and yet so contemptibly small? Has mankind still only
freedom of thought, but not freedom of utterance? The powers may blockade
Greece; can they blockade thoughts on wings of words? It has been
attempted, but force is no proof, and when we have visited the prisons in
which Galilei or even Giordano Bruno was immured, we learn how nothing
lends greater strength to the wings of truth than the heavy chains with
which men try to fetter it. It is still the general opinion that even in
free England thought and speech are not free, that in the realm of thought
there is even less freedom on this side of the Channel than on the
other.(37) Oxford especially, my own university, is still considered the
stronghold of obscurantists, and my Horseherd even considers the fact that
I have lived so long in Oxford a _circonstance attenuante_ of my so-called
orthodoxy. Plainly what is thought, said, and published in England, and
especially in Oxford, is not read. In England we can say anything we
please, we must only bear in mind that the same consideration is due to
others that we claim from others. It is true that from time to time in
England, and even in Oxford, feeble efforts have been made, if not to
curtail freedom of thought, at least to punish those who laid claim to it.
Where possible the salaries of professors were curtailed; in certain
elections very weak candidates were preferred because they were outwardly
orthodox. I do not wish to mention any names, but I myself have received
in England, even if not in Oxford, a gentle aftertaste of this antiquated
physic. When at the request of my friend Stanley, the Dean of Westminster
Abbey, I delivered a discourse in his venerable church, which was crowded
to the doors, petitions were sent to Parliament to condemn me to six
months' imprisonment. I was accosted in the streets and an ordinary
tradesman said to me, "Sir, if you are sent to prison, you shall have at
least two warm dinners each week from me." I am, to be sure, the first
layman that ever spoke publicly in an English church, but I had the advice
of the highest authorities that the Dean was perfectly within his rights
and that we were guilty of no violation of law. I therefore waited in
silence; I knew that public opinion was on my side, and that in the end
the petition to Parliament would simply be laid aside. Later on it was
attempted again. At the time that I delivered my lectures on the Science
of Religion at the university of Gl