The falsity of the accusation so generally made against science and freedom will appear if we consider that all the benefits we now enjoy, civil, scientific, and material, and which are especially enjoyed by the men who inveigh most strongly against these two factors, are solely derived from science and freedom.  Without them we should be in the civil, intellectual, and material condition of the kingdom of Dahomey, and in the savage and barbarous state of all primitive peoples.  If the misunderstanding of truth or an imperfect science is injurious, it must not therefore be rejected.  Science is the constant and vigilant generator of all social improvement, and the most formidable enemy of the tyranny of a despot, of an oligarchy, or of the multitude, whether it take a religious or secular form.  Since sharp instruments are powerful aids to civilization and material prosperity, they are not to be altogether set aside because some persons die miserably by them.  As I have always maintained, and now repeat with still stronger conviction, science and freedom, the ever watchful guardians of the human race, are and must always remain the sole remedies for the evils which threaten us.  I do not dispute the beneficent influence of other factors combined with these, but, taken alone, they would be powerless, and if science were eclipsed they would be transformed into fresh causes of servitude and ignorance, as it has often appeared in past times when the laws of science and of freedom have been set at nought.  I therefore declare science and freedom to be the portion of all, and they should be as widely diffused as possible, since the way to knowledge and a worthy life is open to all men.  It is a blasphemy against heaven and earth to presume, in the so-called interest of civil order, to keep the majority of the people in the ignoble servitude of ignorance, and men do not perceive that they thus become ready for any disturbance, and the tools of rogues and agitators.

I hope and pray that reverence for science and freedom may ever increase in Italy.  It will be an evil day for her if such reverence be lost, and she will become with every other people in like case a wretched spectacle, and will fall into such abject misery as to become the laughing-stock of every civilized nation.  It will be understood that I do not erect science and liberty into fetishes to be generally adored:  they are only sacred means to a more sacred end, namely, to enable men to practise and not merely to apprehend the truth, which in other words is goodness.  Science and freedom are valuable only so far as they teach, persuade, and enable us to improve ourselves and others; to exercise every private and public virtue; to claim only what is due to ourselves, while making the needful sacrifice to the common good; to have a respect for humanity, and to venerate knowledge only so far as it is combined with virtue; to attempt in every way to alleviate the miseries of others, to deliver their minds from ignorance and error; to do right for its own sake without coveting rewards in heaven or on earth; to submit to no dictation but that of truth and goodness.