aises very formidable barriers to the liberty
of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he
pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond them. Not that he
is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by
the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is
closed forever, since he has offended the only authority which is
able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even that
of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he
imagined that he held them in common with many others; but no sooner has
he declared them openly than he is loudly censured by his overbearing
opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to speak,
like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the
daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he
was tormented by remorse for having spoken the truth.

Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which tyranny formerly
employed; but the civilization of our age has refined the arts of
despotism which seemed, however, to have been sufficiently perfected
before. The excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of
physical means of oppression: the democratic republics of the present
day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as that will
which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of an individual
despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul
escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to
the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic
republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The
sovereign can no longer say, "You shall think as I do on pain of death;"
but he says, "You are free to think differently from me, and to retain
your life, your property, and all that you possess; but if such be your
determination, you are henceforth an alien among your people. You may
retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will
never be chosen by your fellow-citizens if you solicit their suffrages,
and they will affect to scorn you if you solicit their esteem. You will
remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind.
Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being, and those who
are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they
should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace!