Freedom has been hunted through the world, and is ever exposed to Insult and injury. It is crushed by conquest; frowned from courts; expelled from colleges; scorned out of society; flogged in schools; and anathematised in churches. Mind is her last asylum; and if freedom quail there, what becomes of the hope of the world, or the worth of human nature?—W. J. Fox's Lectures to the Working Classes, part 12, p. 65. We should be prepared to dare all things for truth. If the 'very hopes of man, the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of mankind, are all at the mercy of a new generalisation,' we should be prepared to risk them. If we must choose between truth and repose, we ought not to hesitate. There is danger in having the truth—philosophers are obliged to conceal it. Mankind vaunt their love of truth, but they are not to be trusted. From interest or ignorance they always persecute, and often kill, the discoverer. Still the pursuit of truth is a duty, and we must find consolation in the heroic reflection of Burke, that in all exertions of duty there it something to be hazarded. But intellectual daring will never be common while it is so generally believed to be criminal. We will, therefore, quote some considerations touching the rightfulness of inquiry.
Without inquiry it is impossible for us to know whether our opinions are true or false, and various are the pretences employed for declining investigation: frequently they are masked under vague and metaphorical phrases: "inquiry implies the weighing of evidence, and might lead to doubt and perplexity"—"to search into a subject might shake the settled convictions of the understanding"—to examine opposite arguments, and contradictory opinions, might contaminate the mind with false views.
'Every one who alleges pretexts like these for declining inquiry, must obviously begin by assuming that his own opinions are unerringly in the right. Nothing could justify a man for declining the investigation of a subject involving important opinions, but the possession of an understanding free from liability of error. Not gifted with infallibility, in what way, except by diligent inquiry, can he obtain any assurance that he is not pursuing a course of injurious action? If he holds any opinion, he must have acquired it either by examination, by instillation, rote, or some other process. On the supposition that he has acquired it by proper examination, the duty on which I am now insisting has been discharged, and the matter is at an end—but if he has acquired it in any other manner, the mere plea, that his mind might become unsettled, can be no argument against the duty of investigation. For anything he can allege to the contrary, his present opinions are wrong—and, in that case, the disturbance of his blind convictions, instead of being an evil, is an essential step towards arriving at the truth.
'It may possibly be assigned, as a further reason for his declining inquiry, that he may come to some fallacy which he cannot surmount, although convinced of its character. If he is convinced of its character, he must either have grounds for that conviction or not. If he has grounds, let him examine them, draw them out, try if they are valid, and then the fallacy will stand exposed. If he has no grounds for suspecting a fallacy, what an irrational conclusion he confesses himself to have arrived at! But perhaps he will reply—he may be unable to solve the difficulty; his mind may become perplexed, and the issue may prove, after all, that it would have been much better had he remained in his former strong, though unenlightened, conviction. Why better? If he is in perplexity let him read, think, consult the learned and the wise, and in the end he will probably reach a definite opinion on one side or the other. But if he should still remain in doubt, where is the harm? or rather, why is it not to be considered a good? The subject is evidently one which admits strong probabilities on opposite sides. Doubt is therefore the proper sentiment for the occasion—it is the result of the best exercise of the faculties—and either positively to believe, or positively to disbelieve, would imply an erroneous appreciation of evidence.
In the minds of some people a strong prejudice appears to exist against that state of the understanding which is termed doubt. A little reflection, however, will convince any one that on certain subjects "doubt" is as appropriate a state of the reasoning faculties as belief or disbelief on others. There are doctrines, propositions, facts, supported and opposed by every degree of evidence, and amongst them by that degree of evidence of which the proper effect is to leave the understanding in an equipoise between two conclusions. In these cages "doubt" is the appropriate result, which there can be no reason to shrink from or lament. But it may be further urged, that inquiry might contaminate the understanding with false views—and, therefore, It is wise and laudable to abstain from it.
'We can comprehend what is meant by contaminating a man's habits or disposition, or even imagination. But there is no analogy on these points in reference to the understanding. There is contamination, there is evil, in preposterous and obscene images crowding before the intellectual vision, notwithstanding a full and distinct perception of their character—but there is no contamination, no evil, in a thousand false arguments coming before the understanding, if their quality is clearly discerned. The only possible evil in this case is mistaking false for true—but the man who shrinks from investigation lest he should mistake false for true, can have no reason for supposing himself free from that delusion in his actual opinions. Besides these objections to inquiry, there are other prejudices of a similar character, forming serious impediments to the attainment of truth.
'One of these is a fear that we may search too far, and become chargeable with presumption in prying into things we ought not to know............