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the rights of individuals on the pretext of preserving society, given that men, in instituting society, had no other intent nor proposed any other goal than the preservation of their liberty, security, equality, and property, and not to relinquish those rights to a moral body that might fully and legally exercise the most despotic tyranny over those from whom it had received this immense and formidable power.
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| 3 | Discourse on the Freedom of Thought, Speech, and Writing * |
Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire Quoe veils, equoe sentias dicere licet.
An exceptionally happy time when
it is lawful to think as one wants
and to say what one thinks.
— Tacitus, Histories, book I
If, in the time of Tacitus, the ability to think as one wanted and to speak as one thought was an uncommon happiness, in our times it would be a consummate misfortune and a quite unfavorable mark on our nation and institutions should one try to place limits on freedom of thought, speech, and written expression. Tacitus and his fellow citizens were under the rule of a master, after all, whereas we are under the leadership of a government that owes its existence to such freedom, which can last only because of this freedom, and whose laws and institutions have given this freedom all possible expanse and breadth, sparing no means to guarantee citizens this precious and inestimable right.
In the same way that we have tried to demonstrate in our first issue the importance and necessity of the scrupulous, faithful, and prompt observance of the laws, let us make an effort in this issue to settle the entire and absolute freedom in opinions, for although those laws must be fulfilled completely, opinions must be free of all censure that precedes or follows publication of the laws, because one cannot justly demand that the laws be faithfully observed if the freedom of exposing their problems is not perfectly and totally guaranteed.
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It is not possible to place limits on the faculty of thought; it is not reasonable, just, or advisable to prevent one from expressing by word or in writing what one thinks.
Precisely because in the metaphysical order acts of understanding are necessary, they must be free of all force and coercion in the political order. Human understanding is a power as necessary as is sight; it does not actually have an ability to decide for this or for that doctrine, to keep from inferring legitimate or erroneous conclusions, or to adopt evident or false principles. It will be able, happily, to apply itself to examining objects with care and maturity, or with carelessness and negligence; to explore questions more or less and to consider them completely or only under one of their aspects; but the outcome of all these preliminaries must always be an action as necessary as is that of seeing clearly or vaguely, or with more or less perfection, the object held at a suitable distance. In effect, the analysis of the word “know” and that of the complete idea it indicates cannot do less than yield this result.
Knowledge in the soul is like sight in the body, and thus as each individual of the human species has, according to the different construction of his visual organs, a necessary manner of seeing things and does so without choice, so also, depending on the differences among intellectual faculties, he has a necessary manner of knowing to know them. It is true that both powers are subject to perfection and augmentation; it is true that their errors can be corrected or prevented, the sphere within which they operate can be extended, and the acts proper to them can be made more active or intense; not just one, but many and infinitely varied are the means of attaining them; one, many, or all can be put into action; they will, in their turn, give perfect, average, and sometimes no results, but it will always be certain that choice has not played any part in it, nor can it be counted among the means for achieving those results.
Men would be very happy, or at the least they would not be so unhappy, if the actions of their understanding were the product of free choice. Then, the bitter and sad memories of the past would not come to renew unhappinesses that no longer exist; nor would they arise from nothingness only to cause us pain. Then, forecasting the future would not bring forward for us a thousand sorrows, presenting us ahead of time persons, events, and circumstances that either will not come to exist, or if they do, give in advance an indefinite extent to our sufferings. Then, finally, we would not think about or explore through reflection
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the causes and circumstances of present unhappiness, nor would we worsen its intolerable weight with reflection. There is certainly not one single man who does not wish to separate from himself everything that can cause him annoyance and make him unhappy; and at the same time there is not, nor has been nor will be anyone who has not suffered a great deal because of such considerations. And what does this prove? That it is not possible for him to put limits on his thoughts; that he is led necessarily and irresistibly to knowledge of objects, good or bad, perfectly or inadequately grasped; that the immediate or distant choice has no part whatsoever in the actions of the mental faculties; and that, consequently, in the metaphysical order, the understanding is not free.
How, then, to impose rules on a power not susceptible to them? How to effect change in what is most independent in man, making use of violence and coercion? How, finally, to put order into the class of crimes and assign punishments to an act that by its essence is incapable of goodness and evil? Man will be capable of not conforming his actions and discourses to his opinions; he will be able to give the lie to his thoughts through his conduct or language, but it will be impossible for him to disregard or get rid of those thoughts because of external violence. This method is unsuitable and at the same time tyrannical and illegal.
Whenever one attempts to attain an end, no matter what its nature may be, prudence and natural reason dictate that the means one uses to attain it be naturally suitable to it. Otherwise, the plan will come to nothing, the nature of things being stronger than the caprice of the agent. Such would be the folly of the one who tries to attack firearms with water or prevent passage through a moat by filling it with grape shot. When, then, it comes to changing our ideas and thoughts, or inspiring new ones in us, and for this purpose one uses rules, prohibitions, and punishments, the natural effect is that those who suffer such violence adhere more tenaciously to their opinion and deny to their oppressor the satisfaction he might get with victory. Persecution gives an unfortunate character to opinions without destroying them, because destroying them is not possible. Human understanding is as noble in itself as it is miserable for the ease with which every kind of passion confuses it. The first principles undeniable for everyone are few in number, but the consequences that derive from them are as diverse as the multiplicand, because the way in which their relationships are grasped is infinitely varied. Habits and customs that education has inspired in us, the
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way of life we have adopted, the objects that surround us, and, above all, the persons with whom we interact, contribute, without our even being able to perceive it, to the formation of our judgments, modifying in a thousand ways the perception of objects and making them appear clothed in, perhaps, a thousand forms, with the exception of the natural and genuine perception. Thus, we see that what is for him obvious and simple is obscure and complex for others; that not all men can acquire or dedicate themselves to the same type of knowledge or excel in it; that some are fit for the sciences, others for scholarship, many for the humanities, and some for nothing; that with age the same person changes opinion, even holding as absurd what he previously deemed evident; and that no one, as long as he lives, is fixed and unwavering in his opinions, or in the concept