Intolerance and Persecution [pp. 169-173]

INTO~ERANCE AND PERSECUTION.
INTOLERANCE AND PERSECUTION.
ET me make it quite clear what I here mean consider it necessarily to be the one legitimate
by intolerance; and I will not shrink from conclusion of their moral and intellectual facul giving the word its fullest and most unpopular ties; and any denial of it can therefore arise
meaning. I mean by it, at least as I am now only from either moral obliquity or from intel using it, potential persecution; and by persecu- lectual imbecility. Suppose, then, that in such a
tion I mean the use of coercive measures to re- nation a man arises who does deny this creed,
strain a man, if not from holding certain religious and who can not be convinced that he is wrong
opinions, at all events from communicating these in doing so. If he be not an immoral man, nor
opinions to others. Now such coercive measures an advocate of immorality, the nation will regard
can be applied only when the religion that is him but in one light-that of a man suffering
ready to persecute is allied to the state, and when from a kind of mental ophthalmia: as such, he
in taking these measures the state will either act will be nothing but an object of pity, and if his
for or protect it. And therefore, when we say case be evidently incurable, he will simply be left
that a religion is intolerant, we mean that it alone. But, if it should appear that his disease
would, if it could, apply the secular arm for the not only afflicted him, but was in a high degree
suppression of any intellectual forces that might contagious, it is evident that the only possible
be dangerous to itself. course will be to prevent any further intercourse
And now let us ask what is implied in a between him and his fellows. He must be placed
man's holding any dogmatic creed at all? He in a kind of perpetual quarantine. A writer in
does not hold such a creed simply as a truth. the " Pall Mall Gazette " has very recently made
He of course thinks that it is true; but he thinks some excellent remarks on cases of this kind.
of it as truth of a special kind. He may, for "It is easy," he says, "to say that opinion can
instance, hold it true that "Childe Harold " has not be coerced. But this, in the first place, is
four cantos, or that there is no atmosphere in the true only of the small minority of mankind who
moon. But though he holds each of these be- are in the habit of thinking for themselves; and
liefs as firmly as he holds (let us say) that Christ secondly, if it were true, it would only show that
died for him, their relation to himself is some- in some cases persecution is too late to be effecthing very different. He might think men wrong tual. Not cure but prevention is the main obfor denying them, but he would gain nothing by ject. A disease may be incurable as to the inrestraining such a denial, beyond the possible dividual it has once fastened on, and yet the
gratification of his own personal temper. But infection may be cut off by sanitary police."
it is quite otherwise with the truths of his reli- Now here are intolerance and persecution
gion. These, he holds, are not truths only, but exemplified in their simplest form; and, if we
truths on the recognition of which our whole consider them in this form, their true character
well-being depends. They are, as it were, not will readily become apparent. No matter what
mere facts of astronomy, but facts of astronomy the creed be of the nation we are considering,
bearing on the practical art of navigation. A be it Catholicism, Mohammedanism, or dogmatic
creed he considers as the soul's nautical alma- atheism, let the nation be but convinced of the
nac, and his own creed he considers to be the truth and the importance of it, and they will
only correct edition. And he may look on his persecute for heresy, as surely as they will prosecreed in this light for two reasons. He may con- cute for theft. An officer is liable to punishsider that there is something salutary in the ment who wrecks the ship he is intrusted with.
mere assent to its articles; and he may consider A quack would be equally liable to punishment
this assent as of value also in its results upon who forces on the ship of the soul a falsified
practical conduct. We shall have to treat these nautical almanac. In the eye of a nation which
two reasons separately by and by; but it is believes that a man's spiritual welfare is at any
enough for the present that, for one or other, or rate of equal importance with his material welfor both of them, a creed is regarded by its ad- fare, and that the conditions of both are equally
herents in the way I have just described. certain, persecution is not a thing apart. It
This being the case, let us suppose for a stands on the same basis as the ordinary state
moment that an entire nation is unanimous in regulations, and is to be classed either with the
its assent to a single creed, and that on this enforcement of ordinary sanitary restrictions, or
creed the whole value of their lives depends for with the awarding of ordinary criminal punishthem. Considering it to be certainly true, they ments. With the first of these it is certainly
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