A History of the Freedom of Thought

The May-June subscription book for Castalia Library and Libraria Castalia

Castalia Library is very pleased to announce that the May-June subscription book is A HISTORY OF THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT by John Bagnell Bury, featuring an introduction by Vox Day. Despite its relative obscurity, this is a timely and important work that is all but vital for making any sense of the world as it exists today.

John Bagnell Bury (16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He was Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin (1893–1902), before being Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge from 1902 until his death.

He is most known for editing The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon and being the lead editor of The Cambridge Ancient History and The Cambridge Medieval History series. As such, he represents one of the most erudite and intellectually-accomplished figures of the Enlightenment philosophy, and his philosophical work, A History of the Freedom of Thought, represents the pinnacle of secular atheist philosophy, in its highest and most sincere form.

J.B. Bury looked almost exactly as you’d imagine he would.

Castalia Library places great importance on works of historical significance, whether the editors happen to agree with the sentiments and ideas expressed within those works or not. While A History of the Freedom of Thought is not generally considered to be a classic or particularly influential work in itself, the 111 years that separate the modern reader from the times of its publication render it extremely informative in explaining precisely how and why the high culture of civilized Christendom was gradually transformed into the degraded lunacy of Clown World society under the intellectual aegis of the so-called Enlightenment.

THE JUSTIFICATION OF LIBERTY OF THOUGHT

Most men who have been brought up in the free atmosphere of a modern State sympathize with liberty in its long struggle with authority and may find it difficult to see that anything can be said for the tyrannical, and as they think extraordinarily perverse, policy by which communities and governments persistently sought to stifle new ideas and suppress free speculation. The conflict sketched in these pages appears as a war between light and darkness. We exclaim that altar and throne formed a sinister conspiracy against the progress of humanity. We look back with horror at the things which so many champions of reason endured at the hands of blind, if not malignant, bearers of authority.

But a more or less plausible case can be made out for coercion. Let us take the most limited view of the lawful powers of society over its individual members. Let us lay down, with Mill, that “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually and collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their members is self-protection,” and that coercion is only justified for the prevention of harm to others. This is the minimum claim the State can make, and it will be admitted that it is not only the right but the duty of the State to prevent harm to its members. That is what it is for. Now no abstract or independent principle is discoverable, why liberty of speech should be a privileged form of liberty of action, or why society should lay down its arms of defence and fold its hands, when it is persuaded that harm is threatened to it through the speech of any of its members. The Government has to judge of the danger, and its judgment may be wrong; but if it is convinced that harm is being done, is it not its plain duty to interfere?

This argument supplies an apology for the suppression of free opinion by Governments in ancient and modern times. It can be urged for the Inquisition, for Censorship of the Press, for Blasphemy laws, for all coercive measures of the kind, that, if excessive or ill-judged, they were intended to protect society against what their authors sincerely believed to be grave injury, and were simple acts of duty. (This apology, of course, does not extend to acts done for the sake of the alleged good of the victims themselves, namely, to secure their future salvation.)

Nowadays we condemn all such measures and disallow the right of the State to interfere with the free expression of opinion. So deeply is the doctrine of liberty seated in our minds that we find it difficult to make allowances for the coercive practices of our misguided ancestors. How is this doctrine justified? It rests on no abstract basis, on no principle independent of society itself, but entirely on considerations of utility.

We saw how Socrates indicated the social value of freedom of discussion. We saw how Milton observed that such freedom was necessary for the advance of knowledge. But in the period during which the cause of toleration was fought for and practically won, the argument more generally used was the injustice of punishing a man for opinions which he honestly held and could not help holding, since conviction is not a matter of will; in other words, the argument that error is not a crime and that it is therefore unjust to punish it. This argument, however, does not prove the case for freedom of discussion. The advocate of coercion may reply: We admit that it is unjust to punish a man for private erroneous beliefs; but it is not unjust to forbid the propagation of such beliefs if we are convinced that they are harmful; it is not unjust to punish him, not for holding them, but for publishing them.

The truth is that, in examining principles, the word just is misleading. All the virtues are based on experience, physiological or social, and justice is no exception. Just designates a class of rules or principles of which the social utility has been found by experience to be paramount and which are recognized to be so important as to override all considerations of immediate expediency. And social utility is the only test. It is futile, therefore, to say to a Government that it acts unjustly in coercing opinion, unless it is shown that freedom of opinion is a principle of such overmastering social utility as to render other considerations negligible. Socrates had a true instinct in taking the line that freedom is valuable to society.

Enlightenment intellectuals saw themselves as Prometheus bringing fire to Man.

We anticipate a print run of 750 Library and 75 Libraria editions. The way it works is that if you subscribe to Castalia Library during the months of May and June, you will receive a deluxe, gilded, leatherbound edition of A HISTORY OF THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT when they are printed and bound in approximately 9 to 12 months.