off the yoke of immaturity, will disseminate the spirit of rational respect for
personal value and for the duty of all men to think for themselves. The
remarkable thing about this is that if the public, which was previously put
under this yoke by the guardians, is suitably stirred up by some of the latter
who are incapable of enlightenment, it may subsequently compel the guardians
themselves to remain under the yoke. For it is very harmful to propagate
prejudices, because they finally avenge themselves on the very people who first
encouraged them (or whose predecessors did so). Thus a public can only achieve
enlightenment slowly. A revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism
and to rapacious or power-seeking oppression, but it will never produce a true
reform in ways of thinking. Instead, new prejudices, like the ones they
replaced, will serve as a leash to control the great unthinking mass.
For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom
in question is the most innocuous form of all╤freedom to make public use of
one's reason in all matters. But I hear on all sides the cry: Don't argue! The
officer says: Don't argue, get on parade! The tax-official: Don't argue, pay!
The clergyman: Don't argue, believe! (Only one ruler in the world says: Argue as
much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey!). . All this means
restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which sort of restriction prevents
enlightenment, and which, instead of hindering it, can actually promote it ? I
reply: The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can
bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often
be very narrowly restricted, however, without undue hindrance to the progress of
enlightenment. But by the public use of one's own reason I mean that use which
anyone may make of it as a man of learning addressing the entire reading public.
What I term the private use of reason is that which a person may make of it in a
particular civil post or office with which he is entrusted.
Now in some affairs which affect the interests of the commonwealth, we require a
certain mechanism whereby some members of the commonwealth must behave purely
passively, so that they may, by an artificial common agreement, be employed by
the government for public ends (or at least deterred from vitiating them). It
is, of course,impermissible to argue in such cases; obedience is imperative. But
in so far as this or that individual who acts as part of the machine also
considers himself as a member of a complete commonwealth or even of cosmopolitan
society, and thence as a man of learning who may through his writings address a
public in the truest sense of the word, he may 'indeed argue without harming the
affairs in which he is employed for some of the time in a passive capacity. Thus
it would be very harmful if an officer receiving an order from his superiors
were to quibble openly, while on duty, about the appropriateness or usefulness
of the order in question. He must simply obey. But he cannot reasonably be
banned from making observations as a man of learning on the errors in the
military service, and from submitting these to his public for judgement. The
citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed upon him; presumptuous criticisms
of such taxes, where someone is called upon to pay them, may be punished as an
outrage which could lead to general insubordination. Nonetheless, the same
citizen does not contravene his civil obligations if, as a learned individual,
he publicly voices his thoughts on the impropriety or even injustice of such
fiscal measures. In the same way, a clergyman is bound to instruct his pupils
