论出版自由 (1644)

《论出版自由》，是1644年约翰·弥尔顿出版的一本反对审查制度的散文小册子。《论出版自由》是历史上捍卫言论自由书籍中最有影响力的一部著作。

出版

本书于1644年11月23日出版（时值英国内战战事正酣之际）。约翰·弥尔顿以公元前五世纪的雅典演说家伊索克拉底曾发表的言论“Areopagitica”（阿留帕几底卡）来命名论出版自由（亚略巴古[Areopagus]是古代雅典境内的一座小山丘，是雅典最高法院的所在地，同时也是伊索克拉底一直希望能复兴的古议会之名）。和伊索克拉底一样，约翰·弥尔顿并不打算利用演说方式来发表他的言论，而是选择使用出版小册子的方式表达他对审查制度的不满。

Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England is a 1644 prose polemic by the English poet, scholar, and polemical author John Milton opposing the Licensing Order of 1643, which had re-introduced censorship of books during the First English Civil War. Areopagitica is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression. Many of its expressed principles have formed the basis for modern justifications of that right.

Background

Areopagitica was published on 23 November 1644 at the height of the English Civil War. It takes its title in part from Areopagitikós (Greek: Ἀρεοπαγιτικός), a speech written by Athenian orator Isocrates in the 4th century BC. The Areopagus is a hill in Athens, the site of real and legendary tribunals, and was the name of a council whose power Isocrates hoped to restore. Some argue that it is more importantly also a reference to the defence that St Paul made before the Areopagus in Athens against charges of promulgating foreign gods and strange teachings, as recorded in Acts 17:18–34.

Like Isocrates, Milton, who was not a member of parliament, did not mean his work to be an oral speech to that assembly. Instead, it was distributed via pamphlet, thus defying the same publication censorship which he argued against. As a radical, Milton had supported the Presbyterians in Parliament, and would later work as a civil servant for the new republic, but in this work he argued forcefully against Parliament's 1643 Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing, also known as the Licensing Order of 1643, in which Parliament required authors to have a licence approved by the government before their work could be published.

According to the British Library, "State control of printing was introduced by Henry VIII and continued into the 17th century. In April 1638, political agitator John Lilburne was arrested for importing subversive books. He was fined £500 and flogged for the two miles between the Fleet Prison and the pillory. Milton wrote his pamphlet as a protest against Lilburne's treatment." This issue was personal for Milton, as he had suffered censorship himself in his efforts to publish several tracts defending divorce, a radical stance which met with no favour from the censors.

In particular, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), which he published anonymously and unlicensed, was condemned by the Puritan clergy as being heretical and intending to foster sexual libertinism, and it was cited in petitions to parliament as evidence of the need to reinstall a system of prepublication licensing. Areopagitica is full of Biblical and classical references which Milton uses to strengthen his argument. This is particularly fitting because it was being addressed to the Calvinist Presbyterians who composed Parliament at that time.

According to George H. Sabine, the Areopagitica presumed and was written for an engaged public:

Its basic principle was the right and also the duty of every intelligent man as a rational being, to know the grounds and take responsibility for his beliefs and actions. Its corollary was a society and a state in which decisions are reached by open discussion, in which the sources of information are not contaminated by authority in the interest of party, and in which political unity is secured not by force but by a consensus that respects variety of opinion.