Lysander Spooner in [i]Vices Are Not Crimes[/i], Chapter VIII wrote:In the midst of this endless variety of opinion, what man, or what body of men, has the right to
say, in regard to any particular action, or course of action, "we have tried this experiment, and
determined every question involved in it? We have determined it, not only for ourselves, but for
all others? And, as to all those who are weaker than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience
to our conclusions? We will suffer no further experiment or inquiry by any one, and,
consequently, no further acquisition of knowledge by anybody?"
Who are the men who have the right to say this? Certainly there are none such. The men who
really do say it are either shameless impostors and tyrants, who would stop the progress of
knowledge, and usurp absolute control over the minds and bodies of their fellow men; and are
therefore to be resisted instantly, and to the last extent; or they are themselves too ignorant of
their own weaknesses, and of their true relations to other men, to be entitled to any other
consideration then sheer pity or contempt.
We know, however, that there are such men as these in the world. Some of them attempt to
exercise their power only within a small sphere, to wit, upon their children, their neighbors, their
townsmen, and their countrymen. Others attempt to exercise it on a larger scale. For example, an
old man at Rome, aided by a few subordinates, attempts to decide all questions of virtue and
vice; that is, of truth or falsehood, especially in matters of religion. He claims to know and teach
what religious ideas and practices are conducive, or fatal, to a man's happiness, not only in this
world, but in that which is to come. He claims to be miraculously inspired for the performance of
this work; thus virtually acknowledging, like a sensible man, that nothing short of miraculous
inspiration would qualify him for it. This miraculous inspiration, however, has been ineffectual
to enable him to settle more than a very few questions. The most important to which common
mortals can attain, is an implicit belief in his (the pope's) infallibility! and, secondly, that the
blackest vices of which they can be guilty are to believe and declare that he is only a man like the
rest of them!
It required some fifteen or eighteen hundred years to enable him to reach definite conclusions on
these two vital points. Yet it would seem that the first of these must necessarily be preliminary to
his settlement of any other questions; because, until his own infallibility is determined, he can
authoritatively decide nothing else. He has, however, heretofore attempted or pretended to settle
a few others. And he may, perhaps, attempt or pretend to settle a few more in the future, if he
shall continue to find anybody to listen to him. But his success, thus far, certainly does not
encourage the belief that he will be able to settle all questions of virtue and vice, even in his
peculiar department of religion, in time to meet the necessities of mankind. He, or his successors,
will undoubtedly be compelled, at no distant day, to acknowledge that he has undertaken a task
to which all his miraculous inspiration was inadequate; and that, of necessity, each human being
must be left to settle all questions of this kind for himself. And it is not unreasonable to expect
that all other popes, in other and lesser spheres, will some time have cause to come to the same
conclusion. No one, certainly, not claiming supernatural inspiration, should undertake a task to
which obviously nothing less than such inspiration is adequate. And, clearly, no one should
surrender his own judgement to the teachings of others, unless he be first convinced that these
others have something more than ordinary human knowledge on this subject.
If those persons, who fancy themselves gifted with both the power and the right to define and
punish other men's vices, would but turn their thoughts inwardly, they would probably find that
they have a great work to do at home; and that, when that shall have been completed, they will
be little disposed to do more towards correcting the vices of others, than simply to give to others
the results of their experience and observation. In this sphere their labors may possibly be useful;
but, in the sphere of infallibility and coercion, they will probably, for well-known reasons, meet
with even less success in the future than such men have met with in the past.
Chapter XIV wrote:Finally, on this point of individual liberty: Every man must necessarily judge and determine for
himself as to what is conducive and necessary to, and what is destructive of, his own well-being;
because, if he omits to perform this task for himself, nobody else can perform it for him. And
nobody else will even attempt to perform it for him, except in very few cases. Popes, and priests,
and kings will assume to perform it for him, in certain cases, if permitted to do so. But they will,
in general, perform it only in so far as they can minister to their own vices and crimes, by doing
it. They will, in general, perform it only in so far as they can make him their fool and their slave.
Parents, with better motives, no doubt, than the others, too often attempt the same work. But in
so far as they practise coercion, or restrain a child from anything not really and seriously
dangerous to himself, they do him a harm, rather than a good. It is a law of Nature that to get
knowledge, and to incorporate that knowledge into his own being, each individual must get it for
himself. Nobody, not even his parents, can tell him the nature of fire, so that he will really know
it. He must himself experiment with it, and be burnt by it, before he can know it.
Nature knows, a thousand times better than any parent, what she designs each individual for,
what knowledge he requires, and how he must get it. She knows that her own processes for
communicating that knowledge are not only the best, but the only ones that can be effectual.
The attempts of parents to make their children virtuous are generally little else than attempts to
keep them in ignorance of vice. They are little else than attempts to teach their children to know
and prefer truth, by keeping them in ignorance of falsehood. They are little else than attempts to
make them seek and appreciate health, by keeping them in ignorance of disease, and of
everything that will cause disease. They are little else than attempts to make their children love
the light, by keeping them in ignorance of darkness. In short, they are little else than attempts to
make their children happy, by keeping them in ignorance of everything that causes them
unhappiness.
In so far as parents can really aid their children in the latter's search after happiness, by simply
giving them the results of their (the parents') own reason and experience, it is all very well, and is
a natural and appropriate duty. But to practise coercion in matters of which the children are
reasonably competent to judge for themselves, is only an attempt to keep them in ignorance. And
this is as much a tyranny, and as much a violation of the children's right to acquire knowledge for
themselves, and such knowledge as they desire, as is the same coercion when practised upon
older persons. Such coercion, practised upon children, is a denial of their right to develop the
faculties that Nature has given them, and to be what Nature designs them to be. It is a denial of
their right to themselves, and to the use of their own powers. It is a denial of their right to acquire
the most valuable of all knowledge, to wit, the knowledge that Nature, the great teacher, stands
ready to impart to them.
The results of such coercion are not to make the children wise or virtuous, but to make them
ignorant, and consequently weak and vicious; and to perpetuate through them, from age to age,
the ignorance, the superstitions, the vices, and the crimes of the parents. This is proved by every
page of the world's history.
Those who hold opinions opposite to these, are those whose false and vicious theologies, or
whose own vicious general ideas, have taught them that the human race are naturally given to
evil, rather than good; to the false, rather than the true; that mankind do not naturally turn their
eyes to the light; that they love darkness, rather than light; and that they find their happiness only
in those things that tend to their misery.
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