The Opelousas courier., 1889-08-24
1FREEDoM OF "

'GO0M OF THOUGHT.
Eovince of Thinking IL TO Discover
ruth and to Reject Error.
fiough tyranny finds many ayst to
Ssavs man, it can have no direct
Nfer over his thoughts. His actions
81 Soe restrained, his speech may be
~ Pred, his body may be chained, his
Ptself may be taken away, but his
hgnts no one a interfere with.
remafn his owa, and, except with
Will, no one a even guess what
sey are. But does this absence of
%ec1 power insure true freedom of
ettP 1t may at first sight seem to
sYbut a deeper insight into the
Of thought will show that
80 itsolf subject to many in
and conditions. Associa-
circumstances, education,
q, race, occupation, hopes,
N8RA .emotions-all exert an indirect
s2werful pressure upon thought;
S5Werful that if in one sense it is
g IN announcer sense 1t is
kslaa oeel controlled. If no one else can
800 op~r.osaority over our thought,
ara now.y We exercise an absolute
narjsNdSDdiate dominion over it. Is
:eedom of thought, then. a mere name
s sound without meaningP Not SO.
anaRal freedom of any kind involves not
NV the absence of artificial restraint,
the presence of influences favora-
bBto growth and development. The
infant left without car is not free; it
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 heaIthful ex-
ercise which is it's life. Even
Incidence and self-indulgence may
prove equal tyrants. 1t is only
where a 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 its 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
better from the worse. and SO to apply
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 q work! One very strong pressure
that bears upon thought to prevent its
freedom and restrain its growth is that
of fancied personal interest. We say
fancied; because the real inte@es& oil
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 a
fashionable circle, or the loss of favor
Or patronage, if they follow out
some train oil thought to It's
logical conclusions. Or they see
that Il they accept its issues it
will require of them certain sacrifices,
which they are not prepared to make.
Thus they stifle 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 these of the other
as all wrong. In general it may be
said that the desire to establish as
true some particular conclusion. or
some special set of ideas, is a 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
~tgrannize over the thoughts and pre-
vent their free action they exceed
their domain and by all possible
means ought to be controled.-Phila-
delphia Ledger.
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fHatEfona Awr1~n For Shine.