60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Their utility, especially from a medical point of view, to himself in 

 after-life. 3. The information they might give of hereditary dangers 

 and vital probabilities to his descendants. 4. Their value as future 

 materials for much-needed investigations into the statistics of life- 

 histories. Fortnightly Review. 



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LIBEETY OF THOUGHT. 



By Rev. E. WOODWARD BROWN. 



MY subject is the progress of freedom of inquiry ; of liberty to 

 investigate and discuss, to compare and contrast, to adopt and 

 reject opinions liberty to think for one's self in every direction. The 

 subject is not the great life and war of thought, that which accom- 

 panies struggles of all kinds in the world struggles religious, polit- 

 ical, social, and industrial but is simply the progress of thought out 

 of an enslavement that has existed through the world in all time. 

 The mind of man has been more or less forbidden to exercise itself 

 as it pleases. A great work which it might have done and has not 

 done, work of all sorts throughout society in all its departments, has 

 failed because some men have forbidden other men to think in a dif- 

 ferent way from what those men willed. 



The causes why men have repressed thought are found in a natural 

 dislike of dissent from cherished opinions in a natural illiberality 

 owing to ignorance or pride of opinion, or in a vague fear that new 

 thinking will in some way hurt one, or one's cherished opinions, as to 

 how things should be ; also in the advantage pecuniary, social, polit- 

 ical or other, arising from some established system, civil, ecclesiastical, 

 educational, or the like, which free discussion would endanger in whole 

 or in part. Through these causes those who have had the power have 

 used it to put down all objectionable thought. 



In heathendom, whenever and wherever a great ecclesiastical sys- 

 tem has prevailed there has generally been an enslavement of mind in 

 all directions ; and wherever a great absolute state has existed there 

 has been an enslavement of mind in political and social, if not also in 

 religious directions. To refer to the enslavement by ecclesiastical sys- 

 tems : in these instances the ecclesiastical power has shackled thought 

 upon religion, morals, science, and literature, upon social and civil 

 subjects, in short upon everything ; has controlled absolutely the 

 whole expression of the nation's mind. The priestly class have ar- 

 ranged, inspired, and regulated all the duties to God, to the state, to 

 the family,, and to society. The priestly body has also claimed the su- 

 preme control of education ; has prescribed the limits and the courses 

 in which it shall be lawful for the human mind or for the human being 



