doctrines, the freethinkers will for that deny you freedom. And the
freethinkers are right in that they are dogmatic. (But this they
themselves appear to overlook.) Freedom is absolutely dogmatic. It is
fundamentally false that freedom implies no attachment to any belief, no
being bound by any law, "As free as the wind," as the saying goes, for
the wind is not free. Simple indeterminism is not liberty.

III

We must, then, find the true conception of Intellectual Freedom. It is
the freedom of the individual to follow his star and reach his goal.
That star binds him down to certain lines and his freedom is in exact
proportion to his fidelity to the lines. The seeming paradox may be
puzzling: a concrete example will make it clear. Suppose a man,
shipwrecked, finds himself at sea in an open boat, without his bearings
or a rudder. He is at the mercy of the wind and wave, without freedom,
helpless. But give him his bearings and a helm, and at once he recovers
his course; he finds his position and can strike the path to freedom. He
is at perfect liberty to scuttle his boat, drive it on the rocks or do
any other irrational thing; but if he would have freedom, he must follow
his star.

IV

This leads us to track a certain error that has confused modern debate.
A man in assumed impartiality tells you he will stand away from his own
viewpoint and consider a case from yours. Now, if he does honestly hold
by his own view and thinks he can put it by and judge from his
opponent's, he is deceiving both himself and his opponent. He can do so
_apparently,_ but, whatever assumption is made, he is governed
subconsciously by his own firm conviction. His belief is around him like
an atmosphere; it goes with him wherever he goes; he can only stand free
of it by altogether abandoning it. If his case is such that he can come
absolutely to the other side to view it uninfluenced by his own, then he
has abandoned his own. He is like a man in a boat who has thrown over
rudder and bearings: he may be moved by any current: he is adrift. If he
is to recover the old ground, he must win it as something he never had.
But if instead of this he does at heart hold by his own view, he should
give over the deception that he is uninfluenced by it in framing
judgment. It is psychologically impossible. Let the man understand it as
a duty to himself to be just to others, and to substitute this principle
for his spurious impartiality. This is the fra