Intolerance and Persecution [pp. 169-173]

INTOLERANCE AND PERSECUTION.
religious matters there is no certainty attainable;
and intolerance is only decried in the present day
because it is a protest against this opinion. Ma caulay said that the Puritans disliked bear-bait ing, not because it gave pain to the bear, but
because it gave pleasure to the men. In the
same way, modern thought sets its face against
intolerance, not because intolerance denies cer tainty to others, but because it claims certainty
for itself.
There are, however, other objections from
within that it will be also well to deal with-ob jections that will be more cogent with those who
have some basis for intolerance than with those
who disclaim any. The simplest of these is the
respect that is due to the conscience. Let there
be but one man a heretic in a nation, and let all
the rest be orthodox, it may still be felt by the
orthodox that if the man be in good conscience
he should be allowed to practice his religion and,
so far as In him lies, to promulgate it. Mr. St.
George Mivart, among modern English Catholics, has lately urged a liberal view like this. But
if the persecuted minority in question be really in
good conscience, the answer to this position is
not difficult. When it is a duty for the majority
to persecute, it is a privilege for the minority to
be persecuted; and if they are not enough in earnest to accept the pain as a privilege, they very
certainly deserve it as a punishment.
Further, the dogmatist, in times like ours, may
be perplexed possibly by the following question:
"How can he reasonably advocate intolerance,
when it is only through the tolerance of others
that this advocacy is rendered possible?" The
answer to this is that he lives in unfortunate
times, and tolerance is at present, on all sides, a
provisional and unfortunate necessity. When
the fever of opinion has got to a certain pass, it
must be allowed to run its course. Any check
would be fatal. In days like ours, if we regard
the world as a whole, there is no body of believers that could possibly persecute with advantage
* —that is, that could apply persecution to its one
legitimate purpose. Persecution is, as it were, a
pair of bellows, the one use of which is to blow
but the fire of heresy. But at present it would
blow it up instead of blowing it out. When,
therefore, it is said, as it so often is said, that the
Catholics of to-day would persecute with the
same vigor as ever if they only had the chance,
these words, if they mean anything true at all,
can only mean this-not that Cardinal Manning,
for instance, would imprison or burn Dr. Tyndall
to-morrow, if the law would only allow him, and
if he could do so without obloquy; but that,
were the whole condition of things changed, and
were Dr. Tyndall's views regarded by the vast
majority as nothing but the embodiment of an
ignorance that was just plausible enough to be
mischievous-that then, in a state of things like
this, the majority would take what steps it could
to prevent this mischief from spreading.
The great point to remember is, that intoler ance is but one facet of all certain beliefs that
have any practical import; and thus it can only
be condemned on one or both of the two follow ing grounds-that religious beliefs are either es sentially uncertain, or that they are essentially
unimportant. Intolerance, then, is but the ne cessary temper of dogmatism when confronted
with other opinions. Or we may say that it is
the name of every dogmatism, as translated into
any other language than its own. But the ques tion of persecution is not one of principle at all.
It is a question of expediency only, and of prac tical politics. The general thesis that it is right
or that it is wrong to persecute has no more
meaning by itself than that it is right or that it
is wrong to administer castor oil. It is a matter
that depends entirely on the circumstance of the
moment. That supposed error can, under certain circumstances, be checked or extinguished
by persecution, must be admitted on all hands;
and also that, if it be worth extinguishing, it
ought to be extinguished. And we by no means
admit that medicine is not an excellent thing on
occasions, because there are conditions of sickness when it would do more harm than good.
A Catholic, then, can maintain quite consistently that toleration is theoretically an evil, even
though the prospects of his own creed may for
the present largely depend upon it. For toleration can have no existence except where there are
many opinions to be tolerated; and when there
are many opinions in the world about one important subject, the larger part of the world is necessarily in disastrous error. Toleration, therefore,
may fairly be called an evil (and the same applies
to persecution equally well), inasmuch as it is but
the name for a way of bearing evil; just as patience under a calamity, or a painful struggle
against it, are really names for that calamity as
falling on a patient or a resolute man.
But though on due occasion the Catholic
Church would be doubtless as ready in the future
as it has been in the past to express its spirit of
intolerance in the practice of persecution, it is to
be observed that a very important change has
grown into that spirit, which would be sure to
influence the character of the practice. Catholicism, it is observed commonly, is essentially
opposed to progress: it stands apart from and
unsoftened by the progress of mankind outside
it. Nothing, however, can be more untrue than
this. The moral sense of the Church is a thing
for ever capable, not indeed of change, but of development; and the Church's way of regarding
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