ABSTRACT
Mill argues that to suppress an opinion is to assume infallibility for oneself, which would be monstrously absurd. Now this might be true of the suppression of a descriptive opinion, but it is mistaken when applied to prescriptions. A government that decides to suppress a book that would have a morally pernicious influence is deciding to use its power to combat evil. This is a moral choice, and questions of infallibility simply do not arise. If we have a duty to combat an evil when it is within our power to do so, it is pusillanimous morality that shrinks from acting upon conviction, on the principle: 'who knows? the other fellow may be right after all'. It would be wrong not to consider the merits of his case before reaching a decision; it would be just as wrong to postpone decision indefinitely, or to shrink from acting on it, on the grounds that had one not been oneself, or had he put some other case than the one he did, one might conceivably have taken a different view. To make a moral judgment is to commit oneself to a course; the claims of tolerance may persuade us that the right course is not to interfere: they cannot persuade us that, though the right course is to interfere, we ought not to interfere because the right course might be wrong.
