Here in the postal yard I was greeted by a man heading to Petersburg on a quest to submit a petition. This petition was to attain permission to establish in this city a free press. I told him that permission was not needed for this, since freedom has already been granted to all in this regard. But he wanted freedom from censorship and here are his thoughts on the matter:
“We all have permission to possess printing establishments, and the time when it was feared to grant this to private individuals has already passed; the reason whereby at the time they refrained from introducing a general good and useful institution was that they feared forged passes could be printed on private presses. Now everyone is free to maintain printing tools but what can be printed remains under regulation. Censorship has become a nanny to reason, wit, imagination, all that is grand and exquisite. But where there are nannies it follows that there will be children; they go about in a harness, as a result often their legs are crooked; where there are guardians, it follows that there are young, immature minds unable to control themselves. If nannies and guardians carry on forever, then the child will long go about in a harness and at maturity be a complete cripple. This minor will always be a Mitrofanushka,79 unable to take a step without his tutor, unable to manage his inheritance without a guardian. These are the sorts of things that everywhere are the consequences of routine censorship, and the stricter it is the more damaging the consequences. Let us listen to Herder.80
The very best way to encourage the good is nonhindrance, license, freedom in thought. An inquisition is damaging in the kingdom of knowledge: it thickens the air and hampers breathing. A book that passes through ten censors before it comes into the world is not a book but the product of the Holy Inquisition, a prisoner often disfigured, beaten with rods and a muzzle in its mouth, and always a slave…. In the spheres of truth, in the kingdom of thought and spirit, no kind of earthly power can give permissions nor should it; the government cannot do this, even less the censor whether wearing a klobuk or a lanyard.81 In the kingdom of truth, the censor is not the judge but the defendant, so too the writer. Improvement can only occur through enlightenment; without a head and brain neither a hand nor leg will stir…. The more principled a state is in its rules, the more ordered, brighter, and firmer it is in itself, the less it can falter and be buffeted by the gust of every opinion, each piece of ridicule from an angry writer; and the more a government exercises benevolence in freedom of thought and freedom of writing, the gain therefrom will be in the end, of course, to truth. Wreckers are suspicious; secret villains are timid. A bold man, one doing right and firm in his principles, will permit any word to be said about him. He walks in the light and turns the calumny of his enemies to his own advantage. Monopolies of opinion are dangerous…. Let the ruler of the state be objective in his views so that he might apprehend the opinions of all and in his kingdom permit, enlighten, and dispose them to the good: here you have why truly great rulers are so rare.
“Convinced of the usefulness of publishing, the government granted permission to all; but convinced even more that curbs on thoughts would invalidate the good intention of the freedom to publish, it entrusted censorship, or the supervision of editions, to the Department of Public Morals. In this respect, its duty can only be to ban the sale of offensive works. However, even such censorship is superfluous. It only takes one stupid police official to do the greatest harm to enlightenment and for many years bring to a halt the progress of reason: he can forbid a useful invention, a new idea, and deprive all of something great. There is an example in a small thing. A translation of a novel was submitted for approval to the police. Following the author, when speaking about love, the translator dubbed it ‘a crafty god.’ The censor in uniform, imbued with the spirit of piety, blacked out this expression saying ‘it is improper to call a Deity crafty.’ If you don’t understand something then stay right out of it. If you want wholesome air, then place the smokery at a distance from yourself; if you want light, then cast aside obscurity; if you want a child not to be cowed, then banish the birch from school. In the house where whips and cudgels are in use servants are drunkards, thieves, and even worse.*
“Let everyone print whatever comes into their mind. Anyone who finds himself insulted in print should be granted a trial as per the regulation. I am not speaking in jest. Words are not always acts nor are thoughts crimes. These are the rules of the Instruction about the new law code.82 But an insult in speech remains an insult in print as well. It is not permitted by law to insult anyone, and everyone has freedom to make a complaint. But if someone tells the truth about another, whether this should be considered libel or not is not in the law. What harm can there be if there are books in print without the police seal? Not only is there no harm, but there is advantage, advantage from the first to the last, from the smallest person to the greatest, from the Tsar to the last of citizens.
“The usual rules of censorship are: to underline, black out, forbid, shred, burn everything contrary to natural religion and revelation, everything contrary to government, every personal affront; anything antithetical to morality, order, and public peace. Let us review this in detail. If a madman in his raving, not only to himself in his heart, but in a loud voice says: ‘There is no God,’ in the mouths of all madmen a loud and hasty echo will resound: ‘There is no God, there is no God.’ Well, what of it? An echo is a sound; it will strike the air, cause it to vibrate, and disappear. In the mind it will rarely leave a trace, and a weak one at that; but in the heart, never. God will always be God, sensed even by those who do not believe in Him. But if you think that the Almighty will be offended by blasphemy, how can a clerk in the office of the police be a plaintiff on His behalf? The Almighty does not place His confidence in one who brandishes a rattle or strikes the tocsin to sound an alarm. He who wields thunder and lightning, to whom all the elements obey; He who dwells beyond the boundaries of the universe and shakes all hearts, abhors it if revenge is taken for His sake even if this is by the Tsar himself, who fancies himself His deputy on earth.—Who, indeed, can be the judge of an offence to the Eternal Father?—He gives offence who thinks: I am able to judge about His insult. He will answer to this before Him.
“The apostates of revealed religion have done more harm to this day in Russia than the deniers of the existence of God, atheists. Of the latter, we have few since there are still few among us who think about metaphysics. The atheist loses his way in metaphysics, but a Schismatic becomes deluded in the matter of three fingers.83 We call Schismatics all Russians who depart in any manner from the general teaching of the Greek church. Of these there are many in Russia, which is why their liturgy is permitted. But is there any reason to prohibit the manifestation of any error? The more apparent it is the sooner it will crumble. Persecutions used to make martyrs, cruelty was a prop of the very Christian religion. Schisms can sometimes have dangerous effects. Prohibit them. They spread by example. Destroy the example. It is not because of a printed book that a Schismatics will immolate themselves, but because of a sly example. To forbid foolishness is tantamount to encouraging it. Give it free rein, everyone will see what is stupid and what is smart. What is forbidden is wanted. We are all the children of Eve.
“But in banning freedom to publish, timorous governments do not fear blasphemy, they fear having critics. Anyone who in hours of madness does not spare God will in hours of lucidity and reason not spare unlawful power. The one who does not fear the Almighty’s thunderbolts laughs at the gallows. This is why liberty of thought is terrifying to governments. Shaken to his very core, the freethinker will reach out to the idol of power a bold but powerful and unwavering hand, tear off its mask and cloak, and expose its build. Each will see its feet of clay, each will retract the support he granted it, power will return to its source, the idol will fall. But if power does not rest upon a fog of opinions, if its throne stands on a sincere love of the general good, will it not be strengthened by the divulgement of its principles? Will not he who loves sincerely not then be loved? Reciprocity is a feeling from nature, and this urge resides in nature. To a strong and firm building its own foundation should be sufficient: it has no need for supports and buttresses. Only if it totters from dilapidation will it require support. Let the government be truthful, its leaders not hypocritical: then all its spittle, then all its vomitings will throw back their fetidness on their belcher, while truth will forever be pure and fair to see. Whoever stirs things up with speech (so as to please power this is how we name all firm thoughts based in truth that contradict power) is just as mad as one who blasphemes against God. If power should travel on its rightful path, then it will not be troubled by the empty sound of calumny, just as the Lord of Hosts is not rattled by blaspheming. But woe unto power if out of avidity it violates the truth. Then even a sole firm thought troubles it, the word of truth will destroy it, a virile deed will scatter it.
“A personal attack, if it is damaging, is an offense. A personal attack that is truthful is as permissible as truth itself. If a biased judge rules in favor of a lie and the defender of innocence exposes his ruling to the world as crooked, if he exposes his trickery and falsehood, this is a personal attack but can be condoned. If he should call the judge ‘hired,’ ‘false,’ ‘stupid,’ this personal affront can be condoned. However, if he should take to calling him by the foul nicknames and curse words, as used in markets, this personal affront is malicious and unacceptable. It is not the role of the government, however, to defend a judge even when he has been disparaged for being right. It is not him as judge, but the offended man who will be the plaintiff in this matter. As for the judge, let his deeds alone vindicate him in the eyes of the world and those who named him a judge.* This is how one should think about a personal attack. It deserves punishment, but if it is printed will do more good than harm. When everything is in order, when verdicts always conform to law, when the law is founded on truth and oppression is contained, then and only then, perhaps, can a personal attack corrupt morals. Let us say something about good conduct and to what extent words can damage it.
“Obscene writings, full of lewd descriptions, breathing debauchery, whose every page and line gape with a titillating nudity, are harmful for the young and those of immature feeling. In fanning an already inflamed imagination, stirring the sleeping feelings and stimulating a heart that was quiet, they instill a precocious maturity, deceiving youthful senses about their resilience and laying the groundwork for their infirmity. Writings of this kind can be harmful; but they are not the root of corruption. If by reading them young men develop a taste for the ultimate satisfaction of amorous passion, they would be able to do nothing about it were it not for those who hawk their beauty. In Russia, such writings are still not in print, yet on every street in both capitals we see harlots garishly made-up. Action more than language corrupts, and example most of all. Itinerant harlots, granting their hearts at a public auction to the bidder, will infect a thousand youths with venereal disease and all this thousand’s progeny. But a book has not yet produced illness. Let the censure of female hustlers stand; it has no bearing on the works of the mind, even if debauched.
“I shall close with this: censorship of print matter belongs to society. Society will award a laurel crown to the author or will use his sheets for wrapping paper. This is just like the approval the public, rather than the director of the theater gives to a work for theater. Similarly, the censor awards neither fame nor infamy to a work that has seen the light. The curtain has risen, the gazes of all are riveted on the action; it pleases—they applaud, it does not please—they stamp and jeer. Leave stupidity to the discretion of public judgment: it will find a thousand censors. The most severe police are no match for a disgruntled public when it comes to stymying the dregs of ideas. They will listen to these ideas one time, then these ideas will die never to be resurrected. But if we acknowledge the uselessness of censorship and, moreover, its harmfulness in the kingdom of knowledge, then let us recognize the widespread and unlimited benefit of freedom of the press.
It seems proof of this is not needed. If everyone is free to think and to express his thoughts unhindered, then it is natural that everything that is conceived, invented, should be known; what is great will remain great, the truth will not be hidden. The rulers of nations will not dare to stray from the path of truth and will fear lest their conduct, malice, and cunning be exposed. On signing an unjust sentence, the judge will begin to tremble and will tear it up. Anyone who has power will be ashamed to use it for the satisfaction only of his whims. Theft that is hidden will be called theft, murder that is covered up will be called murder. The wicked, all of them, will take fright at the severe gaze of truth. Tranquility will be genuine in the absence of a grain of fermentation. At present, only the surface appears smooth, but the silt lying at the bottom stirs up and obscures the clarity of the waters.”
When saying goodbye to me, the critic of censorship gave me a small notebook. If, reader, you are not prone to boredom, read, then, what lies before you. If, however, it should happen that you yourself belong to the censorship committee, then turn down the corner of the page and skip past.
A Short Account of the Origins of Censorship84
If we say and confirm with evident proofs that censorship and the Inquisition have one and the same root; that the founders of the Inquisition invented censorship, that is, the mandatory examination of books before they see the light of day, then, while this will be saying nothing new, it does allow us to extract from the obscurity of past times, adding to the many others, clear proof that priests were always the inventors of the chains whereby human reason has at various times been weighed down; and that priests always clipped the wings of reason to hinder its flight toward majesty and freedom.
As we traverse epochs and centuries that have passed, we everywhere encounter features of power that torment; everywhere see force rising up against truth, sometimes superstition taking arms against superstition. The Athenian people, incited by hierophants, outlawed the writings of Protagoras,85 ordered that all copies be confiscated and burned. Was it not the same people that in its madness consigned to death, to its indelible shame, the very personification of truth, Socrates? In Rome we find more examples of such ferocity. Titus Livy recounts that the writings found in the grave of Numa were burned by order of the Senate. At different epochs it happened that books of augury were ordered surrendered to the Praetor. Suetonius recounts that Caesar Augustus ordered that close to two thousand such books be burned. Yet one more example of the incongruity of human reason! Can it be that in prohibiting superstitious writings these rulers thought that superstition would be destroyed? Each person individually found himself banned from having recourse to divination, which was used not infrequently to assuage a pang of grief; permission remained only for the state predictions of auguries and haruspices. But if in time of enlightenment they had got it into their heads to prohibit or burn books teaching divination or propagating superstition, would it not be amusing if truth itself took up the scepter of persecution against superstition? And that truth sought, for the vanquishing of error, the support of power and the sword, even though the sight of truth alone is the harshest scourge of error?
But Caesar Augustus visited his persecutions not on divination alone: he ordered the books of Titus Labienus to be burned. “His persecutors,” says the rhetorician Seneca, “devised for him a new type of punishment. It is unheard of, most unusual, to derive an execution from learning. But to the state’s good fortune this rational ferocity was discovered after Cicero. What might have happened if the Triumvirate had decided that it was good to condemn the mind of Cicero?” But the tyrant soon took revenge on the person who demanded the burning of Labienus’s works.86 During his own lifetime he saw his own works condemned to the pyre.*87 “It was not some evil example that was followed but his own,” says Seneca.†88 May heaven permit that villainy always rebound on its inventor and that anyone mounting persecution of thought would always see his own thoughts mocked and condemned to vilification and destruction. If there is an act of revenge that can ever be excused, then perhaps this is it.
During periods of plebeian rule in Rome, persecution of such a kind was only visited on superstition, but during the Empire it extended to all firm convictions. In his History, Cremutius Cordus89 named Cassius for having dared to mock the tyranny Augustus exercised against the works of Labienus, the last Roman. The Roman Senate, groveling before Tiberius, to please him ordered Cremutius’s book burned. But many copies survived. “All the more reason,” says Tacitus, “one can mock the care of those who dream that in their omnipotence they are able to annihilate the memory of the next generation. Although power might well unleash furious punishment upon reason, its ferocity has caused shame and disgrace for itself, but glory for them.”
Jewish books did not escape burning during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king.90 Similar fates were meted out to Christian writings. The Emperor Diocletian ordered books of Holy Scripture to be placed in the fire.91 But the Christian dogma, having achieved a victory over persecution, subdued its very torturers and now remains as true testimony that the harassment of ideas and opinions not only lacks the force to destroy them but rather implants and propagates them. Arnobius92 rightly protests against such persecution and martyrdom. “Some declare,” he says, “that it is useful for the state that the Senate ordered the writings serving as proof of the Christian confession, which refute the significance of ancient religion, to be destroyed. But to prohibit writing and to wish to destroy what is promulgated is not to defend the gods, rather it is to fear the testimonials of truth.” Nevertheless, after the spread of the Christian confession, its priests displayed just as much hostility to writings that opposed them or were of no benefit to them. Not long before had they criticized this severity among the pagans, not long before had they considered it a sign of mistrust regarding what they defended; yet they themselves were soon armed with omnipotence. The Greek emperors, more occupied by ecclesiastical debates than matters of state, and for that reason ruled by priests, mounted persecution against all those whose understanding of the deeds and teachings of Jesus differed from their own. Such persecution also extended to the product of mind and reason. Already the tormentor Constantine, called the Great, following the decision of the Council of Nicaea relegating Arius’s teaching to anathema, banned his books, condemned them to be burned, and anyone who possessed these books was sentenced to be executed.93 Emperor Theodosius II ordered the condemned books of Nestorios to be collected and consigned to the fire.94 At the Council of Chalcedon, the very same resolution was adopted for the writings of Eutychus.95 In the Pandects of Justinian are preserved a number of similar resolutions.96 Senseless people! They were unaware that by destroying a corrupt or foolish interpretation of Christian teaching and prohibiting reason to labor in the investigation of opinions of any kind, they were stopping its progress; they deprived truth of a strong support, variety of opinions, debate, and the unmenaced statement of thoughts. Who can guarantee that Nestorios, Arius, Eutychus, and other heretics might not have been the predecessors of Luther, and that had it not been for these ecumenical councils’ being convoked Descartes might have been born ten centuries earlier? What a backward step was made toward darkness and ignorance!
After the destruction of the Roman Empire monks in Europe were the guardians of learning and science. But nobody disputed their freedom to write what they wished. In 768 Ambrosius Opert, a Benedictine monk, sending his interpretation of the Book of the Apocalypse to Pope Stephan III and seeking permission to continue his work and to publish it, says that he was the first of writers to seek such permission. “But let freedom of writing,” he continues, “not vanish because abasement was proffered voluntarily.” The Council of Sens in 1140 condemned the views of Abelard, and the Pope ordered the burning of his compositions.97
But neither in Greece nor in Rome do we anywhere find an example that a judge of thought was appointed that he brazenly say: “Seek permission from me if you wish to open your lips for eloquence; reason, science, and enlightenment are stamped for approval by us, and everything that has seen the light without our seal of approval we denounce in advance as stupid, vile, unworthy.” Such a shameful invention was reserved for the Christian clergy, and censorship was contemporary with the Inquisition.
Rather often in reviewing history we find that reason goes with superstition and the most useful inventions stand alongside the coarsest ignorance. At the moment when cowardly mistrust of the object of an affirmation incited monks to establish censorship and to destroy an idea at its birth, at that very time Columbus dared to set off into the unknowability of the seas in pursuit of America; Keppler anticipated the existence of gravitational force in nature, proven by Newton; at that same moment Copernicus, who charted the path in space of the heavenly bodies, was born. But concerning a greater regret about the fate of human reasoning, we shall say that a great idea sometimes gave birth to ignorance. Printing gave birth to censorship; philosophical reason in the eighteenth century produced the Illuminati.
In the year 1479 we find the oldest hitherto known permission to print a book. At the end of the book titled Know Thyself, printed in 1480, the following was added: “We, Maffeo Ghirardi,98 by the grace of God Patriarch of Venice, primate of Dalmatia, after the reading of the above-named gentlemen who bear witness to the composition described above, and after its conclusion and authorization being added, we bear witness that this book is Orthodox and pious.” A most ancient monument to censorship though not the most ancient to madness!
The oldest legislation on censorship known hitherto we find in 1486, published in the same city where printing was invented. The monastic authorities were prescient that it would be the agent of the destruction of their power, that it would hasten the opening up of reason in general, and that power based on opinion rather than on the common interest would find its demise in printing. May we be permitted here to add a historic document, at present still extant as a detriment to thought and to the disgrace of the Enlightenment. A decree on the prohibition to publish Greek, Latin, and other books in the vernacular without the prior approval of scholars, 1486.*99
“Berthold, archbishop by divine grace of the holy precinct of Mainz, archchancellor and Prince-Elector in Germany. Although the divine art of printing makes it possible in the acquisition of human learning to obtain books pertaining to various sciences more bountifully and more freely, it has nonetheless come to our attention that certain people, induced by the wish for vain fame or wealth, abuse this art and what was bestowed for education in human life they turn into ruin and slander.
“We have seen books concerning sacred duties and the rituals of our confession translated from Latin into the German language circulate, as is inappropriate for the sacred law, in the hands of simple folk. And what, then, is to be said about the sacred prescriptions of rules and laws? Although they were written carefully and intelligently by people expert in legal study, the wisest and most intelligent possible, the science is in itself so difficult that the entire life of a most eloquent and learned person would scarcely be sufficient.
“Some stupid, brazen, and ignorant people take it upon themselves to translate into the vernacular these sorts of books. Many learned people on reading these translations admit that owing to their considerable improper and poor use of words they are more obscure than the originals. What would we say about works in other fields in which they often mix the false, introduce mistaken appellations and for which more buyers are found the more they attribute their own ideas to famous writers.
“Let these translators—if they love the truth—no matter the intention with which they have acted, good or bad, let them tell us whether the German language is suitable for transposing into it what the most elegant Greek and Latin writers have written exquisitely and intelligently on the loftiest considerations of the Christian faith and about other sciences? One is obliged to admit that owing to its poverty our language is barely sufficient, and for that reason they have to devise in their heads unknown names for things; and even if they use the old ones it will be by corrupting their true meaning, the thing we fear most in Holy Scripture given their importance. For who will reveal the true meaning to the uncouth and ignorant people and the female sex into whose hands the books of sacred scripture fall? When the text of Holy Gospel or the Epistles of the Apostle Paul are read, every intelligent person will admit that there are in them many scribal additions and corrections.
“What has been said by us is well known. What should we think about what is found in the writings of the Catholic church that depends on the strictest scrutiny? We can give many examples but for our purpose the aforesaid is already sufficient.
“Given that the origin of this art, to speak the truth, appeared miraculously in our famous city of Mainz, and presently continues in it, corrected and enhanced, it is right that we take its dignity under our protection. For our duty is to preserve the Holy Scriptures in a state of uncorrupted purity. Having discussed in this manner the errors and presumption of brazen and wicked people, and desiring as much as we can, with the help of God, of Whom this is about, to warn them and to put a halt to each and every one them, clerical and civilian subject of our region and on those who trade outside its boundaries, no matter their rank and station, herewith we order all that no work in any science, art, or branch of learning, being translated from the Greek, Latin, or another language into German, or already existing in translation with a change only of title or anything else, may be distributed or sold, openly or clandestinely, forthrightly or in a secret manner, if it does not possess before printing or after printing before publication, clear permission to be printed or published as granted by our most esteemed, exalted, and noble doctors and masters of the university, that is: in our city of Mainz permission from Johannes Bertram von Naumburg in the matter of theology; from Alexander Diethrich in jurisprudence; from Theoderich von Meschede in the medical sciences; and from Andreas Oehler in letters, those doctors and masters selected for this purpose in our city of Erfurt. [We declare that no work] … can be distributed or sold … also in the city of Frankfurt if these books published for sale have not been vetted and confirmed by an esteemed and dear to us master of theology and one or two doctors and licentiates, who have been maintained on an annual salary by the Council of the same city.100
“If anyone should scorn this, our curatorial decree, or give advice, help, or support against our order in person or through another, he will thereby subject himself not only to excommunication but also to having confiscated these books and will pay one hundred gold gilders in fine into our treasury. And let no one without special decree dare to infringe this resolution. Granted in the Castle of St. Martin in our city of Mainz with our seal affixed. In the month of January, on the fourth day of the year 1486.”
Once again Berthold on the manner in which to discharge censorship: In the year 1486 Berthold etc. To the most honored, learned, and in Christ dear to us J. Bertram (Doctor of Theology), A. Diethrich (Doctor of Law), F. de Meschede (Doctor of Medicine), and A. Oehler (Master of Letters) we bid greeting and attention to the attached below.
“Being informed of deceptions and forgeries having been perpetrated by some translators and printers of scholarship, and being anxious to preempt them and willing if possible to head them off, we decree that nobody in our diocese and region shall dare to translate books into the German language, print or distribute printed matter, until such compositions or books have been inspected by you in our city of Mainz and, concerning the subject matter itself, they will not appear until confirmed by you in translation and for sale in accordance with the aforenoted decree.
“Firmly trusting in your reasonableness and prudence, we entrust to you that: when compositions or books designated for translation, printing, or sale shall be brought to you, you will review their contents and should it prove not easy to perceive their true meaning, or if they are able to engender mistakes and temptations or to offend against purity of morals, then reject them; while those you freely release will have to be signed at the end in your own hand, namely, by two of you that it will thereby be clear that these books were reviewed and approved by you. You render to our Lord and state valuable and useful service. Granted in the Palace of St. Martin. 10 January 1486.”
While reviewing this law, new at the time, we find that it favored prohibition so that few books were published in the German language. Put differently, the people remained perpetually in ignorance. Censorship, it seems, did not extend to compositions written in Latin. For those already knowledgeable in the Latin language, it seemed, were already protected from error, impermeable to it, and what they read they understood clearly and accurately.* And thus the clergy wanted that only their allies in power were to be enlightened, so that the people would consider learning to be of divine origin beyond their comprehension and would not dare touch it. And so what was devised to confine the truth and enlightenment within the strictest boundaries, devised by a mistrusting power for its own might, devised for the continuation of ignorance and benightedness, now in days of science and philosophy, when reason has shaken off the shackles of superstition alien to it, when truth gleams in a hundred guises stronger and stronger, when the source of learning flows through the furthest branches of society, when the efforts of governments expedite the destruction of error and the opening of paths for reason to reach the truth unimpeded, this shameful monastic invention emanating from a trembling power is now accepted everywhere, has taken root, and is considered a good bulwark against error. Raving ones! look around, you strive to prop up truth with falsehood, you wish to enlighten nations with falsehood. But beware lest benightedness be restored. What is the use to you of ruling over ignoramuses, all the more uncouth because they remained ignorant not due to a lack of the means to enlightenment or due to their natural simplicity, but rather, having taken a step toward enlightenment, they were stopped in their progress and turned back, driven into darkness? What use is it to you to fight with yourself and rip out with your left hand what your right hand planted? Regard the clergy as they rejoice in this. You already are of service to them. Scatter benightedness and feel the chains that are on you: if they are not always the chains of ecclesiastical superstition, they are of political superstition, less ridiculous albeit equally destructive.
However, it is to the good fortune of society that printing has not been banished from your countries. As a tree planted in an eternal spring does not lose its greenery, so the instruments of printing can be stopped in their action but not destroyed.
Having understood the danger that freedom of the press could pose to their dominion, the popes were not slow to pass laws about censorship, and this regulation acquired the force of a general law at the council that took place shortly thereafter in Rome. Holy Tiberius, Pope Alexander VI, was the first of the popes to pass a law about censorship in 1501. Weighed down himself by all his evildoings, he had no shame in showing concern for the purity of the Christian faith. But whenever has power blushed! He begins his papal bull with a complaint against the devil who sows corn cockles among the wheat and says: “Having learned that by means of the aforementioned art* many books and compositions printed in various parts of the world, particularly in Cologne, Mainz, Trier, Magdeburg, contain various errors and damaging teachings inimical to the Christian faith, and even now are still printed in some places, wishing without delay to preempt this odious ulcer, for each and every printer of the aforementioned art and for all those belonging to it and for all who are active in the business of printing in the places mentioned above, under pain of anathema and a fine to be determined and collected for the benefit of the Apostolic Camera by our honorable brethren the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, and Magdeburg, or their vicars in their regions, we forbid by virtue of our apostolic power to print or to submit for printing books, treatises, or writings unless they have been referred to the aforementioned archbishops or vicars and unless they have been granted authorization that has specifically been without personal compensation; we charge them on their conscience so that, before they grant authorization of this kind, they will consider carefully the writings designated for print or have them examined by the scholarly and truly religious; and that they maintain the utmost vigilance that nothing be published that is contrary to the true faith and capable of giving rise to impiety and temptation.” And so that books already in existence cause no further harm it was decreed that all inventories of books and all printed books be inspected and that those whose contents in any part opposed the Catholic confession be burned.
O! you who establish censorship, remember that you may be compared to Pope Alexander VI and may shame overcome you!101
In 1515, the Lateran Council passed a decree on censorship that no book could be printed without the permission of the clergy.
From the preceding, we have seen that censorship was invented by the clergy and that it was adopted exclusively by them. Accompanied by anathema and a fine, censorship could at the time seem like a terrible thing to the violator of the rules published about it. But the rejection by Luther of pontifical authority, the breach of various rites from the Roman church, disputes among different powers during the Thirty Years War, gave rise to many books published without the usual seal of approval from the censor. Everywhere, however, the clergy arrogated to itself the right to exercise censorship on publications and when in 1650 secular censorship was established in France, the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris protested against this new ordinance by arguing that it had in fact for two centuries enjoyed this right.
It was shortly after the introduction of printing in England* that censorship was established.102 The Star Chamber, no less terrible in its time for England than the Inquisition in Spain or the Secret Chancery103 for Russia, decided on the number of printers and printing presses and established the office of the vetter of print matter without whose authorization one would not dare print anything at all. The excesses of the Star Chamber against those who wrote about the government were endless and its history abounds in this kind. If, therefore, in England clerical superstition was incapable of imposing on reason the heavy curb of censorship, it was imposed by political superstition. But each of these made it their business to preserve power intact, that the orbs of enlightenment be veiled by the fog of enchantment, and that coercion dominate at the expense of reason.
It was the death of the Earl of Strafford that precipitated the demise of the Star Chamber;104 but neither the liquidation of the latter nor the trial and execution of Charles I were able to confirm the freedom of the press in England. The Long Parliament restored the old regulations established against it. They were again restored during the reigns of Charles II and James I. Even in 1692 at the conclusion of the Glorious Revolution this legislation was confirmed although only for two years. When the two years were over in 1694, liberty to print was fully restored and after a final gasp censorship gave up the ghost.*
The American states adopted freedom to publish among the very first laws establishing civil liberties. In chapter 1 of its constitution, in article 12 of the preamble concerning the rights of its residents, Pennsylvania says: “The people have the right to express, write, and publish their opinions; it follows that freedom to publish must never be subject to restriction.” In chapter 2, paragraph 35, respecting the mode of government: “Let freedom of the press be guaranteed to all who wish to inspect the work of the legislative assembly or any other branch of government.” In the draft relating to the type of government for the state of Pennsylvania, printed in July 1776 in order that the residents be able to share their comments, at paragraph 35: “Let freedom to print be guaranteed to all those who desire to study the legislative body, and the general assembly may not in any circumstances limit it. No publisher may be brought before a tribunal because he published remarks, evaluations, observations bearing on the works of the general assembly, the various branches of government, public affairs, or the conduct of government servants insofar as it relates to the jobs they do.” The State of Delaware, in the declaration made of its rights, says in article 23: “Let the freedom to print be maintained in its inviolability.” The State of Maryland uses the same terms in article 38. Virginia expresses itself in these words in article 14: “Freedom of the press is for the State the best bulwark of the freedom.”105
The press, before the revolution of 1789 that took place in France, was nowhere so constrained as in this state. A hundred-eyed Argos, a hundred-handed Briareus, the police of Paris raged against writings and writers. In the dungeons of the Bastille wasted away the unfortunate who had the audacity to denounce the greed and depravity of ministers. Had the French language not enjoyed such universal use in Europe, France, which suffered under the lash of censorship, would not have attained that grandeur of thought to which so large a number of its writers offers proof. But the widespread use of French gave a reason to establish presses in Holland, England, Switzerland, and in the German lands, and everything you could not dare to be published in France was published freely in other places. So in this way power, flaunting its muscles, was derided and was not frightful; so it was that the maws foaming with fury remained empty, and firm speech slipped out of them unscathed.
How not to marvel at the incongruity of the human mind! Now when in France all are breathless about liberty, when brazenness and anarchy have reached the limit of possibility, censorship in France has not been abolished. And while everything can be published there now with impunity, it is clandestine. Not long ago we read—and may the French weep for their fate and with them all of humanity—we read not long ago that the Assemblée Nationale, acting as autocratically as the monarch had done hitherto, seized by force a book and put its author on trial for having dared to write against the Assemblée Nationale. Lafayette was the perpetrator of the sentence. O France! You continue to skirt the abyss of the Bastille.
With their equipment hidden from the authorities, the proliferation of printing presses in the German lands deprives them of the capacity to rage against reason and enlightenment. The smaller German governments, even though they are trying to impose a limit on freedom to publish, have been unsuccessful. Even though Wekhrlin was put under arrest by a vengeful government, the Gray Monstrosity remained in everyone’s hands.106 The late Frederick II, the Prussian king, in his lands all but established freedom to print: he did it not through the promulgation of any legislation, but only by tacit permission and the example of his own ideas. Why be surprised that he did not abolish censorship? He was an absolute monarch whose cherished passion was omnipotence. Contain your laughter.—He learned that someone was planning to assemble and publish his decrees. He assigned to them two censors—or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say inspectors. O domination! O omnipotence! you do not trust your own physical strength! You fear the accusation you make of yourself, you fear lest your tongue betray you and lest your own hand box your ears!—But what good could they do, these tyrannical censors? Far from doing good, they only could do harm. They secreted from the scrutiny of posterity some absurd law that power was ashamed to submit to future judgment, a law that once published could be a bridle on power so that it dares not to realize monstrous deeds. The Emperor Joseph II107 removed in part an obstacle that barred the path to enlightenment and oppressed reason in the Austrian lands during the reign of Maria Theresa. But he was unable to shake off the burden of prejudices and published a very long memorandum on censorship. If he can be praised for not having banned criticism of his decisions, any complaint about his behavior, and the like, from being published in the press, still we will reproach him for leaving this curb on the freedom of expression of ideas. How easy it is to use this for bad ends! …* Why feel any surprise? We say now what we said earlier: he was an emperor. Tell me, then, where can there be more incongruities than in a royal head?
In Russia…. What happened in Russia with censorship you will learn another time. And now, without imposing censorship on the postal horses, I set off on my journey in haste.
