Now, it is clear that the state could not bind itself to put presses and compositors at the service of every one of its citizens who was anxious to see himself in print.

There would have to be selection and rejection of some drastic kind.

The state would have to act as universal publisher's reader.

What would happen under these circumstances to purely imaginative literature we need not here inquire; but when the question was one of expressing controversial opinions as to science, religion, morals, and especially social politics, what would happen is evident.

The state would be able to refuse, and it could not do otherwise than refuse, to print anything which expressed opinions out of harmony with those which were predominant among its own members.