sions seem to react against the very basis on which alone they have arisen. Hence it is that freedom of thought assumes such vital importance, and anything that tends to limit or repress its natural exercise is so fatally injurious.
Again, if we regard the question in another aspect, the State has no want of means for enforcing the authority of its laws, and preventing the commission of crime. Let the governing power do its best to close up such sources of immoral actions as are to be found in the State constitution itself; let it quicken the vigilant activity of the police with regard to crimes actually perpetrated; let it attend to the judicious infliction of punishment, and the desired end will be effectually secured. It cannot surely be forgotten, that freedom of thought, and the enlightenment which never flourishes but beneath its shelter, are the most efficient of all means for promoting security. While all other methods are confined to the mere suppression of actual outbreaks, free inquiry acts immediately on the very dispositions and sentiments; and while those only serve to maintain due order and propriety in external actions, this creates an internal harmony between the will and the endeavour. When shall we learn, moreover, to set less value on the mere visible results of actions, than on the temper and disposition of soul from which they flow? When will one arise to accomplish for legislation what Rousseau gained for education, and draw our attention from mere external, physical results, to the internal life and development of the soul?
In estimating the advantages arising from increased freedom of thought and the consequent wide diffusion of enlightenment, we should moreover especially guard against presuming that they would be confined to a small proportion of the people only;—that to the majority, whose energies are exhausted by cares for the physical necessaries of life, such opportunities would be useless or even positively
