The Book of John Stuart Mill 2 · Written by himself, from On Liberty and his Autobiography
This man wrote his own books. He is the only one in this scripture who never had a religion — not that he threw it off, but that he never had it. Chapters 2 and 3 supply what the scripture was missing: the reason The Rule 7 lets the Stoa contradict the canon.
2.1I am going to say something that sounds strange: a true sentence can be a dead one.
2.2Some suppose that if the sentence is correct, that is enough. It is not.
2.3If a true opinion is not brought out and argued fully, frequently and fearlessly,
2.4then whoever holds it holds a dead dogma and not a living truth.
2.5He can recite it, quote it, and use it to refute other men.
2.6Ask him why it is true and he cannot say, or he says what his teacher said.
2.7Such a sentence has stopped working inside him. It is furniture in the corner of a room: nobody moves it, nobody uses it.
2.8I have seen a great deal of that furniture in my life.
2.9When a doctrine is new, men argue for it, are abused for it, go to prison for it.
2.10A hundred years on it is what everyone agrees, and nobody argues for it any more.
2.11A hundred years after that it is still in every mouth, and nobody knows what it is for.
2.12And then a wind comes and it goes over — not refuted, but never standing in the first place.
2.13So I say: whether a sentence is true is one question. Whether it is alive in you is another.
2.14This Order laid down a rule: the Stoa may contradict the canon. (cf. The Rule 7.13)
2.15That rule says it is not tolerance but necessity. (cf. The Rule 7.14) Let me add one line: it is not only for the Stoa. It is for the canon.
2.16A scripture nobody dares contradict is furniture in the corner inside of three generations.