CHAP. XXXVII.] INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM. 



Goldsmith, in the &quot; Vicar of Wakefield,&quot; makes his traveler 

 say, that after he had walked through Europe, and examined 

 mankind nearly, he found that it is not the forms of government, 

 whether they be monarchies or commonwealths, that determine 

 the amount of liberty enjoyed by individuals, but that &quot; riches in 

 general are in every country another name for freedom.&quot; I agree 

 with Goldsmith that the forms of government are not alone suffi 

 cient to secure freedom they are but means to an end. Here 

 we have in Pennsylvania a free press, a widely extended suffrage, 

 and the most perfect religious toleration nay, more than tolera 

 tion, all the various sects enjoying political equality, and, what is 

 more rare, an equality of social rank , yet all this machinery is 

 not capable, as we have seen, of securing even so much of intel 

 lectual freedom as shall enable a student of nature to discuss 

 freely the philosophical questions which the progress of science 

 brings naturally before him. He can not even announce with 

 impunity, results which half a century of observation and reason 

 ing has confirmed by evidence little short of mathematical demon 

 stration. But can riches, as Goldsmith suggests, secure intellectual 

 liberty ? No doubt they can protect the few who possess them 

 from pecuniary penalties, when they profess unpopular doctrines. 

 But to enable a man to think, he must be allowed to communi 

 cate freely his thoughts to others. Until they have been brought 

 into the daylight and discussed, they will never be clear even to 

 himself. They must be warmed by the sympathy of kindred 

 minds, and stimulated by the heat of controversy, or they will 

 never be fully developed and made to ripen and fructify. 



How, then, can we obtain this liberty ? There is only one 

 method ; it is by educating the millions, and by dispelling their 

 ignorance, prejudices, and bigotry. 



Let Pennsylvania not only establish numerous free schools, but 

 let her, when she organizes a system of government instruction, 

 raise the qualifications, pay, and station in society of the secular 

 teachers, as highly as Massachusetts is now aspiring to do, and 

 the persecution I have complained of will cease at once and for 

 ever. 



The project of so instructing the millions might well indeed be 



