Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1889-06-06
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.
The Province Of Thinking Il to Discover
Truth and to Reject Error.
Though tyranny finds many ways to
enslave man, it can have no direct
power over his thoughts. His actions
may be restrained, his speech may be
fettered, his body may be chained. his
life itself may be taken away. but his
thoughts no one can interfere with.
They remain his own, and, except with
his will. no one can even guess what
they are. But does this absence OF
direct power insure true freedom of
thought? It may at first sight seem to
do so, but a deeper insight into the
nature of thought will show that
it is itself subject to many in
fuences and conditions. Associa-
tions, circumstances, education.
climate. race, occupation, hopes.
fears, emotions-all exert an indirect
but powerful pressure upon thought;
so powerful that if in one sense it is
always free, in another sense it is
always controlled. If no one else can
claim authority over our thought,
neither may we exercise an absolute
and immediate dominion over it. Is
freedom of thought, then. a mere name
"a sound without meaning? Not so.
Real freedom of any kind involves not
only the absence of artificial restraint,
but the presence of influences favora-
Bile to growth and development. The
frfo laff xrifhn,,f 10 of fr0o. If
has no choice but to perish. The
body can be enslaved by govt or
paralysis as surely as by prisons and
chains; both prevent the healthful ex-
ercise which is its life. Even
Incidence and self-indulgence may
prove equal tyrants. 1t is only
where wholesome and active
life secures for the body that varied
motion and other salutary conditions
needful to its best development that
we can say the freedom of the body is
secured. So the freedom which thought
needs is not merely the absence of any
personal compulsory force, but the
presence of favorable influences, which
shall enable it to grow in strength and
to perform it's functions in the most
perfect manner. Our thought should
be the guides of our whole lives; their
province is to discover truth and to
reject error, to sift the just from the
unjust, the pure from the impure, the
them as to improve character and life.
How important, then, it becomes that
we should foster those conditions and
influences that will enable thought to
perform without hinderance, SO essen
tial a work! One very strong pressure
that bears upon thought to prevent it's
freedom and restrain it's growth is that
of fancied personal interest. We say
fancied; because the real interest of
the individual is bound up in the
healthful advancement of his thought.
But it is not uncommon for people to
imagine that their happiness lies in an
opposite direction. They fear the CEN
sure of their party, or the frown of
fashionable circle, or the loss of favor
or patronage, if they follow out
some train OF thought to its
logical conclusions. Or they see
that if they accept its issues it
will require of them certain sacrifices,
which they are not prepared to make.
Thus they sti1e or abandon thoughts
that seem dangerous, and remain on
what they supposed to be safe ground,
forgetting that there is no mental
safety where freedom of thought is
banished. Then there are also preju-
dices and antipathies. and even sympa-
thies, to guard against. 1t is impossi-
BILE fully to estimate how much our
thinking is governed by our feeling.
We love one person and refuse to see
any defect in him. We dislike an
other, and his defects are so patent to
us that we see no virtues. So with
the parties we espouse and those we
oppose. Our tendency is to es.
TEEN the ideas and doings of the
one as all right and those of the other
as all wrong. In general it may be
said that the desire to establish as
true some particular conclusion, OF
some special set of ideas, is stronger
element in the investigation than the
desire to find out what really is true.
How the desires and the emotions are
valuable parts of our nature, and de-
serve full recognition. but when they
tyrannize over the thoughts and pre-
vent their free action they exceed
their domain and by all possible
means ought to be controlled. -Phila-
delphia Ledger.