THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREETHOUGHT. By George Jacob Holyoake.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1588, 7 September 1882, Page 4

THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREETHOUGHT. By George Jacob Holyoake.

JiWjb teach Frectliought as a right, and -also 08 >a duty, because thought is that which makes the difference between the wise mau and tho fool. If we did not .tlliiik,' u'e should .ill be foils. If thought were not free, there could be no improvement, and therefore no progress. Men would walk about in sUms, and iievir 'comb their hair. The sea would be shipless, and the land without a tow n. All creeds would be superstition, all books monotonous, and all pictures one copy on .one subject. The mind ot man would j,sie, if it were not for thought ; and were suppressed, God would reign over a world of idiots. It is therefore an 'outrage upon God to limit thought. All 'the marvels of the universe minister to the mind of man. Every human being of every race, every flower of every clime, Everything that lives on the earth or in .theiflea or in the air,— all are new in their , seasons, and none in the evening are, in <all things, what they were in the morn- - ing'. 1 Thus, ceaseless change offers hourly ito our eyes new creation of life and of character. Thus, Nature feeds thought day and night with a million hands. Those therefore, who justify Freethought, Jwho teach it and defend it, show, it I ' may sjfeak in theolgical phrase, far more 'piety than they who defame and frustrate it. A new creed, if it be the product of new light and the expression of new . truth, is but a new form of obedience to .conscience and to fact. One creed for all .'men is the dream of despotism in religion, and condemns Deity to monotony of worship and insipidity of praise. . Freethought, therefore, is clearly a '" right," because it alone prevents a man 'being without sense ; and Freethought is a duty, because its a man's duty not to be a fool. If a man docs not think himself, he is an intellectual pauper, living upon the truth acquired by others, and making no contribution himself in return, He has no ideas but 3uch as he obtains by " outdoor relief," and he goes about the world with a charity of mind. The habit of thought is the beginning of independence, Thinking is our self-protection against ignorance, which exposes us to destruction by others, and against error, which makes us destroy ourselves. We do not regard speech as a waste-pipe ot opinion, which shall flood the platform or the press with the refuse of superstition or the crudities of ignorance, impatience, passion, or spite. We regard public , speech as a spring of principles, bright, ' clear, and pure, tributary to the great stream of public truth. We maintain Freethought, not for ourselves alone, but for all men. If its exercise lie our duty, it is also theirs. The more thinkers there are in the world, the more truth there is hi the world. The duty of thinking brings tho right to equal opportunities of acquiring and expressing ideas. If these are denied, thought is stopped ; and we are but as the priests, unless we maintain this liberty for all men. Freethought rules by proof, not by authority. It has a generous patience with the understanding until evidence incites the assent. Progress can only walk in the footsteps of conviction. Assent without conviction is tyranny. To assent against conviction is servility, submission, and cowardice. Coercion in thought is not progress, but the discipline of priestcraft, and reduces to ignominious pulp the backbone of the mind. This is what we mean by secular Freethought. It has not boon much taught by Freethinkers hitherto. Most of them have had enough to do to get the " right" of thinking, to pay much attention to the duty of it. 1 know of nothing more arduous than the profession of the principles of Freethought. The duty of the thinker is to think to the best of his capacity. He is a mere noisy impostor who docs not mean this. It is no mean undertaking to teach Freethought as an education in argument, in patience, in consideration to others, and as an education in the discovery and sen ice of truth. Limited thought, such as theologians permit, i& but as the yellow (lames we see now in the street. Frcethought is the electric ever-accumulating ' light of the human mind, which makes dull all other light, and shines far and wide, with a clear effulgence herctofoie unknown. Three hundred years befoie Christ, Plato taught that not to think means that the mind is barren, and is unimpi equaled with sense, and never brings forth tho fiuit of tinth. Save his ow n understanding man hath no star. Thercfoie, to kindle thought, to teach the duty of using it i» to spicid light in the dark by-ways of life, wheieby humble men may see the ti nth bcfoiu them. We care nothing for those who say that doubt is wicked, or that thought is sin. Those who condemn it have committed the sin themselves; for, if they arc not thinkers, they speak without thought, andaicnot woith listening to. Thought is a necessity ; it i< a duty ; and, if God be ti nth, it is a higher torm of duty than .my priesthood has ever taught.