do not form a case at all analogous to that of restrictions on the publication of opinions. To render the cases parallel it would be necessary to suppose the phenomena of the human constitution to be different from what they are; that health was of a communicable nature, and could be imported into a country as well as disease, and that no regulations could be devised to admit the one without the other.

In this case, if the people were already afflicted with various disorders, and if it could be proved that the salubrious would on the whole preponderate over the noxious contagion, it is evident, that any restraints imposed with a view to prevent the importation of disease, would debar the nation from a positive accession to their stock of health.

It is a similar effect to this, which, we shall endeavour to show, would ensue from restraints on the publication of opinions. Truth and error, in the one case, are as much intermixed, and as inseparable by human regu

lations, as health and disease would be in the other they can only be admitted and excluded together; and, of the two, there are the strongest grounds for believing that the former must greatly prevail and finally triumph. Restrictions, therefore, on the publication of any opinions, would retard the advancement and dissemination of truth as much as any precautionary laws, under the circumstances supposed, would impede the propagation of health. These views it will be the aim of the following pages to illustrate. But as it may be questioned whether the happiness of mankind is promoted by truth and injured by error, a position on which the whole argument depends, it will be necessary to offer a few preliminary considerations in support of that important doctrine. After endeavouring to establish the conclusion, that the attainment of truth ought to be the sole object of all regulations affecting the publication of opinions, because error is injurious; we shall proceed to show, that the extrication of mankind from

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error will be most readily and effectually accomplished by perfect freedom of discussion; that to check inquiry and attempt to regulate the progress and direction of opinions, by proscriptions and penalties, is to disturb the order of nature, and is analogous, in its mischievous tendency, to the system of forcing the capital and industry of the community into channels, which they would never spontaneously seek, instead of suffering private interest to direct them to their most profitable employment.

SECTION II.

ON THE MISCHIEFS OF ERROR AND THE

ADVANTAGES OF TRUTH.

OUR inquiry into the mischiefs of error and the advantages of truth may be simplified by laying aside the sciences which have a reference to the material world; as no one will be found to doubt, that mistakes in physical knowledge must be injurious and their overthrow beneficial. Or supposing that errors in these sciences may exist, without affecting the happiness of man, it is unquestionable, that the detection of such errors must also be harmless; and it will scarcely be contested, that the utility of these departments of knowledge must consist in the truth of their principles and the justness of their application.

We may, therefore, limit our inquiry to the effects of truth in those sciences which treat of the powers, conduct, character, and condition of intelligent beings. The ultimate problem to be solved in all these sciences is, what is most conducive to the real happiness of mankind. Amidst the innumerable questions in theology, metaphysics, morals, and politics, it may not always be easy to discern, that to solve this problem is their final and their only rational aim: but it is, in reality, on the success with which they point out the true path of happiness, that their whole value depends, beyond what they possess as an exercise for the faculties, in common with a game at chess or a scholastic disputation, and what belongs to them as sources of sublime and pleasurable emotion, in common with the fictions of the poet and the painter. What is theology, but a comprehensive examination into the course of action and condition of mind, which will please the Being who has the fate of mankind in his hands? What is