Final Essay Intro to Philosophy

The Ethics of Belief (1877)

William K. Clifford

Originally published in Contemporary Review, 1877. Reprinted in Lectures and Essays

(1879). Presently in print in The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays (Prometheus Books,

1999).

I. THE DUTY OF INQUIRY

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and

not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had

needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy.

These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he

ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him at

great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these

melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many

voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come

safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly

fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for

better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about

the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and

comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched

her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in

their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went

down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men.

It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity

of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such

evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in

patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt

so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and

willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it.

Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not unsound after all; that she

made her voyage safely, and many others after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her

owner? Not one jot. When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no

accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. The man would not

have been innocent, he would only have been not found out. The question of right or

wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how

he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to

believe on such evidence as was before him.

There was once an island in which some of the inhabitants professed a religion teaching

neither the doctrine of original sin nor that of eternal punishment. A suspicion got abroad

that the professors of this religion had made use of unfair means to get their doctrines

taught to children. They were accused of wresting the laws of their country in such a way

as to remove children from the care of their natural and legal guardians; and even of

stealing them away and keeping them concealed from their friends and relations. A

certain number of men formed themselves into a society for the purpose of agitating the

public about this matter. They published grave accusations against individual citizens of

the highest position and character, and did all in their power to injure these citizens in

their exercise of their professions. So great was the noise they made, that a Commission

was appointed to investigate the facts; but after the Commission had carefully inquired

into all the evidence that could be got, it appeared that the accused were innocent. Not

only had they been accused on insufficient evidence, but the evidence of their innocence

was such as the agitators might easily have obtained, if they had attempted a fair inquiry.

After these disclosures the inhabitants of that country looked upon the members of the

agitating society, not only as persons whose judgment was to be distrusted, but also as no

longer to be counted honourable men. For although they had sincerely and

conscientiously believed in the charges they had made, yet they had no right to believe on

such evidence as was before them. Their sincere convictions, instead of being honestly

earned by patient inquiring, were stolen by listening to the voice of prejudice and passion.

Let us vary this case also, and suppose, other things remaining as before, that a still more

accurate investigation proved the accused to have been really guilty. Would this make

any difference in the guilt of the accusers? Clearly not; the question is not whether their

belief was true or false, but whether they entertained it on wrong grounds. They would no

doubt say, "Now you see that we were right after all; next time perhaps you will believe

us." And they might be believed, but they would not thereby become honourable men.

They would not be innocent, they would only be not found out. Every one of them, if he

chose to examine himself in foro conscientiae, would know that he had acquired and

nourished a belief, when he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him;

and therein he would know that he had done a wrong thing.

It may be said, however, that in both these supposed cases it is not the belief which is

judged to be wrong, but the action following upon it. The shipowner might say, "I am

perfectly certain that my ship is sound, but still I feel it my duty to have her examined,

before trusting the lives of so many people to her." And it might be said to the agitator,

"However convinced you were of the justice of your cause and the truth of your

convictions, you ought not to have made a public attack upon any man's character until

you had examined the evidence on both sides with the utmost patience and care."

In the first place, let us admit that, so far as it goes, this view of the case is right and

necessary; right, because even when a man's belief is so fixed that he cannot think

otherwise, he still has a choice in the action suggested by it, and so cannot escape the

duty of investigating on the ground of the strength of his convictions; and necessary,

because those who are not yet capable of controlling their feelings and thoughts must

have a plain rule dealing with overt acts."

But this being premised as necessary, it becomes clear that it is not sufficient, and that

our previous judgment is required to supplement it. For it is not possible so to sever the

belief from the action it suggests as to condemn the one without condemning the other.

No man holding a strong belief on one side of a question, or even wishing to hold a belief

on one side, can investigate it with such fairness and completeness as if he were really in

doubt and unbiased; so that the existence of a belief not founded on fair inquiry unfits a

man for the performance of this necessary duty.

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him

who holds it. He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon

the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart. If a belief is not

realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. It goes

to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action

at every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that

no part of it can be isolated from the rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of

the whole. No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly

insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it

before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost

thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our

character for ever.

And no one man's belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone.

Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been

created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes

and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an

heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred

trust to be handled on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with

some clear marks of its proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief

of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an awful

responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

In the two supposed cases which have been considered, it has been judged wrong to

believe on insufficient evidence, or to nourish belief by suppressing doubts and avoiding

investigation. The reason of this judgment is not far to seek: it is that in both these cases

the belief held by one man was of great importance to other men. But forasmuch as no

belief held by one man, however seemingly trivial the belief, and however obscure the

believer, is ever actually insignificant or without its effect on the fate of mankind, we

have no choice but to extend our judgment to all cases of belief whatever. Belief, that

sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious

working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves but for

humanity. It is rightly used on truths which have been established by long experience and

waiting toil, and which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning.

Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and direct their common action. It is

desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and

private pleasure of the believer; to add a tinsel splendour to the plain straight road of our

life and display a bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown the common sorrows of our

kind by a self-deception which allows them not only to cast down, but also to degrade us.

Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his beliefs

with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy

object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.

It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden

duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent

sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every

hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit

society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can

escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which comes out of it is often a very

bitter thing. It leaves us bare and powerless where we thought that we were safe and

strong. To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all

circumstances. We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely

what to do, no matter what happens, than when we have lost our way and do not know

where to turn. And if we have supposed ourselves to know all about anything, and to be

capable of doing what is fit in regard to it, we naturally do not like to find that we are

really ignorant and powerless, that we have to begin again at the beginning, and try to

learn what the thing is and how it is to be dealt with--if indeed anything can be learnt

about it. It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men

desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting.

This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is

founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation. For then we may

justly feel that it is common property, and hold good for others as well as for ourselves.

Then we may be glad, not that I have learned secrets by which I am safer and stronger,

but that we men have got mastery over more of the world; and we shall be strong, not for

ourselves but in the name of Man and his strength. But if the belief has been accepted on

insufficient evidence, the pleasure is a stolen one. Not only does it deceive ourselves by

giving us a sense of power which we do not really possess, but it is sinful, because it is

stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such

beliefs as from pestilence, which may shortly master our own body and then spread to the

rest of the town. What would be thought of one who, for the sake of a sweet fruit, should

deliberately run the risk of delivering a plague upon his family and his neighbours?

And, as in other such cases, it is not the risk only which has to be considered; for a bad

action is always bad at the time when it is done, no matter what happens afterwards.

Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-

control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely

enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions

which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and

wide. But a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and

supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made

permanent. If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere

transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the

money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself

dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should

become a den of thieves, for then it must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to

do evil, that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done

evil and are made wicked thereby. In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on

insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true

after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help

doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society

is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it

should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for

then it must sink back into savagery.

The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a

credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs. Habitual want of

care about what I believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what

is told to me. Men speak the truth of one another when each reveres the truth in his own

mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when I

myself am careless about it, when I believe thing because I want to believe them, and

because they are comforting and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, "Peace," to me, when

there is no peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of

falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle

of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my

neighbours ready to deceive. The credulous man is father to the liar and the cheat; he

lives in the bosom of this his family, and it is no marvel if he should become even as they

are. So closely are our duties knit together, that whoso shall keep the whole law, and yet

offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon

insufficient evidence.

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards,

keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely

avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it,

and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing

it--the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.

If this judgment seems harsh when applied to those simple souls who have never known

better, who have been brought up from the cradle with a horror of doubt, and taught that

their eternal welfare depends on what they believe, then it leads to the very serious

question, Who hath made Israel to sin?

It may be permitted me to fortify this judgment with the sentence of Milton--

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says

so, or the assembly so determine, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true,

yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.[1]

And with this famous aphorism of Coleridge--

He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own

sect or Church better than Christianity, and end loving himself better than all.[2]

Inquiry into the evidence of a doctrine is not to be made once for all, and then taken as

finally settled. It is never lawful to stifle a doubt; for either it can be honestly answered

by means of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry was not complete.

"But," says one, "I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which

would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of certain questions, or

even able to understand the nature of the arguments."

Then he should have no time to believe.

II. THE WEIGHT OF AUTHORITY

Are we then to become universal sceptics, doubting everything, afraid always to put one

foot before the other until we have personally tested the firmness of the road? Are we to

deprive ourselves of the help and guidance of that vast body of knowledge which is daily

growing upon the world, because neither we nor any other one person can possibly test a