Page 12 - GALIET AREOL.AGIT.ICA: Milton IV

perpetuall progression, they sick’n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition” (543).
Milton’s argument for freedom of the press is based on the fact that after the fall from the Garden of Eden, in loosing our innocence and becoming contaminated with original sin, we have been given the opportunity to exercise our God-given reason and free wills so that we may choose and discern, in moments of precious struggle, between what is good and evil, between what is the true and the false, between morals and vice. Therefore, Milton believes in human conscience knowing that our struggles for Truth are essential and that goodness and evil must be released and allowed to flow freely upon the fields and seas of the earth as “... though all the windes of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her (Truth) and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the wors, in a free and open encounter” (561). According to Milton, if we are not faced with this internal struggle, we are untried moral beings. Consequently, we must go through trial in order to choose what is right and wrong so that we may find our own truths.
These beliefs are crucial in his argument for freedom of the press since “Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolized and traded by tickets and statutes, and standards” (535). It is evident in Milton’s argument that society must take a liberal approach to publishing since licensing not only injures Truth but also the “potentiality” for Truth, for who truly knows what Truth
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