greater the probability of a successful result. The way, then, to obtain this result is to permit all to be said on a subject that can be said. To impose the least restraint on investigation is to diminish the probability of truth, and to increase the probability of error. Unlimited discussion may introduce a multiplicity of erroneous speculations, but though error is an evil, it is frequently necessary to go through it, in order to arrive at truth. "We are midway in the stream of ignorance and error; and it is a poor argument against an attempt to reach the shore, that every step will be a plunge into the very element from which we are anxious to escape." (Pp. 121, 122.)

The Essayist discusses in Section V., The Assumptions involved in all Restraints on the Publication of Opinions." These are, either that the prevalence of truth would be pernicious, or, admitting its good effects, that it has been attained, and that, having been attained, it stands in need of the protection and assistance of power in its contest with error. But these positions have been already refuted in part. If there be no fixed standard, no unerring test of truth, the presumption of assuming that truth has been infallibly attained, is at once and sufficiently exposed. The firmness of one's own belief is no proof of its correctness, nor any justification of attempting to suppress another man's. Our predecessors felt as strong a conviction of being in the right in their opinions as we can possibly feel, and had they on this ground

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stifled, as they too often tried to stifle, investigation, the world would have been still shut up in darkness. Wide is the difference between being fully convinced of the truth of our creed, and regarding ourselves as infallible. He that reflects upon the constitution and the history of the human mind, and takes into account his own changes, the secret influences to which he is exposed and the illimitable varieties of opinion, will be forced to conclude that in his own creed it is next to impossible that there should not be an admixture of error, and that, in fact, there is an infinitely greater probability of his being wrong in some points than right in all. Now, under this sense of fallibility, no one, acting consistently, can seek to suppress opinions by force, because in so doing he may be at once lending support to error, and destroying the only means of its detection.

The only remaining assumption implied in all restrictions on inquiry is, that truth, in its contest with error, stands in need of the protection of human authority. But what truth? Not physical or mathematical: why then inoral and political? The doctrine supposes the human mind to be so constituted, as, all other things being the same, to cleave to error rather than to truth; in which case the very pursuit of knowledge would be folly. But the supposition of the ultimate triumph of falsehood is a fallacy disproved by the experience of mankind.

doctrine may supersede another, and "Error may subvert error, one false truth may be long undiscovered, and make its way slowly against the tide of prejudice; but that it has not only the power of overcoming its antagonist in equal circumstances, but also of surmounting every intellectual obstacle, every impediment but mere brute force, is proved by the general advancement of knowledge. If we trace the history of any science, we shall find it a record of mistakes and misconceptions, a narrative

of misdirected and often fruitless efforts; yet if amidst all these the science has made a progress, the struggles through which it has passed, far from evincing that the human mind is prone to error rather than to truth, furnish a decisive proof of the contrary, and an illustration of the fact, that, in the actual condition

of humanity, mistakes are the necessary instruments by which truth is brought to light, or, at least, indispensable conditions 'of the process."-Pp. 138, 139.

The position really taken by the advocates for the interposition of civil authority with regard to opinions, is, that novel errors are capable of overturning truths already established. But if authorized opinions are true, every examination will terminate in placing them in a clearer light. The only cause of apprehension of opinions suffering from discussion is the suspicion that by a certain process of reasoning they may be proved to be wrong. It is a work of difficulty to overturn even established error; why then fear the overthrow of established truth by the utmost license of discussion? This alarm, which so frequently challenges power on its side, proceeds in most cases from a selfish regard to private interests, with which established opinions are considered to be interwoven.

The author treats in Section VI., "On the free Publication of Opinions as affecting the People at large." Restrictions imposed with a view to guard the lower classes from error, imply a persuasion of infallibility in those who impose them, which persuasion if it had always been acted upon, would have led, we know, to the suppression of truth and the encouragement of error. In an age of improvement and a land of liberty, the minds of the people cannot be confined to any given ideas. By a thousand channels discussions are made familiar to them, and they become partakers in the doubts, difficulties and objections which their superiors in rank and knowledge entertain on every controvertible subject. On the supposition, therefore, of established opinions being true, more error might prevail under a system of restraint than under perfect freedom of inquiry. Authority might prohibit the expression of contrary opinions, but it could not root them out of the mind. Being kept secret, they could not be confuted; and they would thus bid fair to last longer and also to spread wider, than if they were freely exposed to the rigorous test of general examination. The only way to contract the empire of error is to increase the general power of discerning

its character. The days of concealment and mystery are past. There is now no resource but in a system of fairness and open dealing; no feasible mode of preserving and propagating truth but by exalting ignorance into knowledge.

"The universal education of the poor, which no earthly power can prevent although it may retard it, is loudly demanded by the united voices of the moralist and politician. But if the people are to be enlightened at all, it is unavailing and inconsistent to resort to half measures and timid expedients; to treat them at once as men and as children; to endow them with the power of thinking and at the same time to fetter its exercise; to make an appeal to their reason and yet to distrust its result; to give them the stomach of a lion and feed them with the aliment of a lamb. The promoters of the universal education of the poor ought to be aware, that they are setting in motion, or at least accelerating the action of an engine too powerful to be controlled at their pleasure, and likely to prove fatal to all those parts of their foundation of reality. They ought to own systems which rest not on the solid know, that they are necessarily giving birth to a great deal of doubt and investigation; that they are undermining the power of prejudice, and the influence of mere authority and prescription; that they are creating an immense number of keen inquirers and original thinkers, whose intellectual force will be turned, in the first instance, upon those subjects

which are dearest to the heart and of

most importance to society."-Pp. 148,

149.

We find the cheering sentiment of our author in this and other passages, expressed in his familiar way by Sir Wm. Temple: (Miscellanies, Pt. III. p. 301 :) "Truth will be uppermost, one time or other, like cork, though kept down in the water."

The VIIth and last Section is "On the ultimate Inefficacy of Restraints on the Publication of Opinions, and their bad Effects in disturbing the natural Course of Improvement." This is the natural conclusion of the whole argument. In the present state of the world, it is questionable whether the progress of opinion can be much retarded by restraint and persecution; and it is certain that it cannot be stopped. The various branches of knowledge are so intimately connect