Areopagitica

The first great defense of a free press in English, written against a law requiring books to be licensed before printing. Let truth and falsehood grapple, Milton wrote, for who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter. He lost the fight of his own day. He has won every argument since. The conviction that error is best answered by speech rather than suppression begins, in our language, here.

The poet of Paradise Lost who, before the epic, wrote the first great defense of a free press in English. Areopagitica addressed Parliament against a law requiring books to be licensed before printing. Let truth and falsehood grapple, he argued, for who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter. The pamphlet failed to stop the licensing of its day. It has won every argument since.