SECTION IV.

ON FREEDOM OF

DISCUSSION AS THE

MEANS OF ATTAINING TRUTH.

THE considerations offered in the preceding section are sufficient to show the extreme importance of just principles, and that mankind can never err in their speculative views without endangering their real welfare. It follows, as a necessary consequence, that the sole end of inquiry ought to be, not the support of any particular doctrines but the attainment of truth, whatever may be the result to established systems. If, indeed, we admit the perniciousness of error, it is impossible to maintain any other object with even the appearance of reason. It is the sacred principle

from which we ought never to swerve*. The inquiry, how truth is to be attained, becomes, therefore, in the highest degree interesting and important.

Nothing more, it is manifest, would be required for the destruction of error than some fixed and invariable standard of truth, which could be at once appealed to and be decisive

of

every controversy to the satisfaction of all mankind; but that no such standard exists, the slightest consideration will be sufficient to evince. If it be asserted, that on points of religion the sacred writings are such a standard, it may be urged in reply, that this is only an apparent exception; for, in the first place, we have no standard by which the authenticity of those writings can be determined beyond all liability to dispute; and, in the second place, supposing we had a test of this nature, or that the authenticity of

*The reader will find some excellent remarks on the subject of this section in Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. See the chapter on Toleration.

the Scriptures was too evident to admit of the least doubt from the most perverse understanding, yet we have no decisive standard of interpretation.

Neither can we discover a standard of truth in the opinions of the majority of mankind, otherwise we might ascertain all truth by the simple process of counting votes. The majority of mankind are seldom free from error; they have often held opinions the most absurd, and at different times have entertained contradictory propositions.

It would be equally vain to look for a standard of truth in the judgments of any particular class of human beings. No rank, no office, no privileges, no attainments in wisdom or science, can be a security from error. Bodies of men, who have assumed infallibility, have, hitherto, always been mistaken.

Since, then, we have no fixed standard by which we can in all cases try the validity of opinions, as we can measure time and space;

since we have no oracles of indisputable authenticity, or at least of incontrovertible meaning; since we cannot ascertain truth by putting opinions to the vote, nor by an appeal to any class or order of men, how are we to attain it, or by what means escape from error?

Although we have no absolute test of truth, yet we have faculties to discern it, and it is only by the unrestrained exercise of those faculties that we can hope to attain correct opinions. Our success in every subject will essentially depend on the completeness of the examination. But no individual mind is so acute and comprehensive, so free from passion and prejudice, and placed in such favourable circumstances, as in any complex question to see all the possible arguments on both sides in their full force. Hence the co-operation of various minds becomes indispensably requisite. The greater the number of inquirers, the greater the probability of a successful result. Some will come to the inquiry under

circumstances peculiarly favourable to success, some with faculties capable of penetrating where less acute ones fail, and some disengaged from passions and prejudices with which others are encumbered. While one directs his scrutiny to a particular view of the subject, another will regard it in a different aspect, a third will see it from a position inaccessible to his predecessors; and, by the comparison and collision of opinions, truth will be separated from error and emerge from obscurity. If attainable by human faculties, it must by such a process be ultimately evolved.

་་་

The way, then, to obtain this result is to permit all to be said on a subject that can be said. All error is the consequence of narrow and partial views, and can be removed only by having a question presented in all its possible bearings, or, in other words, by unlimited discussion. Where there is perfect freedom of examination, there is the greatest probability which it is possible to