Convinced that the wisdom was there if only you could find it,
democrats have treated the problem of making public opinions as a
problem in civil liberties. [Footnote: The best study is Prof.
Zechariah Chafee's, _Freedom of Speech_.] "Who ever knew Truth
put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?" [Footnote: Milton,
_Areopagitica_, cited at the opening of Mr. Chafee's book. For
comment on this classic doctrine of liberty as stated by Milton, John
Stuart Mill, and Mr. Bertrand Russel, see my _Liberty and the
News_, Ch. II.] Supposing that no one has ever seen it put to the
worse, are we to believe then that the truth is generated by the
encounter, like fire by rubbing two sticks? Behind this classic
doctrine of liberty, which American democrats embodied in their Bill
of Rights, there are, in fact, several different theories of the
origin of truth. One is a faith that in the competition of opinions,
the truest will win because there is a peculiar strength in the truth.
This is probably sound if you allow the competition to extend over a
sufficiently long time. When men argue in this vein they have in mind
the verdict of history, and they think specifically of heretics
persecuted when they lived, canonized after they were dead. Milton's
question rests also on a belief that the capacity to recognize truth
is inherent in all men, and that truth freely put in circulation will
win acceptance.
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