should happen to be false, their action is regrettable.

One fact which emerges from these considerations is that no obstacle
should be placed in the way of thought and its expression, nor yet in
the way of statements of fact. This was formerly common ground among
liberal thinkers, though it was never quite realized in the practice
of civilized countries. But it has recently become, throughout
Europe, a dangerous paradox, on account of which men suffer
imprisonment or starvation. For this reason it has again become worth
stating. The grounds for it are so evident that I should be ashamed
to repeat them if they were not universally ignored. But in the
actual world it is very necessary to repeat them.

To attain complete truth is not given to mortals, but to advance
toward it by successive steps is not impossible. On any matter of
general interest, there is usually, in any given community at any
given time, a received opinion, which is accepted as a matter of
course by all who give no special thought to the matter. Any
questioning of the received opinion rouses hostility, for a number of
reasons.

The most important of these is the instinct of conventionality, which
exists in all gregarious animals and often leads them to put to death
any markedly peculiar member of the herd.

The next most important is the feeling of insecurity aroused by doubt
as to the beliefs by which we are in the habit of regulating our
lives. Whoever has tried to explain the philosophy of Berkeley to a
plain man will have seen in its unadulterated form the anger aroused
by this feeling. What the plain man derives from Berkeley's