XLI.] NATURAL SELECTION IX HISTORY. 191 



foolish and miscliievous. Hence it will always be possible 

 to find arguments against freedom, which so far as they go 

 are perfectly valid. The reason that modern political society 

 is right in disregarding them is not that they are false, 

 for they are not false ; but that they are outweighed by 

 immeasurably stronger arguments on the other side. 

 Open careers may tempt men to waste their lives, but 

 careers must, nevertheless, be open in order that the 

 best men may be selected. Commercial freedom may 

 tempt men into disastrous speculations, but commerce 

 and industry must be free in order that it may be 

 ascertained, by actual competition, in what way the 

 industry of each district and each nation may be most 

 profitably directed, and how commerce may be most 

 successfully transacted. And freedom of thought — that 

 is to say, freedom of discussion and publication — may 

 lead to the dissemination of pernicious error, yet freedom 

 of publication is necessary to the progress of knowledge, 

 and free and fair discussion is the only means by which 

 error can ever be killed. In a word, it is necessary that 

 in the world of human society there should be full free- 

 dom (within the limits of morality and public safety) for 

 the spontaneous variation of character, action, and thought, 

 in order that the competition may select and preserve 

 the best results, while the worthless ones perish. 



In this chapter, as in the preceding, I have treated 

 the questions under consideration in the barest outline. 

 I have not endeavoured to exhaust the subject, but only 

 to point out its existence. 



