《论自由·第二章·思想与讨论的自由》第40节
These words had scarcely been written, when, as if to give them an emphatic contradiction, occurred the Government Press Prosecutions of 1858. That ill-judged interference with the liberty of public discussion has not, however, induced me to alter a single word in the text, nor has it at all weakened my conviction that, moments of panic excepted, the era of pains and penalties for political discussion has, in our own country, passed away. For, in the first place, the prosecutions were not persisted in; and, in the second, they were never, properly speaking, political prosecutions. The offence charged was not that of criticising institutions, or the acts or persons of rulers, but of circulating what was deemed an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of Tyrannicide.
注释摘要
这一段出自第二章正文完结之后的一个补记，在论证链条上，它不是推进核心论证，而是在回应一个即时发生的事件，以此检验并澄清自己的立场。他要证明的是，刚刚发生的政府新闻诉讼并没有推翻他关于政治讨论自由时代已经到来的判断。他用了两个层次的理由进行推理。第一个理由诉诸事实的走向：那些诉讼没有被坚持到底，因此并未构成一个持续的反例。第二个理由则是概念上的区分：这些诉讼…