LIBERTY OF THOUGHT. 69 



Condillac, Helvetius, and others. In the present century all force has 

 ceased, though certain advances in science have awakened opposition 

 for instance, the teaching of geology that the world had existed 

 for millions of years, and had taken its shape under natural laws. 

 This was thought to be against the Bible ; so, too, vaccination and 

 anaesthetics and other new things have been opposed with unnecessary ' 

 haste and heat, as devices to defeat God's will. But to-day science 

 and philosophy are free in many lands, while the narrow and restrict- 

 ive policy which still obtains in others is gradually yielding. 



Freedom of political thought is largely increased, though despot- 

 ism and obstructive social systems have been much in the way ; but, 

 as the civil despotisms have changed into constitutional governments, 

 there has been a steady increase of freedom. 



Freedom of publication has likewise increased. In the middle ages 

 nothing was allowed to be published that was against the opinions of 

 the ruling powers in church or in state, nothing in theology, philoso- 

 phy, science, or literature ; though of course this tyranny was by no 

 means complete, and very many were the attacks 011 received opinions. 

 Still, as a rule, the press was enslaved. Despotic governments in 

 church or state have not allowed a free press, except in instances of 

 a mild sovereign or upon matters foreign to any interest of the rulers. 

 The general policy has been to forbid all utterance that in any way 

 is subversive of the authority or influence of government. We have 

 heard much of regulation of the press, in political matters, which 

 means despotic interference with it ; the governments have been 

 afraid of it ; the upper classes in church, state, society, and indus- 

 trial enterprise, have been afraid of it ; it is rather the mouth-piece of 

 truth and of justice for the people ; wherefore " the complete proper 

 liberty of the press is the conquest of a high civilization." 



In France the Revolution witnessed the freedom, even the license, 

 of the press. Bonaparte followed. He feared and hated free thought, 

 and was, in some directions, its persistent opponent and oppressor ; he 

 exerted the immense power which he possessed to trammel the press ; 

 he cherished a mean jealousy of every kind of intellectual superiority 

 which he could not enslave. 



In Austria, Spain, and Italy, under their despotic governments, in- 

 fluenced more or less by the priests, a strict censorship has been exer- 

 cised over all thought interfering with civil or with ecclesiastical 

 despotism. Yet, since the civil absolutism has decreased, the liberty 

 of the press has increased, until now, in Italy at least, it is complete. 



The English-speaking lands have a free press ; so, I believe, have 

 the Spanish republics of America, and the same is true of Germany, 

 Holland, and Belgium, and to a less extent of Scandinavian countries. 

 In all these lands the principle has largely prevailed that writing and 

 publishing are in^themselves indifferent matters to government. 



Such is a review of the progress of liberty of thought, especially 



