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Title: Free Thought and Official Propaganda

Author: Bertrand Russell

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FREE
THOUGHT AND OFFICIAL PROPAGANDA ***

Ex Libris
C. K. OGDEN

CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE

FREE THOUGHT
AND

OFFICIAL PROPAGANDA
DELIVERED AT SOUTH PLACE INSTITUTE ON
MARCH 24, 1922

BY
The Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL,
M.A., F.R.S.

(Professor Graham Wallas in the Chair)

WATTS & CO.,
JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4
1922

CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS
I have come here to-night, partly because I want to hear Mr. Russell, and
partly because of an old affection for South Place and its traditions. I myself
have been for more than forty years a professional teacher; and it is as a
teacher—who thirty-seven years ago was dismissed for refusing religious
conformity—that I most easily approach the problem of free thought.
Though systems of education professing to teach men and women how to
think have been in use in Europe for, perhaps, three thousand years, we
have not yet reached that degree of success which would be shown if most

educated people came to much the same conclusions on the great problems
of life from a study of the same evidence. Everywhere you have rebels; but
ninety per cent. of French or American students of history come to French
or American conclusions, and eighty-five per cent. of English students
come to English conclusions; eighty per cent. of Eton boys hold Eton
political opinions all their lives; ninety per cent. of the Irish Catholic
population of the United States seem to hold generation after generation
identical opinions on religion and politics which are not held by the vast
majority of Americans. It may be said that in these cases only one kind of
evidence is allowed to reach the students in each institution. But everybody
reads newspapers, and talks with his neighbours, and travels, and visits
museums; and most intelligent people read books and magazines. Sooner or
later much of the same evidence reaches us all. I myself believe that one of
the main reasons why we do not to a greater degree draw the same
conclusions from that evidence is that we do not really learn the difficult art
of thought. A boy at school is taught to memorize and to understand
mathematical formulæ or foreign languages or scientific statements. But in
weighing evidence the effort of memorizing, and even the effort of
understanding, are not of the first importance. The effective process is a sort
of painful and watchful expectancy. A schoolboy or a college student finds
that he has an uncomfortable sense of unreality in repeating some
accustomed formula, or writing an essay to enforce some accustomed line
of argument. He shrinks from that feeling, as all animals shrink from
discomfort. If he were taught what are the conditions of effective thought,
and were encouraged to act on that lesson, he would know that it is only by
resolutely fastening on such vague and painful premonitions, and forcing
them to come into full consciousness and disclose their deeper causes and
tendencies that he can arrive at new truth or make some old truth his own.
But who is going to tell him this secret? Every day in London thousands of
clever and sympathetic boys and girls begin the day by sitting through
three-quarters of an hour of the dreary “Cowper-Temple” instruction which
consists, as Bishop Temple once said, of teaching at everybody’s expense
what nobody believes. They may be conscious or half-conscious of a
feeling of unreality; but, even if they have not been taught that it is a sacred
duty to “struggle against doubt,” they shrink, as the cleverest of them feel
that the teacher is shrinking, from any further exploration on that path.

Perhaps some day the teachers and students of the ordinary school and
college subjects may learn something from those little isolated institutions
where men and women try to prepare themselves for the creative arts. The
young painter or sculptor or member of a group of young poets is often
queerly ignorant and one-sided. But he lives in another world from that of
the big conventional sixth-form boy at Harrow or St. Paul’s, or the hockey-
playing athlete of a girls’ High School, because he has felt the pain and the
exhilaration reached through pain by which alone new truth and new beauty
are born into the world.

FREE THOUGHT AND
OFFICIAL PROPAGANDA
Moncure Conway, in whose honour we are assembled to-day, devoted his
life to two great objects: freedom of thought and freedom of the individual.
In regard to both these objects, something has been gained since his time,
but something also has been lost. New dangers, somewhat different in form
from those of past ages, threaten both kinds of freedom, and unless a
vigorous and vigilant public opinion can be aroused in defence of them,
there will be much less of both a hundred years hence than there is now. My
purpose in this address is to emphasize the new dangers and to consider
how they can be met.
Let us begin by trying to be clear as to what we mean by “free thought.”
This expression has two senses. In its narrower sense it means thought
which does not accept the dogmas of traditional religion. In this sense a
man is a “free thinker” if he is not a Christian or a Mussulman or a
Buddhist or a Shintoist or a member of any of the other bodies of men who
accept some inherited orthodoxy. In Christian countries a man is called a
“free thinker” if he does not decidedly believe in God, though this would
not suffice to make a man a “free thinker” in a Buddhist country.
I do not wish to minimize the importance of free thought in this sense. I am
myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of
religious belief will die out. I do not believe that, on the balance, religious

belief has been a force for good. Although I am prepared to admit that in
certain times and places it has had some good effects, I regard it as
belonging to the infancy of human reason, and to a stage of development
which we are now outgrowing.
But there is also a wider sense of “free thought,” which I regard as of still
greater importance. Indeed, the harm done by traditional religions seems
chiefly traceable to the fact that they have prevented free thought in this
wider sense. The wider sense is not so easy to define as the narrower, and it
will be well to spend some little time in trying to arrive at its essence.
When we speak of anything as “free,” our meaning is not definite unless we
can say what it is free from. Whatever or whoever is “free” is not subject to
some external compulsion, and to be precise we ought to say what this kind
of compulsion is. Thus thought is “free” when it is free from certain kinds
of outward control which are often present. Some of these kinds of control
which must be absent if thought is to be “free” are obvious, but others are
more subtle and elusive.
To begin with the most obvious. Thought is not “free” when legal penalties
are incurred by the holding or not holding of certain opinions, or by giving
expression to one’s belief or lack of belief on certain matters. Very few
countries in the world have as yet even this elementary kind of freedom. In
England, under the Blasphemy Laws, it is illegal to express disbelief in the
Christian religion, though in practice the law is not set in motion against the
well-to-do. It is also illegal to teach what Christ taught on the subject of
non-resistance. Therefore, whoever wishes to avoid becoming a criminal
must profess to agree with Christ’s teaching, but must avoid saying what
that teaching was. In America no one can enter the country without first
solemnly declaring that he disbelieves in anarchism and polygamy; and,
once inside, he must also disbelieve in communism. In Japan it is illegal to
express disbelief in the divinity of the Mikado. It will thus be seen that a
voyage round the world is a perilous adventure. A Mohammedan, a
Tolstoyan, a Bolshevik, or a Christian cannot undertake it without at some
point becoming a criminal, or holding his tongue about what he considers
important truths. This, of course, applies only to steerage passengers; saloon
passengers are allowed to believe whatever they please, provided they avoid
offensive obtrusiveness.

It is clear that the most elementary condition, if thought is to be free, is the
absence of legal penalties for the expression of opinions. No great country
has yet reached to this level, although most of them think they have. The
opinions which are still persecuted strike the majority as so monstrous and
immoral that the general principle of toleration cannot be held to apply to
them. But this is exactly the same view as that which made possible the
tortures of the Inquisition. There was a time when Protestantism seemed as
wicked as Bolshevism seems now. Please do not infer from this remark that
I am either a Protestant or a Bolshevik.
Legal penalties are, however, in the modern world, the least of the obstacles
to freedom of thoughts. The two great obstacles are economic penalties and
distortion of evidence. It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of
certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that
thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are
perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the
other side can only be discovered by diligent search. Both these obstacles
exist in every large country known to me, except China, which is the last
refuge of freedom. It is these obstacles with which I shall be concerned—
their present magnitude, the likelihood of their increase, and the possibility
of their diminution.
We may say that thought is free when it is exposed to free competition
among beliefs—i.e., when all beliefs are able to state their case, and no
legal or pecuniary advantages or disadvantages attach to beliefs. This is an
ideal which, for various reasons, can never be fully attained. But it is
possible to approach very much nearer to it than we do at present.
Three incidents in my own life will serve to show how, in modern England,
the scales are weighted in favour of Christianity. My reason for mentioning
them is that many people do not at all realize the disadvantages to which
avowed Agnosticism still exposes people.
The first incident belongs to a very early stage in my life. My father was a
Freethinker, but died when I was only three years old. Wishing me to be
brought up without superstition, he appointed two Freethinkers as my
guardians. The Courts, however, set aside his will, and had me educated in
the Christian faith. I am afraid the result was disappointing, but that was not
the fault of the law. If he had directed that I should be educated as a

Christadelphian or a Muggletonian or a Seventh-Day Adventist, the Courts
would not have dreamed of objecting. A parent has a right to ordain that any
imaginable superstition shall be instilled into his children after his death,
but has not the right to say that they shall be kept free from superstition if
possible.
The second incident occurred in the year 1910. I had at that time a desire to
stand for Parliament as a Liberal, and the Whips recommended me to a
certain constituency. I addressed the Liberal Association, who expressed
themselves favourably, and my adoption seemed certain. But, on being
questioned by a small inner caucus, I admitted that I was an Agnostic. They
asked whether the fact would come out, and I said it probably would. They
asked whether I should be willing to go to church occasionally, and I
replied that I should not. Consequently, they selected another candidate,
who was duly elected, has been in Parliament ever since, and is a member
of the present Government.
The third incident occurred immediately afterwards. I was invited by Trinity
College, Cambridge, to become a lecturer, but not a Fellow. The difference
is not pecuniary; it is that a Fellow has a voice in the government of the
College, and cannot be dispossessed during the term of his Fellowship
except for grave immorality. The chief reason for not offering me a
Fellowship was that the clerical party did not wish to add to the anti-clerical
vote. The result was that they were able to dismiss me in 1916, when they
disliked my views on the War.[1] If I had been dependent on my lectureship,
I should have starved.
These three incidents illustrate different kinds of disadvantages attaching to
avowed freethinking even in modern England. Any other avowed
Freethinker could supply similar incidents from his personal experience,
often of a far more serious character. The net result is that people who are
not well-to-do dare not be frank about their religious beliefs.
It is not, of course, only or even chiefly in regard to religion that there is
lack of freedom. Belief in communism or free love handicaps a man much
more than Agnosticism. Not only is it a disadvantage to hold those views,
but it is very much more difficult to obtain publicity for the arguments in
their favour. On the other hand, in Russia the advantages and disadvantages
are exactly reversed: comfort and power are achieved by professing

Atheism, communism, and free love, and no opportunity exists for
propaganda against these opinions. The result is that in Russia one set of
fanatics feels absolute certainty about one set of doubtful propositions,
while in the rest of the world another set of fanatics feels equal certainty
about a diametrically opposite set of equally doubtful propositions. From
such a situation war, bitterness, and persecution inevitably result on both
sides.
William James used to preach the “will to believe.” For my part, I should
wish to preach the “will to doubt.” None of our beliefs are quite true; all
have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error. The methods of increasing
the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all
sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant facts, controlling our own bias by
discussion with people who have the opposite bias, and cultivating a
readiness to discard any hypothesis which has proved inadequate. These
methods are practised in science, and have built up the body of scientific
knowledge. Every man of science whose outlook is truly scientific is ready
to admit that what passes for scientific knowledge at the moment is sure to
require correction with the progress of discovery; nevertheless, it is near
enough to the truth to serve for most practical purposes, though not for all.
In science, where alone something approximating to genuine knowledge is
to be found, men’s attitude is tentative and full of doubt.
In religion and politics, on the contrary, though there is as yet nothing
approaching scientific knowledge, everybody considers it de rigueur to
have a dogmatic opinion, to be backed up by inflicting starvation, prison,
and war, and to be carefully guarded from argumentative competition with
any different opinion. If only men could be brought into a tentatively
agnostic frame of mind about these matters, nine-tenths of the evils of the
modern world would be cured. War would become impossible, because
each side would realize that both sides must be in the wrong. Persecution
would cease. Education would aim at expanding the mind, not at narrowing
it. Men would be chosen for jobs on account of fitness to do the work, not
because they flattered the irrational dogmas of those in power. Thus rational
doubt alone, if it could be generated, would suffice to introduce the
millennium.
We have had in recent years a brilliant example of the scientific temper of
mind in the theory of relativity and its reception by the world. Einstein, a

German-Swiss-Jew pacifist, was appointed to a research professorship by
the German Government in the early days of the War; his predictions were
verified by an English expedition which observed the eclipse of 1919, very
soon after the Armistice. His theory upsets the whole theoretical framework
of traditional physics; it is almost as damaging to orthodox dynamics as
Darwin was to Genesis. Yet physicists everywhere have shown complete
readiness to accept his theory as soon as it appeared that the evidence was
in its favour. But none of them, least of all Einstein himself, would claim
that he has said the last word. He has not built a monument of infallible
dogma to stand for all time. There are difficulties he cannot solve; his
doctrines will have to be modified in their turn as they have modified
Newton’s. This critical undogmatic receptiveness is the true attitude of
science.
What would have happened if Einstein had advanced something equally
new in the sphere of religion or politics? English people would have found
elements of Prussianism in his theory; anti-Semites would have regarded it
as a Zionist plot; nationalists in all countries would have found it tainted
with lily-livered pacifism, and proclaimed it a mere dodge for escaping
military service. All the old-fashioned professors would have approached
Scotland Yard to get the importation of his writings prohibited. Teachers
favourable to him would have been dismissed. He, meantime, would have
captured the Government of some backward country, where it would have
become illegal to teach anything except his doctrine, which would have
grown into a mysterious dogma not understood by anybody. Ultimately the
truth or falsehood of his doctrine would be decided on the battlefield,
without the collection of any fresh evidence for or against it. This method is
the logical outcome of William James’s will to believe.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is
its exact opposite.
If it is admitted that a condition of rational doubt would be desirable, it
becomes important to inquire how it comes about that there is so much
irrational certainty in the world. A great deal of this is due to the inherent
irrationality and credulity of average human nature. But this seed of
intellectual original sin is nourished and fostered by other agencies, among
which three play the chief part—namely, education, propaganda, and
economic pressure. Let us consider these in turn.

(1) Education.—Elementary education, in all advanced countries, is in the
hands of the State. Some of the things taught are known to be false by the
officials who prescribe them, and many others are known to be false, or at
any rate very doubtful, by every unprejudiced person. Take, for example,
the teaching of history. Each nation aims only at self-glorification in the
school text-books of history. When a man writes his autobiography he is
expected to show a certain modesty; but when a nation writes its
autobiography there is no limit to its boasting and vainglory. When I was
young, school books taught that the French were wicked and the Germans
virtuous; now they teach the opposite. In neither case is there the slightest
regard for truth. German school books, dealing with the battle of Waterloo,
represent Wellington as all but defeated when Blücher saved the situation;
English books represent Blücher as having made very little difference. The
writers of both the German and the English books know that they are not
telling the truth. American school books used to be violently anti-British;
since the War they have become equally pro-British, without aiming at truth
in either case (see The Freeman, Feb. 15, 1922, p. 532). Both before and
since, one of the chief purposes of education in the United States has been
to turn the motley collection of immigrant children into “good Americans.”
Apparently it has not occurred to any one that a “good American,” like a
“good German” or a “good Japanese,” must be, pro tanto, a bad human
being. A “good American” is a man or woman imbued with the belief that
America is the finest country on earth, and ought always to be
enthusiastically supported in any quarrel. It is just possible that these
propositions are true; if so, a rational man will have no quarrel with them.
But if they are true, they ought to be taught everywhere, not only in
America. It is a suspicious circumstance that such propositions are never
believed outside the particular country which they glorify. Meanwhile the
whole machinery of the State, in all the different countries, is turned on to
making defenceless children believe absurd propositions the effect of which
is to make them willing to die in defence of sinister interests under the
impression that they are fighting for truth and right. This is only one of
countless ways in which education is designed, not to give true knowledge,
but to make the people pliable to the will of their masters. Without an
elaborate system of deceit in the elementary schools it would be impossible
to preserve the camouflage of democracy.

Before leaving the subject of education, I will take another example from
America[2]—not because America is any worse than other countries, but
because it is the most modern, showing the dangers that are growing rather
than those that are diminishing. In the State of New York a school cannot be
established without a licence from the State, even if it is to be supported
wholly by private funds. A recent law decrees that a licence shall not be
granted to any school “where it shall appear that the instruction proposed to
be given includes the teachings of the doctrine that organized Governments
shall be overthrown by force, violence, or unlawful means.” As the New
Republic points out, there is no limitation to this or that organized
Government. The law therefore would have made it illegal, during the War,
to teach the doctrine that the Kaiser’s Government should be overthrown by
force; and, since then, the support of Kolchak or Denikin against the Soviet
Government would have been illegal. Such consequences, of course, were
not intended, and result only from bad draughtsmanship. What was intended
appears from another law passed at the same time, applying to teachers in
State schools. This law provides that certificates permitting persons to teach
in such schools shall be issued only to those who have “shown
satisfactorily” that they are “loyal and obedient to the Government of this
State and of the United States,” and shall be refused to those who have
advocated, no matter where or when, “a form of government other than the
Government of this State or of the United States.” The committee which
framed these laws, as quoted by the New Republic, laid it down that the
teacher who “does not approve of the present social system......must
surrender his office,” and that “no person who is not eager to combat the
theories of social change should be entrusted with the task of fitting the
young and old for the responsibilities of citizenship.” Thus, according to the
law of the State of New York, Christ and George Washington were too
degraded morally to be fit for the education of the young. If Christ were to
go to New York and say, “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” the
President of the New York School Board would reply: “Sir, I see no
evidence that you are eager to combat theories of social change. Indeed, I
have heard it said that you advocate what you call the kingdom of heaven,
whereas this country, thank God, is a republic. It is clear that the
Government of your kingdom of heaven would differ materially from that
of New York State, therefore no children will be allowed access to you.” If

he failed to make this reply, he would not be doing his duty as a functionary
entrusted with the administration of the law.
The effect of such laws is very serious. Let it be granted, for the sake of
argument, that the government and the social system in the State of New
York are the best that have ever existed on this planet; yet even then both
would presumably be capable of improvement. Any person who admits this
obvious proposition is by law incapable of teaching in a State school. Thus
the law decrees that the teachers shall all be either hypocrites or fools.
The growing danger exemplified by the New York law is that resulting from
the monopoly of power in the hands of a single organization, whether the
State or a Trust or federation of Trusts. In the case of education, the power
is in the hands of the State, which can prevent the young from hearing of
any doctrine which it dislikes. I believe there are still some people who
think that a democratic State is scarcely distinguishable from the people.
This, however, is a delusion. The State is a collection of officials, different
for different purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status
quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status
quo is an increase of bureaucracy and of the power of bureaucrats. It is,
therefore, natural that they should take advantage of such opportunities as
war excitement to acquire inquisitorial powers over their employees,
involving the right to inflict starvation upon any subordinate who opposes
them. In matters of the mind, such as education, this state of affairs is fatal.
It puts an end to all possibility of progress or freedom or intellectual
initiative. Yet it is the natural result of allowing the whole of elementary
education to fall under the sway of a single organization.
Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won because people have
ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to be. But in
politics and economics, which have taken the place formerly occupied by
religion, there is a growing tendency to persecution, which is not by any
means confined to one party. The persecution of opinion in Russia is more
severe than in any capitalist country. I met in Petrograd an eminent Russian
poet, Alexander Block, who has since died as the result of privations. The
Bolsheviks allowed him to teach æsthetics, but he complained that they
insisted on his teaching the subject “from a Marxian point of view.” He had
been at a loss to discover how the theory of rhythmics was connected with
Marxism, although, to avoid starvation, he had done his best to find out. Of

course, it has been impossible in Russia ever since the Bolsheviks came into
power to print anything critical of the dogmas upon which their regime is
founded.
The examples of America and Russia illustrate the conclusion to which we
seem to be driven—namely, that so long as men continue to have the
present fanatical belief in the importance of politics free thought on political
matters will be impossible, and there is only too much danger that the lack
of freedom will spread to all other matters, as it has done in Russia. Only
some degree of political scepticism can save us from this misfortune.
It must not be supposed that the officials in charge of education desire the
young to become educated. On the contrary, their problem is to impart
information without imparting intelligence. Education should have two
objects: first, to give definite knowledge—reading and writing, languages
and mathematics, and so on; secondly, to create those mental habits which
will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound judgments for
themselves. The first of these we may call information, the second
intelligence. The utility of information is admitted practically as well as
theoretically; without a literate population a modern State is impossible. But
the utility of intelligence is admitted only theoretically, not practically; it is
not desired that ordinary people should think for themselves, because it is
felt that people who think for themselves are awkward to manage and cause
administrative difficulties. Only the guardians, in Plato’s language, are to
think; the rest are to obey, or to follow leaders like a herd of sheep. This
doctrine, often unconsciously, has survived the introduction of political
democracy, and has radically vitiated all national systems of education.
The country which has succeeded best in giving information without
intelligence is the latest addition to modern civilization, Japan. Elementary
education in Japan is said to be admirable from the point of view of
instruction. But, in addition to instruction, it has another purpose, which is
to teach worship of the Mikado—a far stronger creed now than before
Japan became modernized.[3] Thus the schools have been used
simultaneously to confer knowledge and to promote superstition. Since we
are not tempted to Mikado-worship, we see clearly what is absurd in
Japanese teaching. Our own national superstitions strike us as natural and
sensible, so that we do not take such a true view of them as we do of the
superstitions of Nippon. But if a travelled Japanese were to maintain the

thesis that our schools teach superstitions just as inimical to intelligence as
belief in the divinity of the Mikado, I suspect that he would be able to make
out a very good case.
For the present I am not in search of remedies, but am only concerned with
diagnosis. We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become
one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought. This is
due primarily to the fact that the State claims a monopoly; but that is by no
means the sole cause.
(2) Propaganda.—Our system of education turns young people out of the
schools able to read, but for the most part unable to weigh evidence or to
form an independent opinion. They are then assailed, throughout the rest of
their lives, by statements designed to make them believe all sorts of absurd
propositions, such as that Blank’s pills cure all ills, that Spitzbergen is warm
and fertile, and that Germans eat corpses. The art of propaganda, as
practised by modern politicians and governments, is derived from the art of
advertisement. The science of psychology owes a great deal to advertisers.
In former days most psychologists would probably have thought that a man
could not convince many people of the excellence of his own wares by
merely stating emphatically that they were excellent. Experience shows,
however, that they were mistaken in this. If I were to stand up once in a
public place and state that I am the most modest man alive, I should be
laughed at; but if I could raise enough money to make the same statement
on all the busses and on hoardings along all the principal railway lines,
people would presently become convinced that I had an abnormal shrinking
from publicity. If I were to go to a small shopkeeper and say: “Look at your
competitor over the way, he is getting your business; don’t you think it
would be a good plan to leave your business and stand up in the middle of
the road and try to shoot him before he shoots you?”—if I were to say this,
any small shopkeeper would think me mad. But when the Government says
it with emphasis and a brass band, the small shopkeepers become
enthusiastic, and are quite surprised when they find afterwards that business
has suffered. Propaganda, conducted by the means which advertisers have
found successful, is now one of the recognized methods of government in
all advanced countries, and is especially the method by which democratic
opinion is created.

There are two quite different evils about propaganda as now practised. On
the one hand, its appeal is generally to irrational causes of belief rather than
to serious argument; on the other hand, it gives an unfair advantage to those
who can obtain most publicity, whether through wealth or through power.
For my part, I am inclined to think that too much fuss is sometimes made
about the fact that propaganda appeals to emotion rather than reason. The
line between emotion and reason is not so sharp as some people think.
Moreover, a clever man could frame a sufficiently rational argument in
favour of any position which has any chance of being adopted. There are
always good arguments on both sides of any real issue. Definite mis-
statements of fact can be legitimately objected to, but they are by no means
necessary. The mere words “Pear’s Soap,” which affirm nothing, cause
people to buy that article. If, wherever these words appear, they were
replaced by the words “The Labour Party,” millions of people would be led
to vote for the Labour Party, although the advertisements had claimed no
merit for it whatever. But if both sides in a controversy were confined by
law to statements which a committee of eminent logicians considered
relevant and valid, the main evil of propaganda, as at present conducted,
would remain. Suppose, under such a law, two parties with an equally good
case, one of whom had a million pounds to spend on propaganda, while the
other had only a hundred thousand. It is obvious that the arguments in
favour of the richer party would become more widely known than those in
favour of the poorer party, and therefore the richer party would win. This
situation is, of course, intensified when one party is the Government. In
Russia the Government has an almost complete monopoly of propaganda,
but that is not necessary. The advantages which it possesses over its
opponents will generally be sufficient to give it the victory, unless it has an
exceptionally bad case.
The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but still
more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful. Equality
of opportunity among opinions is essential if there is to be real freedom of
thought; and equality of opportunity among opinions can only be secured
by elaborate laws directed to that end, which there is no reason to expect to
see enacted. The cure is not to be sought primarily in such laws, but in
better education and a more sceptical public opinion. For the moment,
however, I am not concerned to discuss cures.

(3) Economic pressure.—I have already dealt with some aspects of this
obstacle to freedom of thought, but I wish now to deal with it on more
general lines, as a danger which is bound to increase unless very definite
steps are taken to counteract it. The supreme example of economic pressure
applied against freedom of thought is Soviet Russia, where, until the trade
agreement, the Government could and did inflict starvation upon people
whose opinions it disliked—for example, Kropotkin. But in this respect
Russia is only somewhat ahead of other countries. In France, during the
Dreyfus affair, any teacher would have lost his position if he had been in
favour of Dreyfus at the start or against him at the end. In America at the
present day I doubt if a university professor, however eminent, could get
employment if he were to criticize the Standard Oil Company, because all
college presidents have received or hope to receive benefactions from Mr.
Rockefeller. Throughout America Socialists are marked men, and find it
extremely difficult to obtain work unless they have great gifts. The
tendency, which exists wherever industrialism is well developed, for trusts
and monopolies to control all industry, leads to a diminution of the number
of possible employers, so that it becomes easier and easier to keep secret
black books by means of which any one not subservient to the great
corporations can be starved. The growth of monopolies is introducing in
America many of the evils associated with State Socialism as it has existed
in Russia. From the standpoint of liberty, it makes no difference to a man
whether his only possible employer is the State or a Trust.
In America, which is the most advanced country industrially, and to a lesser
extent in other countries which are approximating to the American
condition, it is necessary for the average citizen, if he wishes to make a
living, to avoid incurring the hostility of certain big men. And these big men
have an outlook—religious, moral, and political—with which they expect
their employees to agree, at least outwardly. A man who openly dissents
from Christianity, or believes in a relaxation of the marriage laws, or
objects to the power of the great corporations, finds America a very
uncomfortable country, unless he happens to be an eminent writer. Exactly
the same kind of restraints upon freedom of thought are bound to occur in
every country where economic organization has been carried to the point of
practical monopoly. Therefore the safeguarding of liberty in the world
which is growing up is far more difficult than it was in the nineteenth
century, when free competition was still a reality. Whoever cares about the

freedom of the mind must face this situation fully and frankly, realizing the
inapplicability of methods which answered well enough while industrialism
was in its infancy.
There are two simple principles which, if they were adopted, would solve
almost all social problems. The first is that education should have for one of
its aims to teach people only to believe propositions when there is some
reason to think that they are true. The second is that jobs should be given
solely for fitness to do the work.
To take the second point first. The habit of considering a man’s religious,
moral, and political opinions before appointing him to a post or giving him
a job is the modern form of persecution, and it is likely to become quite as
efficient as the Inquisition ever was. The old liberties can be legally
retained without being of the slightest use. If, in practice, certain opinions
lead a man to starve, it is poor comfort to him to know that his opinions are
not punishable by law. There is a certain public feeling against starving men
for not belonging to the Church of England, or for holding slightly
unorthodox opinions in politics. But there is hardly any feeling against the
rejection of Atheists or Mormons, extreme communists, or men who
advocate free love. Such men are thought to be wicked, and it is considered
only natural to refuse to employ them. People have hardly yet waked up to
the fact that this refusal, in a highly industrial State, amounts to a very
rigorous form of persecution.
If this danger were adequately realized, it would be possible to rouse public
opinion, and to secure that a man’s beliefs should not be considered in
appointing him to a post. The protection of minorities is vitally important;
and even the most orthodox of us may find himself in a minority some day,
so that we all have an interest in restraining the tyranny of majorities.
Nothing except public opinion can solve this problem. Socialism would
make it somewhat more acute, since it would eliminate the opportunities
that now arise through exceptional employers. Every increase in the size of
industrial undertakings makes it worse, since it diminishes the number of
independent employers. The battle must be fought exactly as the battle of
religious toleration was fought. And as in that case, so in this, a decay in the
intensity of belief is likely to prove the decisive factor. While men were
convinced of the absolute truth of Catholicism or Protestantism, as the case
might be, they were willing to persecute on account of them. While men are

quite certain of their modern creeds, they will persecute on their behalf.
Some element of doubt is essential to the practice, though not to the theory,
of toleration. And this brings me to my other point, which concerns the aims
of education.
If there is to be toleration in the world, one of the things taught in schools
must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not giving full
assent to propositions which there is no reason to believe true. For example,
the art of reading the newspapers should be taught. The schoolmaster
should select some incident which happened a good many years ago, and
roused political passions in its day. He should then read to the school
children what was said by the newspapers on one side, what was said by
those on the other, and some impartial account of what really happened. He
should show how, from the biased account of either side, a practised reader
could infer what really happened, and he should make them understand that
everything in newspapers is more or less untrue. The cynical scepticism
which would result from this teaching would make the children in later life
immune from those appeals to idealism by which decent people are induced
to further the schemes of scoundrels.
History should be taught in the same way. Napoleon’s campaigns of 1813
and 1814, for instance, might be studied in the Moniteur, leading up to the
surprise which Parisians felt when they saw the Allies arriving under the
walls of Paris after they had (according to the official bulletins) been beaten
by Napoleon in every battle. In the more advanced classes, students should
be encouraged to count the number of times that Lenin has been
assassinated by Trotsky, in order to learn contempt for death. Finally, they
should be given a school history approved by the Government, and asked to
infer what a French school history would say about our wars with France.
All this would be a far better training in citizenship than the trite moral
maxims by which some people believe that civic duty can be inculcated.
It must, I think, be admitted that the evils of the world are due to moral
defects quite as much as to lack of intelligence. But the human race has not
hitherto discovered any method of eradicating moral defects; preaching and
exhortation only add hypocrisy to the previous list of vices. Intelligence, on
the contrary, is easily improved by methods known to every competent
educator. Therefore, until some method of teaching virtue has been
discovered, progress will have to be sought by improvement of intelligence

rather than of morals. One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is credulity,
and credulity could be enormously diminished by instruction as to the
prevalent forms of mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day
than it ever was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is
much easier than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to
democracy, the spread of misinformation is more important than in former
times to the holders of power. Hence the increase in the circulation of
newspapers.
If I am asked how the world is to be induced to adopt these two maxims—
namely (1) that jobs should be given to people on account of their fitness to
perform them; (2) that one aim of education should be to cure people of the
habit of believing propositions for which there is no evidence—I can only
say that it must be done by generating an enlightened public opinion. And
an enlightened public opinion can only be generated by the efforts of those
who desire that it should exist. I do not believe that the economic changes
advocated by Socialists will, of themselves, do anything towards curing the
evils we have been considering. I think that, whatever happens in politics,
the trend of economic development will make the preservation of mental
freedom increasingly difficult, unless public opinion insists that the
employer shall control nothing in the life of the employee except his work.
Freedom in education could easily be secured, if it were desired, by limiting
the function of the State to inspection and payment, and confining
inspection rigidly to the definite instruction. But that, as things stand, would
leave education in the hands of the Churches, because, unfortunately, they
are more anxious to teach their beliefs than Freethinkers are to teach their
doubts. It would, however, give a free field, and would make it possible for
a liberal education to be given if it were really desired. More than that ought
not to be asked of the law.
My plea throughout this address has been for the spread of the scientific
temper, which is an altogether different thing from the knowledge of
scientific results. The scientific temper is capable of regenerating mankind
and providing an issue for all our troubles. The results of science, in the
form of mechanism, poison gas, and the yellow press, bid fair to lead to the
total downfall of our civilization. It is a curious antithesis, which a Martian
might contemplate with amused detachment. But for us it is a matter of life
and death. Upon its issue depends the question whether our grandchildren

are to live in a happier world, or are to exterminate each other by scientific
methods, leaving perhaps to negroes and Papuans the future destinies of
mankind.

APPENDIX

THE CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURESHIP
At a general meeting of the South Place Ethical Society, held on October
22, 1908, it was resolved, after full discussion, that an effort should be
made to establish a series of lectures, to be printed and widely circulated, as
a permanent Memorial to Dr. Conway.
Moncure Conway’s untiring zeal for the emancipation of the human mind
from the thraldom of obsolete or waning beliefs, his pleadings for sympathy
with the oppressed and for a wider and profounder conception of human
fraternity than the world has yet reached, claim, it is urged, an offering of
gratitude more permanent than the eloquent obituary or reverential service
of mourning.
The range of the lectures (of which the thirteenth is published herewith)
must be regulated by the financial support accorded to the scheme; but it is
hoped that sufficient funds will be eventually forthcoming for the
endowment of periodical lectures by distinguished public men, to further
the cause of social, political, and religious freedom, with which Dr.
Conway’s name must ever be associated.
The Conway Memorial Lecture Committee, although not yet in possession
of the necessary capital for the permanent endowment of the Lectureship,
have inaugurated and maintained the work while inviting further
contributions. The funds in hand, together with those which may reasonably
be expected from supporters of the Movement, will ensure the delivery of
an annual lecture for some years at least.

The Committee earnestly appeal for either donations or subscriptions from
year to year until the Memorial is permanently established. Contributions
may be forwarded to the Hon. Treasurer.
On behalf of the Executive Committee:—
(Mrs.) C. Fletcher Smith and Ernest Carr, Hon. Secretaries.
(Mrs.) F. M. Cockburn, Hon. Treasurer, “Peradeniya,” Northampton Road,
Croydon.

PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4.

[Footnotes]

[1] I should add that they re-appointed me later, when war
passions had begun to cool.
[2] See The New Republic, Feb. 1, 1922, p. 259 ff.
[3] See The Invention of a New Religion. By Professor
Chamberlain, of Tokio. Published by the Rationalist
Press Association. (Now out of print.)

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