Knowledge, Learning, and Truth

• Milton argues that truth is ultimately subjective and

underscores the danger of censorship in propagating
falsehoods. 
• Censorship hinders knowledge and learning.
• Truth cannot be bought, sold, or forced through
censorship. Rather, it must be feely discovered
through knowledge and learning.
• Milton considers truth as something again gifted to
humankind by GOD something that in its most natural
form is “perfect.
• John Milton highly valued knowledge and learning, and
his pursuit of knowledge through books is well-
established in Areopagitica.  Parliament’s Licensing Order
of 1643 severely limited one’s access to books—books
that were considered offensive or particularly
controversial were subject to censorship or ban—and
Milton argues Parliament’s Licensing Order severely limits
one’s access to knowledge and learning as well.
Though Areopagitica, Milton argues that truth is
ultimately subjective and underscores the danger of
censorship in propagating falsehoods. 
• Milton argus that censorship hinders knowledge and learning. It
encourages division among people, rather than understanding,
and this is one of his primary reasons for opposing Parliament’s
Licensing Order. Milton not only implies that censorship hinders
knowledge, he also suggests that the suppression of knowledge
through censorship and intolerance has led to the greater division
of England itself. The Philistines were ancient farmers generally
considered to have been uneducated, and Milton suggests that the
censorship of books could result in the English leading the same
uneducated existence as the Philistines. Not only does censorship
lessen one’s knowledge, Milton asserts, but it also controls what
kind of knowledge is accessible in the first place.
• Milton also maintains that censorship negatively affects the pursuit of
truth, which is itself a product of knowledge and learning. Milton argues
that censorship by Parliament “will be primely to the discouragement of
all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting
our ability in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the
discovery that might be yet further made both in religion and civil
wisdom.” Without learning, one cannot expect to discover truth, and
therefore cannot hope to advance as a society. “Truth is compared in
scripture to a streaming fountain,” According to Milton, Parliament’s
Licensing Order stops the free “perpetual progression” of knowledge and
truth by individuals. Milton claims that truth cannot be bought, sold, or
forced through censorship. Rather, it must be feely discovered through
knowledge and learning.
• “Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine master, and
was a perfect shape most glorious to look on,” Milton contends. He
considers truth as something again gifted to humankind by God,
something that in its most natural form is “perfect.” Truth did not,
however, retain its perfection. “Virgin truth,” Milton argues, has
been “scattered” to “the four winds,” and is not easily picked up.
“We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons,” Milton says
of the pieces of truth, “nor ever shall do, till her master’s second
coming.” In this way, Milton argues truth’s subjective nature. Truth
can be different things to different people (absolute truth is known
only by God), and humankind can only find bits and pieces of it if
they are able to seek knowledge and learn freely.