the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach to truth
as is possible in our own day. This is the amount of certainty
attainable by a fallible being, and this the sole way of attaining it.

  Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments
for free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme";
not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case,
they are not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine
that they are not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that
there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly
be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine
should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that
is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any
proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its
certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we
ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty,
and judges without hearing the other side.

  In the present age- which has been described as "destitute of
faith, but terrified at scepticism"- in which people feel sure, not
so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know
what to do without them- the claims of an opinion to be protected
from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its
importance to society. There are, it is alleged, certain beliefs so
useful, not to say indispensable, to well-being that it is as much the
duty of governments to uphold those beliefs, as to protect any other
of the interests of society. In a case of such necessity, and so
directly in the line of their duty, something less than
infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and even bind,
governments to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the general
opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener
thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary
beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining
bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise.
This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on
discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their
usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the
responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions.

  But those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive that the
assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to
another. The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion:
as disputable, as open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much
as the opinion itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge
of opinions to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to
be false, unless the opinion condemned has full opportunity of
defending itself. And it will not do to say that the heretic may be
allowed to maintain the utility or harmlessness of his opinion, though
forbidden to maintain its truth. The truth of an opinion is part of
its utility. If we would know whether or not it is desirable that a
proposition should be believed, is it possible to exclude the
consideration of whether or not it is true? In the opinion, not of bad
men, but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can
be really useful: and can you prevent such men from urging that
plea, when they are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine
which they are told is useful, but which they believe to be false?
Those who are on the side of received opinions never fail to take
all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find them handling the
question of utility as if it could be completely abstracted from
that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all, because their
doctrine is "the truth," that the knowledge or the belief of it is
held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of the
question of usefulness when an argument so vital may be employed on
one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or
public feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed,
they are just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The
utmost they allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity, or of
the positive guilt of rejecting it.

  In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying a
hearing to opinions because we, in our own judgment, have condemned
them, it will be desirable to fix down the discussion to a concrete
case; and I choose, by preference, the cases which are least
favourable to me- in which the argument against freedom of opinion,
both on the score of truth and on that of utility, is considered the
strongest. Let the opinions impugned be the belief in a God and in a
future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality.
To fight the battle on such ground gives a great advantage to an
unfair antagonist; since he will be sure to say (and many who have
no desire to be unfair will say it internally), Are these the
doctrines which you do not deem sufficiently certain to be taken under
the protection of law? Is the belief in a God one of the opinions to
feel sure of which you hold to be assuming infallibility? But I must
be permitted to observe, that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine
(be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is
the undertaking to decide that question for others, without allowing
them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and
reprobate this pretension not the less, if put forth on the side of my
most solemn convictions. However positive any one's persuasion may be,
not only of the falsity but of the pernicious consequences- not only
of the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I
altogether condemn) the immorality and impiety of an opinion; yet
if, in pursuance of that private judgment, though backed by the public
judgment of his country or his contemporaries, he prevents the opinion
from being heard in its defence, he assumes infallibility. And so
far from the assumption being less objectionable or less dangerous
because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case
of all others in which it is most fatal. These are exactly the
occasions on which the men of one generation commit those dreadful
mistakes which excite the astonishment and horror of posterity. It