ys books; we have to ask,
as reasonable creatures, what new media we propose to give in the
place of these accidental and unsatisfactory methods of distributing
and exchanging thought. It would almost seem as though current
Socialism breathes public opinion as the Middle Ages breathed air,
without realizing that it existed, that it might be vitiated or
withheld. And so we are beyond the range of prepared and digested
Socialist proposals here altogether. It is still open to the
Anti-Socialist to allege that Socialism may incidentally destroy
itself by choking the channels of its own thinking, and the Socialist
has still to reply in vague general terms.

_We must insure the continuity of the collective mind_; that is
manifestly a primary necessity for Socialism. The attempt to realize
the Marxist idea of a democratic Socialism without that, might easily
fail into the abortive birth of an acephalous monster, the secular
development of administrative Socialism give the world over to a
bureaucratic mandarinate, self-satisfied, interfering and unteachable,
with whom wisdom would die. And yet we Socialists can produce in our
plans no absolute bar to these possibilities. Here I can suggest only
in the most general terms methods and certain principles. They need to
be laid down as vitally necessary to Socialism, and so far they have
not been so laid down. They have still to be incorporated in the
Socialist creed. They are essentially principles of that Liberalism
out of whose generous aspirations Socialism sprang, but they are
principles that even to-day, unhappily, do not figure in the
fundamental professions of any Socialist body.

The first of these is the principle of _freedom of speech_; the
second, _freedom of writing_; and the third, _universality of
information_. In the civilized State every one must be free to know,
knowledge must be patent and at hand, and any one must be free to
discuss, write, suggest and persuade. These freedoms must be guarded
as sacred things. It is not in the untutored nature of man to respect
any of these freedoms; it is not in the bureaucratic habit of mind.
Indeed, the desire to suppress opinions adverse to our own is almost
instinctive in human nature. It is an instinct we have to conquer.
Fair play in discussion is sustained by a cultivated respect, by a
correction of natural instinct; men need to be _trained_ to be jealous
of obscurantism, of unfair argument, of authoritative interference