THE
AREOPAGITICA
John Milton
St.
Lawrence Institute for the Advancement of Learning
http://www.stlawrenceinstitute.org/vol14mit.html
In 1644 the English poet and man of letters, John Milton,
published the Areopagitica as an appeal to Parliament to rescind their
Licensing Order of June 16th, 1643. This order was designed to bring publishing
under government control by creating a number of official censors to whom
authors would submit their work for approval prior to having it published.
Milton's argument, in brief, was that precensorship of authors was little more
than an excuse for state control of thought. Recognizing that some means of
accountability was necessary to ensure that libellous or other illegal works
were kept under control, Milton felt this could be achieved by ensuring the
legal responsibility of printers and authors for the content of what they
published.
In this essay, attacks on Catholicism should be read with the
context of the English Civil War kept in mind. Although the English had had
some form of censorship since about 1530, Milton tried to shame Parliament into
adopting his views by claiming it a recent Catholic import, a product of the
King's Star Chamber, which so recently had been abolished (1641), and which had
been the principal opponent of the Protestant Parliament. While the Licensing
Order had as its official intent the restoration of the legal protection of the
Stationer's Company monopoly on printing, Milton saw as its byproduct the
return of state control over publishing in general. His own experience in
having to get his writings on divorce published without license, reinforced his
views that a new dogmatic authority was replacing the old.
While knowledge of this context is important to an understanding
of the nature of Milton's passion in writing this pamphlet, it is not essential
to a modern appreciation of its contents. Milton's words are just as powerful
today in their call for freedom of thought as they were in his own. The issue
he is addressing is still with us: the debate between legitimate societal
control and freedom - whether of printing, speech, or thought - is on-going,
and will continue to be of central importance in our media-dependent culture.
The following extracts should, it is hoped, bring out the vision
that was Milton's, and make clear why this pamphlet is, to this day, an
important part of English letters, and will hopefully provide grounds for
fruitful reflection on this, its 351st anniversary. Editorial comments have
been inserted prior to some sections, using italics to differentiate them from
Milton's own words.
Sid Parkinson, Editor, Discourse
THE AREOPAGITICA
John Milton
On the human condition
Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering
Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, he gave him
freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere
artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not
of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him
free, set before him a provoking object ever almost in his eyes; herein
consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his
abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about
us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue? They
are not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine to remove sin by
removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing
under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a time be
withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universal thing as
books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remain entire. Though ye take from
a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left: ye cannot bereave
him of his covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the
severest discipline that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make them
chaste that came not thither so: such great care and wisdom is required to the
right managing of this point.
Why freedom is necessary
Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be
much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but
knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we
wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which
God hath stirred up in this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice
at, should rather praise this pious forwardness among men, to reassume the
illdeputed care of their religion into their own hands again. A little generous
prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might
win all these diligences to join and unite in one general and brotherly search
after truth, could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free
consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men.
On the value of intellectual diversity
and debate, and of its contribution to the overall advancement of learning.
And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading
schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in
the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions,
that we debate not and examine the matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent
audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own? -- seeing no man who hath
tasted learning but will confess the many ways of profiting by those who, not
contented with stale receipts, are able to manage, and set forth new positions
to the world. And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as
in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth,
even for that respect they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they be of
those whom God hath fitted for the special use of these times with eminent and
ample gifts, and those perhaps neither among the priests nor among the
pharisees, and we in the haste of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction,
but resolve to stop their mouths, because we fear they come with new and
dangerous opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them; no
less than woe to us, while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the
persecutors.
On the importance of even wrong ideas
Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together
almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven
with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be
discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an
incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was
from out the rind of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evil, as
two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is
that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of
knowing good by evil.
On the value to be placed upon officially sanctioned thought
And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of
teaching, how can he be a doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else had
better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the
tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what
precisely accords not with the hidebound humour which he calls his judgment? --
when every acute reader, upon the first sight of a pedantic license, will be
ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit's distance from him:
"I hate a pupil teacher; I endure not an instructor that comes to me under
the wardship of an overseeing fist. I know nothing of the licenser, but that I
have his own hand here for his arrogance; who shall warrant me his
judgment?" "The State, sir," replies the stationer, but has a
quick return: "The State shall be my governors, but not my critics; they
may be mistaken in the choice of a licenser, as easily as this licenser may be
mistaken in an author; this is some common stuff." And he might add from
Sir Francis Bacon, that "Such authorized books are but the language of the
times." For though a licenser should happen to be judicious more than
ordinary, which will be a great jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very
office and his commission enjoins him to let pass nothing but what is vulgarly
received already.
Truth will win out
And now the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak
what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation. The temple of
Janus with his two controversal faces might now unsignificantly be set open.
And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so
Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to
misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to
the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest
suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clearer knowledge
to be sent down among us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond
the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabriced already to our hands.
Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there
be who envy and oppose, if it comes not first in at their casements. What a
collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence,
"to seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures" early and late, that
another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute! When a man hath
been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath
furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it
were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls
out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if
he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his
opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of
licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in
soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows
not that Truth is strong next to the Almighty? She needs no policies, nor
stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the
defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind
her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, who
spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then rather she turns
herself into all shapes except her own and perhaps tunes her voice according to
the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own
likeness.
Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes than one.
What else is all that rank of things indifferent wherein Truth may be on this
side or on the other, without being unlike herself? What but a vain shade is
the abolition of "those ordinances, that handwriting nailed to the
cross," what great purchase is Christian liberty which Paul so often
boasts of? His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day or
regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How many other things might be
tolerated in peace and left to conscience, had we but charity, and were it not
the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy to be ever judging one another! I fear
yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks;
the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us.
A final caution
For if they fell upon one kind of strictness, unless their care
were equal to regulate all other things of like aptness to corrupt the mind,
that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond labour: to shut and fortify
one gate against corruption, and be necessitated to leave others round about
wide open. If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we
must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No
music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. There
must be licensing of dancers, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be taught
our youth, but what by their allowance shall be thought honest; for such Plato
was provided of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine
all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house; they must not be
suffered to prattle as they do, but must be licensed what they may say. And who
shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers? The
windows also, and the balconies, must be thought on; there are shrewd books,
with dangerous frontispieces, set to sale: who shall prohibit them, shall
twenty licensers? The villages also must have their visitors to inquire what
lectures the bagpipe and the rebec reads, even to the balladry and the gamut of
every municipal fiddler, for these are the countryman's Arcadias and his Monte
Mayors.
P.O. Box 307
N.D.G. Station, Montreal, Quebec, H4A 3P6Canada
==========================
"Cary Nelson, AAUP President"
<aaupnewsletters@aaup.org>
In 2005—after
several colleges and universities withdrew valid invitations to
speakers during the
2004 election cycle—the American Association of University
Professors published
the statement Academic Freedom and Outside Speakers.
Now that another election
cycle is upon us, it is important to reiterate our policyÕs
key points:
1.Many
colleges and universities permit student and faculty groups to issue their
own invitations to
outside speakers. That practice is an important part of
academic freedom
and institutions should respect it.
2.When
an authorized faculty or student group invites an outside speaker, this
does not mean the
institution approves or disapproves of the speaker or what
the speaker says,
has said, or will say.
3.Colleges are free to announce that they do not officially endorse a
speaker or
the views a
speaker expresses, but they should not cancel a speech because
people on campus
or in the community either disagree with its content or
disapprove of the
speaker.
4.Institutions should ensure that all legitimately invited speakers can
express
their views and
that open discussion can take place.
5.Only
in extreme and extraordinary cases may invitations be canceled out of
concern for
safety.
We believe education
is best served by the free pursuit of all ideas, including
controversial ones.
Yet this commitment to academic freedom can be severely
tested when campus or
community members are offended by the views an invited
speaker is expected
to express. How should we respond when some claim an
invitation amounts to
an endorsement of a politician, a religion, or even an outlandish
conspiracy theory?
Should a university president, a board of trustees, or a group of
concerned citizens or
donors have the right to demand that an invitation to a speaker
be withdrawn?
If the College
Republicans invite Dick Cheney to speak about the Òwar on terrorÓ
the talk may be
controversial, but if the College Republicans is a valid student
organization, neither
the board of trustees nor the administration should cancel the
talk. Although
administrators have sometimes cited fear of violating section 501©(3)
of the Internal
Revenue Code as a reason for canceling invitations to politically
controversial
speakers, such invitations do not constitute the type of prohibited
political campaign
intervention or participation that would endanger the universityÕs
tax exempt status.
The university does not endorse a particular speakerÕs views any
more than it endorses
the content of a particular book in its library.
Nor should the
university compel a student group to invite an opposing speaker to
ensure ÒbalanceÓ or
create a debate format. It would be improper for a university
administration to
require the College Republicans to invite Barack Obama in order to
ÒbalanceÓ Dick
Cheney. Campus groups should not be compelled to invite someone
they do not want to
hear as a condition for inviting someone they do want to hear. A
different student
group can invite Obama, or the university can create its own event
and add it to the
campus schedule.
What happens if
taxpaying citizens, state politicians, or important donors demand that
the president cancel
a planned speech? University presidents, who have many
constituencies to
please, may find this a difficult situation. Matters can become very
complicated if
different groups make contradictory demands. Satisfying one group
may offend another.
That difficulty can be avoided if a president does the right thing
by defending academic
freedom and the universityÕs unique role as a place for ideas
to flourish and to be
exchanged. A president is not responsible for defending a
speaker who has been
properly invited by an authorized student, faculty, or
employee group.
Authorizing these groups to invite outside speakers that are of
interest to them is
an important way to sustain a vibrant campus intellectual life.
Such a practice can
be supported by all campus constituencies.
This reasoning holds
true even when virtually everyone disagrees with an invited
speaker. Students
might at one time have invited an American Nazi Party
representative to
speak. The invitation might have sought to give the campus direct
experience of a
position all considered abhorrent. Once again, we should not assume
that invitations
represent endorsements. We should also give some credit to our
student audiences.
They do not need to be protected from outlandish ideas. They do
not believe
everything they hear, and they are on campus to learn to think critically.
Revulsion at ideas or
fear of them is understandable, but ideas are best answered
with thought and
conversation, not with censorship. That is nowhere more true than
at a college or
university. Education will not be well served if only bland speakers
with uncontroversial
views are invited to campus. The costs—to education, to
academic freedom, to
the social good—are virtually always higher when an invited
speaker is silenced
rather than allowed to speak.
The opening five
points represent the consensus reached at a September 2006
meeting where
representatives of several higher education organizations discussed
the AAUPÕs full
statement on outside speakers. We should add that administrators
appropriately may
specify that no member of the academic community may speak
for or act on behalf
of the college or university in a political campaign.
For more information,
the full statement, Academic Freedom and Outside
Speakers , is
available on the AAUP Web site at
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/outside.htm.
Cary Nelson
AAUP President
The AAUP Online is an
electronic newsletter of the American Association of
University
Professors. For more information
about the AAUP, visit
http://www.aaup.org/aaupportal.htm.