THE VALUE OF FREE THOUGHT  (highlights)<br/>
Bertrand Russell, 1944<br/>
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The expression "free thought" is often used as if it meant merely opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy. But this is only a symptom of free thought, frequent, but invariable. "Free thought" means thinking freely – as freely, at least, as is possible for a human being. The person who is free in any respect is free from something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things: the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, but in the measure of a man's emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker. A man is not to be denied this title because he happens, on some point, to agree with the theologians of his country. An Arab who, starting from the first principles of human reason, is able to deduce that the Koran was not created, but existed eternally in heaven, may be counted as a free thinker, provided he is willing to listen to counter arguments and subject his ratiocination to critical scrutiny. On the same conditions, a European who, from a definition of benevolence, is able to show that a benevolent Deity will subject infants to an eternity of torment if they die before someone sprinkles them with water to the accompaniment of certain magical words, will have to be regarded as satisfying our definition. What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.
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The common body of wisdom to which the conventional and orthodox like to appeal is a myth: there is only the "wisdom" of one time and place. In every age and in every place, if you wish to be thought well of by influential citizens you must at least seem to share their prejudices, and you must close your mind to the fact that influential citizens in other times and places have quite different prejudices. If, on the other hand, you wish to acquire knowledge, you must ignore the influential citizens, and rely upon your judgment, even when you accept the authority of those whom your own judgment pronounces worthy of respect. This degree of reliance upon yourself is the first step towards freedom of thought. Not that you need think yourself infallible, but that you must learn to think everyone fallible, and to content yourself with such greater or less probability as the evidence may seem to you to warrant. This renunciation of absolute certainty is, to some minds, the most difficult step towards intellectual freedom.<br/>
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We are all obliged constantly to act upon doubtful hypotheses, but when we do so we ought to take care that the results will not be very disastrous if the hypotheses are false. And when we act upon a doubtful hypothesis, we ought not to persuade ourselves that it is certain, for then we close our minds against new evidence, and also venture on actions (such as persecution) which are very undesirable if the hypothesis is false. And for this reason praise and blame ought not to be attached to beliefs or disbeliefs, but only to rational or irrational ways of holding them. <br/>
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The importance of free thought is the same thing as the importance of veracity. Veracity does not necessarily consist in believing what is in fact true, because sometimes the available evidence may point to a wrong conclusion. Occasions may arise when the most conscientious jury will condemn a man who is in fact innocent, because unfortunate circumstances have made him seem guilty. To be always right is not possible for human beings, but it is possible always to try to be right. Veracity consists in trying to be right in matters of belief, and also in doing what is possible to insure that others are right.<br/>
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Of possible hypotheses there is no end, but in the absence of evidence we have no right to incline towards those that we happen to find agreeable.<br/>
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The creed that I am preaching, if it can be called a creed, is a simple one; that, if you have an opinion about any matter, it should be based on ascertained facts, not upon hope or fear or prejudice. (JN: this sounds like a precursor of Mike Alder’s philosophical razor, titled “Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword,” which states: “What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.”)<br/>
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Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked. In fact, it is difficult to find anything really certain outside the realm of pure mathematics and some facts of history and geography. If suppression of free discussion is necessary in order to cause an opinion to be believed, that in itself is evidence that the rational grounds in favor of the opinion are inadequate, for if they were adequate free discussion would be the best way of making the opinion prevail.<br/>
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We have wandered into political and social questions, but the core of the argument for free thought lies in the individual life. It is good to ask ourselves, from time to time, what sort of person we should wish to be. When I ask myself this question, I find that I desire at once a kind of pride and a kind of humility. As for pride: I do not wish to be forced or cajoled into any opinion because others desire that I should hold it, nor do I wish to be the victim of my own hopes and fears to the extent of allowing myself to live in an unreal world of pleasant make-believe. I respect, in myself and others, the power of thought and of scientific investigation, by means of which we have acquired whatever knowledge we possess of the universe in which we live. And thought, when it is genuine thought, has its own intrinsic morality and its own brand of asceticism. But it has also its rewards: a happiness, amounting at moments to ecstasy, in understanding what had been obscure, and surveying in a unified vision what had seemed detached and chaotic fragments. <br/>
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But the pursuit of truth, when it is profound and genuine, requires also a kind of humility which has some affinity to submission to the will of God. The universe is what it is, not what I choose that it should be. If It is indifferent to human desires, as it seems to be; if human life is a passing episode, hardly noticeable in the vastness of cosmic processes; if there is no superhuman purpose, and no hope of ultimate salvation, it is better to know and acknowledge this truth than to endeavor, in futile self-assertion, to order the universe to be what we find comfortable.<br/>
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Towards facts, submission is the only rational attitude, but in the realm of ideals there is nothing to which to submit. The universe is neither hostile nor friendly; it neither favors our ideals nor refutes them. Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured on an astronomical scale. But that is no reason for not living it as seems best to us. The things that seem to us good are none the less good for not being eternal, and we should not ask of the universe an external approval of our own ethical standards. <br/>
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The freethinker's universe may seem bleak and cold to those who have been accustomed to the comfortable indoor warmth of the Christian cosmology. But to those who have grown accustomed to it, it has its own sublimity, and confers its own joys. In learning to think freely we have learnt to thrust fear out of our thoughts, and this lesson, once learnt, brings a kind of peace which is impossible to the slave of hesitant and uncertain credulity.<br/>
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(Full text available here: http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/radical/TheValueOfFreeThought.pdf)