Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-10-25
Federation of Opinion.

man may, by REORGANIZATION vi thaS iaculCyi
set his thinking powers in operation, the con-
olusions to which he arrives are involuntary.
He can not help thinking the thoughts that
arise in his mind nor escape the opinions !
that result from the ratiocination. They I
come to him unlimited; they remain unso-
licited nor can any effort, however violent,
that he may make eAectually Danish them
from his understanding. If this is true, 1t |
follows that no man is to blame for his opin- |
ions. However abhorrent they may be to
others, and predicated upon whatsoever in
sufficient premises or defective deductions,
they want that quality of willful wrong
which is necessary to wickedness, and should
not therefore, expose their author to re-
proach. AT the very worst, he is unfortu-
nate, not guilty; and should be an object of
commiseration, not persecution. So far, We
think we have proceeded upon perfectly
safe grounds; for although there is at this
day persecution for opinions sake, there are
probably few, in this country, at least, who
would attempt to justify such persecution
upon any substantial basis of right
In respect to the good or bad quality OF
opinions themselves, there are considerations
which should render men cautious how they
condemn. All opinions, at first, stand upon
equal ground. There is no standard of abso-
Lutte rectitude to which they may be brought,
nor tribunal empowered to pronounce in
fallibly upon their truthfulness. That this
or that opinion is good or bad is only matter
of opinion: the conclusions of one man
stand opposed TO those of another, with no
authoritative umpire to discard the erro-
neous, or confer the character of positive
ness or permaneney upon its opposite.
From the equal right of all men to hold
their own opinions would seem to be deduci-
bic the equal right of all men to promul-
gate them. If one may speak, write or print
what be thinks, why not another All
stand upon the same ground, and where is
that which should make the difference: tol-
Grating this and suppressing that speaker.
writer or publisher Looking at things in
the abstract, there is no escaping the con-
clusion that the right to publish is as abso-
Lutte as the right to think, and that it is con-
trary to every sound principle of justice to
attempt to put check upon either
In matters purely abstract, men would
probably be willing to act upon this idea;
but it so happens that all the doctrinal ques-
tions that arise are in some way connected
with human interests. The evil that is
charged upon the opinion is nothing more
than the danger which its prevalence might
threaten to some institution, custom or
establishment in which interests have been
acquired that their possessors would be un-
wiling to see destroyed. In such things
men are apt to deceive themselves, and to
mistake their feelings of conservatism for
some thing that yields profit for love of
truth for its own sake. The silversmiths of
Ephesus are the type of prosecutors for the
sake of opinion all over the world; and we
should feel obliged to the writer of the Acts
for the vivid picture he has drawn of the
religious bigot, enabling us to see not only
his conduct, but to understand the motives
by which it is governed.
There is an interest which men are con-
tinually talking about and which is brought
up whenever any thing that appears novel
in the way of doctrine is announced we
mean the "interest of society" This is the
great bugbear that is presented to bar the
way against all innovations, doctrinal and
practical. The idea is that society-like our
SACRED UniOn'-is perpetually in danger Of
being blown up by some new doctrine, or
of dropping to pieces through the with
drawal of some institutional spring-pin or
pivot, is one Of which large share of man
kind are susceptible, and ready to receive,
from those who profess to be skilled in such
subjects, with very little inquiry. What is
meant by society being in danger, none take
the trouble to learn understanding, Of
course, that some thing very terrible is in.
tended.
Now, SO far as regards the effect of any thing
acting within, society can not be in danger
Beyond a very Insignificant part of its int
gral elements, society never was, and Their
is no reason to suppose that it ever will be
in danger. Society exists, and always diC
exist, independently of doctrines and of in
stitutions. Its tenure is in what men are
not in what they believe, nor in what they
resolve. An unusual blotting-out of all law
and constitutions, institutions, literatures
PHILOSOPHERS, beliefs and traditions woulC
not affect society particle; for the reason
that the tenure would remain untouched
amid the disappearance of what are only it
phenomena. Society is indestructible by it
own act, and irrepealable; it can not, if i
would, commit suicide, and it is equally ou
of danger from poisons received involuHta
rily into its system. Doctrines, therefore
however novel or erroneous, can do it N
damage: opinions however revolutionar
can not, in the slightest degree, affect it
stability. To come to any other conclusio
than this is to admit that human society
without which the earth would be an uu
hsbtsble desert is fixed upon basis so il
secure as to stand a perpetual impeachmer
of the goodness or the foresight of its al
thor.
DemOcritus.