The full exercise of these rights of mental freedom is what training in the principles of jurisprudence is to the pleader, but it does not provide him with a brief. It is conceivable that a man may come to be a master of independent thinking and never put his powers to use; just as a man may know every rule of grammar and yet never write a book. In the same way a man may pass an examination in the art of navigation and never take command of a vessel; or he may qualify for a Barrister, be called to the Bar and never plead in any court. We know from experience that many persons join in the combat for the right of intellectual freedom for its own sake, without intending or caring to use the right when won. Some are generous enough to claim and contend for these rights from the belief that they may be useful to others. This is the first stage of free thought, and, as has been said, many never pass beyond it. Independent thinking is concerned primarily with removing obstacles to its own action, and in contests for liberty of speech by tongue and pen. The free mind fights mainly for its own freedom. It may begin in curiosity and may end in intellectual pride--unless conscience takes care of it. Its nature is iconoclastic and it may exist without ideas of reconstruction. Though a man goes no further, he is a better man than he who never went as far. He has acquired a new power, and is sure of his own mind. Just as one who has learned to fence, or to shoot, has a confidence in encountering an adversary, which is seldom felt by one who never had a sword in hand, or practised at a target. The sea is an element of recreation to one who has learned to swim; it is an element of death to one ignorant of the art. Besides, the thinker has attained a courage and confidence unknown to the man of orthodox mind. Since God (we are assured) is the God of truth, the honest searcher after truth has God on his side, and has no dread of the King of Perdition--the terror of all Christian people--since the business of Satan is with those who are content with false ideas; not with those who seek the true. If it be a duty to seek the truth and to live the truth, honest discussion, which discerns it, identifies it, clears it, and establishes it, is a form of worship of real honor to God and of true service to man. If the clergyman's speech on behalf of God is rendered exact by criticism, the criticism is a tribute, and no mean tribute to heaven. Thus the free exercise of the rights of thought involve no risk hereafter. Moreover, so far as a man thinks he gains. Thought implies enterprise and exertion of mind, and the result is wealth of understanding, to be acquired in no other way. This intellectual property like other property, has its rights and duties. The thinker's right is to be left in undisturbed possession of what he has earned; and his duty is to share his discoveries of truth with mankind, to whom he owes his opportunities of acquiring it.