ll these obstacles, it is not likely that any society at
any time will suffer from a plethora of heretical opinions. Least of
all is this likely in a modern civilized society, where the conditions
of life are in constant rapid change, and demand, for successful
adaptation, an equally rapid change in intellectual outlook. There
should be an attempt, therefore, to encourage, rather than discourage,
the expression of new beliefs and the dissemination of knowledge
tending to support them. But the very opposite is, in fact, the case.
From childhood upward, everything is done to make the minds of men and
women conventional and sterile. And if, by misadventure, some spark
of imagination remains, its unfortunate possessor is considered
unsound and dangerous, worthy only of contempt in time of peace and of
prison or a traitor's death in time of war. Yet such men are known to
have been in the past the chief benefactors of mankind, and are the
very men who receive most honor as soon as they are safely dead.

The whole realm of thought and opinion is utterly unsuited to public
control; it ought to be as free, and as spontaneous as is possible to
those who know what others have believed. The state is justified in
insisting that children shall be educated, but it is not justified in
forcing their education to proceed on a uniform plan and to be
directed to the production of a dead level of glib uniformity.
Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which
individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the
state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education,
and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a
kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government
officials.

III

Questions of practical morals raise more difficult problems than
questions of mere opinion. The thugs honestly believe it their duty
to commit murders, but the government does not acquiesce. The
conscientious objectors honestly hold the opposite opinion, and again
the government does not acquiesce. Killing is a state prerogative; it
is equally criminal to do it unbidden and not to do it when bidden.
The same applies to theft, unless it is on a large scale or by one who
is already rich. Thugs and thieves are men who use force in their
dealings with their neighbors, and we may lay it down broadly that the
private use of force should be prohibited except in rare cases,
ho