more than delegates chosen to carry out the will of the people." This is obvious common sense. In a political constitution which includes hereditary kings or princes, it is specified and understood that the tenure and powers of these functionaries is not immediately and constantly dependent upon the approval of their subjects. Princes are, indeed, morally bound to exercise their authority in such a way as to promote the common good, but this object is not always quite the same as the aim of the popular will. When their rule has degenerated into tyranny, subversive of the social good, they may (as will be explained later in this volume) be deposed by the people; but this is an extreme situation. To accept this principle is very different from admitting that princes are at every moment subject to the will and disposition of the people.

Even republics do not admit that public officials must always carry out the wishes of the people, or that their administration may at any time be terminated by the people. Elected officials are, indeed, frequently expected, and properly so, to carry out a few large and important policies to which they have committed themselves during the election campaign; but there is always an immense number and variety of matters upon which the people have made no pronouncement, and concerning which officials may properly exercise their own best judgment. When officials, as sometimes happens, violate their explicit pledges to their constituents, they are still entitled to hold office to the end of the term for which they have been elected. There is, indeed, an exception to this rule in States which have adopted the political device known as the recall. Even in this situation the matter must be conducted according to certain forms prescribed by law. A special election must be held at which the voters decide whether the offending official will be permitted to serve out the term for which he was originally chosen. This procedure and the theory underlying it, are quite different from the method and theory which are condemned by Pope Leo. The former are in accord with reason and good order; the latter are the expression of popular whim. The former safeguard the common welfare; the latter place it in constant jeopardy.

12. (p. 16) FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND WRITING

In this paragraph Pope Leo explicitly rejects the doctrine of unlimited freedom of expression. The logic of his argument is unassailable. Speech and writing are not ends in themselves. They are only means to human welfare. The chief constituents of welfare are virtue and truth; the chief obstacles, vice and error. Any action or institution which exposes men to the latter is contrary to human welfare, to social welfare, and, so far as possible, should be prohibited by the State. As a matter of fact, this principle is to some extent recognized in the laws of every enlightened people. False statements injurious to the neighbor, teaching the young immoral practices, publishing and distributing indecent literature, are scarcely anywhere recognized as legitimate liberties. No peculiar sacredness inheres in the vocal organs or in the faculties which produce the written or printed page. There is no more reason for permitting a man to say or write what he pleases than for permitting him to exercise any other set of muscles according to his unregulated pleasure and regardless of social welfare.

All this is too evident to need formal statement. Why, then, are men,-in modern times probably the great majority of men -so thoroughly devoted to the policy of freedom of expression? There are four main reasons or arguments. The first is that such freedom is among the individual's natural rights. In reply let it suffice to point out that all natural rights are only means to some rational end, such as life, liberty, and the development of human faculties. Now freedom of expression carried so far as to include the utterance of doctrines which are false and injurious to human welfare is not a rational freedom, since the end which it promotes is irrational. Consequently, there exists no such natural right, any more than there exists a natural right of a manufacturer to adulterate food. Of the two forms of adulteration that which injures mind and character is frequently more deadly than that which harms only the body. Therefore, the natural right of freedom of expression extends only to those opinions and doctrines which are true and righteous.

The second argument for unrestricted freedom of speech and writing maintains that in certain departments of thought the difficulty of distinguishing between truth and error, or between a socially beneficial and a socially harmful doctrine, is so great as to render the attempt to repress wrong opinions and teachings productive of more harm than good. This assumption is applied especially to the fields of religion, politics, and industry. In a preceding note, we have dealt with the subject of religious freedom. Here we shall merely repeat that all men of good will can find and recognize the true religion, and that when it is recognized and adopted by the vast majority of the citizens, the State ought to protect them by all legitimate means against the advocacy of false religious notions. It is quite as much the duty of the State to safeguard the spiritual welfare of its members as their moral and physical welfare.

In politics and industry, however, the task of separaing truth from error is much more difficult. There exists no infallible authority or institution to perform this service. Concerning the great majority of opinions in both politics and industry, no prudent man will stake his eternal salvation, or his reputation, on the proposition that his theories and policies are infallibly right and socially beneficial, and that all opposing doctrines are certainly wrong and subversive of the public welfare. Nevertheless, there are certain fundamental and primary political and economic principles which every democratic government assumes to be, if not certain, at least essential to good order and the welfare of the people. Among these are the proposition that changes in the form of government should not be effected by force, and that industrial betterment must not be pursued by means of the destruction of property. Since actions of this sort are inadmissable, the advocacy of them is likewise improper and unjustifiable. Hence the laws of the United States provide for the deportation of aliens who indulge in this particular sort of freedom of expression. During the great war, liberty of speech was very considerably restricted on the assumption that actions or omissions which tended to prevent successful prosecution of the war, could not reasonably be advocated in speech or in writing. The safety of the nation

was postulated as something about which there could be no legitimate difference of opinion, and against which the doctrine of free speech could not properly be invoked. Apart from these fundamental assumptions which involve the security of the State and of such important social institutions as private property, our laws permit complete freedom of expression, so long as it conforms to the elementary canons of public decency.

The third reason adduced for unlimited freedom of speech and writing is in some measure a corollary of the second. Since truth cannot readily be distinguished from error beforehand, all opinions should be permitted to prove themselves by the method of competition. In this contest between what is true and what is false, the former will ultimately triumph. The insuperable objection to this method lies in the word "ultimately." The injury done to the bodies and souls of millions of men through the unrestricted propagation of false opinions during hundreds of years, is scarcely offset by the fact that in the long, long run, these doctrines will have become discredited in the contest with truth. History admonishes us that truth and error can exist side by side for centuries, the latter as well as the former continuously winning new adherents. When the State adopts a policy of permitting the advocacy of socially injurious. error, it neglects its duty to the numerous generations that come and go in the long interval before error is "ultimately" vanquished.

In the fourth place, unrestrained freedom of expression is defended on the ground that it is the smaller of two evils. To expose the minds and souls of men to wrong doctrine is deplorable, but to provoke continual strife in the commonwealth by attempting to repress it, is frequently a greater calamity. This is a sound practical rule. As we have seen in the discussion of religious freedom, the Church admits that such a policy may be preferable even when error appears in its worst form, namely, as a denial of the religion established by God. With much greater reason can the policy be applied to political and economic opinions, since the evil results of false doctrines in these fields are not nearly so great as those that ensue upon the propagation of errors in religion. Moreover, the public repression of any

beyond the obviously harmful political and economic doctrines is frequently unjust and almost always of doubtful justice, since it is impossible to determine with certainty whether the proscribed views are really erroneous and socially injurious. Again, it is extremely difficult to frame legal prohibitions of expression which cannot by administrative abuse be carried much further than the intentions of the lawmakers. We had innumerable instances of this abuse in the administration of the espionage act during the Great War, and we have seen the intolerable degree of repression which would have been possible under some of the restrictive measures which were nearly enacted by Congress in the winter of 1920. In view of the foregoing and other practical considerations, it is clear that, save in the case of a few fundamental principles which are essential to the existence of our political and economic institutions, complete liberty of speech and of writing, within the limits of public decency, should be permitted and protected in the domains of politics and economics. In this situation the theory of competition is correct. To permit truth and error to compete for supremacy in the market place of discussion, is the less of two evils.

The sum of the matter is that while many of the current arguments for unlimited freedom of expression are unsound, the practical policy that has been adopted by most modern States is in the main justifiable; but it is defensible only on grounds of practical expediency, not on the basis of natural rights or any other objective doctrine.'s

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13. (p. 18) "INTOLERANCE" IN THE SYLLABUS

The celebrated Syllabus of 79 propositions condemned by Pius IX, has received more adverse criticism than almost any other document issued by the Holy See in modern times. In view of the principles that we have reviewed in the foregoing pages, however, the proscriptions contained in this document are justifiable and reasonable. The four propositions quoted on

"For an authoritative discussion of this subject see the extracts from Pope Leo's encyclical on Human Liberty in chapter XI.