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THE popular view of persecution, at least in Protest-

ant countries, is founded almost entirely on the

examples affordedby the proceedings of the Eoman

Church during and since the Middle Ages and it is ;

not uncommonly thought a sufficient explanation to

say that persecution was invented by the priests for

the sake of maintaining the pre-eminence of their own
order. Such an explanation, however agreeable it
may be to ordinary minds to throw all the odium of
disgraceful chapters of history on a particular class of
men, is superficial at best. For the Church has been
able, with slight exceptions, to make persecution
effectual only by means of the secular power ; and the
secular power which lent itself to this purpose was a
joint agent, and must be held jointly responsible.
However eager the clergy might be to stimulate and
direct the anger of the faithful against heretics, their
efforts would have been vain if the bulk of the laity
had not been predisposed to persecute heretics when
duly pointed out. So from persecution being

merely the creature of priestcraft, it would be as near

the truth to say that priestcraft was invented in order

to organize persecution. The truth is that mankind

are prone to persecute heretics from several different

motives, of which corporate ambition and the desire

of crushing rival sects have often taken advantage,
but which they are wholly incompetent to create.
The chief grounds of persecution are as old as

society itself ; and if we hear little of it in early times

because there was not enough resistance to call for
it is

any striking display of power. We may divide these

grounds into tribal, political, theological, and social.
A little examination will show us that theological per-
secution in the strict sense is of comparatively modern
origin while the arguments by which it has been

sought, even in our own times, to defend restraints on

opinion in a milder form present to us a softened and

rationalized revival of the terrors in which the per-

secuting instinct has its oldest foundation. Let us

take the first persecutions which have acquired a

general historical importance, those of the Christians

under the Eoman Empire. The accounts we have are
mostly imperfect or exaggerated, but we believe that
the following general view is substantially correct.
Christians were vaguely known to the multitude as a
set of people who refused worship to the recognized

gods, and to the rulers as a widely spread and spread-

ing society whose were governed by a self-

appointed internal jurisdiction different from that of

the State whose ostensible objects were innocent, but

trifling in proportion to the extent and organization of

the society ; and which, although no overt act against
the civil authority could be laid to its charge, strictly

forbade its members to take the oath of allegiance

in the ordinary form. To the vulgar Christianity
appeared as a standing insult to the gods ;
to the

instructed, as a standing menace to the Government.

The prevailing ignorance as to what the doctrine and
practice really were contributed an element of mystery
which doubtless heightened the alarm. A Eoman
official of average intelligence must have looked on
Christianity somewhat as a modern Prussian official
would look on a combination of the Jesuits and the
International. we consider the persecutions that

actually took place, we shall find that they proceeded

chiefly from the vulgar but partly also from the

instructed view of the danger. They were mostly
connected with public misfortunes of some sort, as we
learn both from the general history of the times and
from the well-known passage of an early apologist.
Men sought for an account of the famine, the drought,
the pestilence, or the invasion of barbarians that had

oppressed them and the account was only too easily


found. The new and unsociable sect, the despisers of

Jupiter and doubtful subjects of Caesar, were always

with them. It was -obvious that they had brought
the wrath of the gods on the community which toler-
ated them, and the remedy was no less obvious. The
injured honour of Olympus must be avenged, and
then all would go well again Christianos ad leonem!

This is what we call the tribal motive of persecution.

The community which lives under the protection of
its peculiar and ancestral
gods will forfeit that protec-
tion if it harbours persons who offend the gods by

refusing them the obeisance and propitiation expected

by them as their due. The presence of a single
heretic is a constant source of imminent danger to the
tribe or city. From this point of view the removal
of the danger, in other words the forcible suppres-
sion of heresy, is not merely justifiable, but a plain
duty of self-preservation.
In cases of this kind the Christians often suffered
from outbreaks of local superstition which the magis-
trates, or the Emperor himself if appealed to, dis-

countenanced as far as they could. But they could

not do so completely, superstition being not only
violent, but having the law on its side. This brings
us to the political aspect of the matter. Where the
gods are regarded as in a manner the most exalted
officers of where their protection is invoked
the State ;

on all public occasions, and religious ceremonies are

intimately bound up with the outward frame and cir-
cumstance of military and civil institutions ; where,
in short, religion is incorporated into politics, any
It might be difficult to ascertain for what specific offence the

early Christians were proceeded against in every case. The Roman

officials, apparently, did not always know themselves. Pliny's famous
letter to Trajan asking for instructions is so confused in this respect

that M. Aube seriously disputed its genuineness in the first edition of

his Histoire des persecutions de VEglise: he admits it in the second,

though not without hesitation. The Christians, ho.wever, seem to

have been legally exposed to punishment on three distinct grounds :

1. Introducing an unauthorized new religion to the disturbance of

men's minds. (Paul. Sen. v. xxi. 2.) 2. Belonging to an unauthorized

society. Refusing the oath of allegiance.

3. They were charged by
the popular imagination, and sometimes probably by authority, with
other various and monstrous crimes, including magic, which was a

capital offence.

rebellion against the established gods apt to beis

regarded as equivalent to treason against the estab-

lished order of government. It is not conceived as

possible that those who are hostile to the gods should

not be equally hostile to the laws and institutions
under their protection. The seditious intention will

appear to the vulgar self-evident ;

the enlightened and
conforming sceptic will consider that no one would
take the trouble and expose himself to the danger of

attacking the official religion unless there were some

sinister political object behind his professed scruples.
Accordingly we find that certain persecutions were
undertaken by the Roman government as deliberate
acts of State, if anything done in a panic may be
called deliberate. To these a tolerable parallel may
be found, allowing for the difference not only of the
cases but of modern civilization and humanity, in the
anti-Socialist legislation of the German Parliament
and our own obsolete though not ancient statutes
against secret and corresponding societies. The Eng-
lish anti- Papal measures of earlier times are not in
point, as there was no mistake or mystery whatever as
to the reality and character of the pretensions against
which they were directed. The political intention on
both sides was undisguised. In order to understand
the Greek or Eoman feeling on the subject, and the
inference, which to us appears forced, of anti-social

purposes from eccentric religious professions, we must

remember that almost all guilds and private associa-
tions were united by some special tie of common
worship and sacrifices. All societies were to some

extent religious, and a merely religious society was

exceptional. It will be seen from the foregoing

remarks that the motive of persecution is, or


may be, to statesmen what the tribal one is to the

superstitious multitude and as the multitude, even

under a despotism, have some tincture of political

ideas, and few statesmen are wholly free from the
current superstitions of the time, we shall hardly ever

find either motive without an intermixture of the

other. The tribal motive,however, might be sole and
sufficient among people not yet civilized enough to
have any distinct political institutions. Any member
of the tribe who disputed the necessity and efficacy
of the medicine-man's incantations for the common
weal, or spoke lightly of dreams and omens, would
probably be knocked on the head without more ado :

nor would the survivors be able to say distinctly

whether the purpose of their summary justice was to
preserve the favour of the gods, or the customs of the
tribe, or both.
The civilization of Greece affords instances of per-

secution in which the tribal and political motives were

almost equally balanced we mean the treatment of

certain of the prse-Socratic philosophers and of

Socrates himself, which not reckoned by history as

a persecution because the number of victims was but

small, and in only one case, though the most illustrious,

was an extreme penalty inflicted. The main charge
against Socrates was that he imported new deities;
that was the form in which his offence hit the popular

imagination. But there was also an uneasy feeling,


by no means confined to the ignorant, that the new

brood of Sophists, of whom Socrates was the cleverest
and worst, were unsettling the foundations of civil
order. They went about questioning maxims for
which nobody before them had sought a reason, and

set their disciples questioning too. Their teaching

"perverted young men." Moreover, there was at

Athens a suspicion that philosophical study was in
some way associated with oligarchic sympathies. As
regards Plato and Xenophon, there was certainly some
colour, or more than colour, of truth in the suspicion.
But itnot insignificant that some time earlier
" "
Anaxagoras was accused of Medizing as well as
impiety. On
the popular side, again, pretensions to

superior physical knowledge were regarded as a kind

of sacrilege to hazard conjectures as to what the sun

and stars were made of was an indiscretion verging on

blasphemy. The physical inquiries of Anaxagoras
and the ethical and political inquiries of Socrates and
others were, notwithstanding Socrates' own protests,

hopelessly confused in the average Athenian mind,

which satisfied itself with the broad conclusion that
philosophers were a dangerous nuisance. Pericles was
not only powerless to stop the anti-philosophic agita-
tion, but was himself exposed to some danger from it ;

and this alone is ample proof that the movement was

essentially popular.
The Greek persecution, such as it was, of philo-
sophy, and the Koman persecution of Christianity,

agree to a considerable extent in what their motives

were, and still more remarkably in what they were

not. In neither case anything like the

is there

distinctly theological incitement to persecution which

is given by dogmatic theories. The religions of
Greece and Eome had legends and rites in exuberant
abundance, but nothing that can be properly called
dogma. When men come to hold that one set of
religious beliefs is exclusively true, that adhesion to it
is a matter of supreme importance for each man's
individual soul, and that the true belief is in their
own possession, theological persecution in the strict
sense becomes possible. The nature of its motives,
and its justification from the theologian's point of
view, are already implied in this statement of the

When religion was considered as a matter of public \

rather than private concern, the motives of persecu-f

tion were naturally found in the order of considera-
tions which we have called tribal and political. The
wrath of the gods must be averted by the destruction
of the blasphemers who provoked it and the popular ;

impulse to cast out the abominable thing was rein-

forced by the more astute reflection that, whether the

gods really cared about it or not, persons who re-

nounced the accustomed gods of the city could not be
otherwise than bad citizens. Persecution on grounds
of this kind is essentially a measure of public safety.
In petty forms it belongs to the class of useless

and vexatious police regulations by which it is sought

to enforce erroneous theories of public welfare. We
may compare it with the old-fashioned formalities of

quarantine, or the machinery of protectionist legisla-

tion. In its more violent forms it is analogous to a

reign of terror.
political But in either case it is

wrong, not merely because aims at putting down


particular opinions, but because it rests on mistaken

assumptions. Whether those who promote it are
morally to blame as individuals depends on their
means of knowledge and the industry and intelligence
with which they have used them. It was almost im-
possible for a Roman official of the second century,
with the political ideas and training of his time, to
entertain the opinion that Christians might safely be
left alone.

The difficulty arises from the conflict of the old

political conception of religion with the new individual

or theological one. In the earlier stages of civilized

history the tribal jealousy of strange gods is still

active and potent. This was broken down by the

increase of mutual traffic and the levelling cosmo-
politanism of the Roman Empire ;
and the Pantheon
became hospitable. The Greek or Roman who bore
his part in the official ceremonies was free to use for
his private edification (subject to such police regula-

tion as existed, and to the general laws against

unauthorized associations) any respectable form of

worship that took his fancy. When a world which

had thus established, as it seemed, an arrangement
convenient and equitable to all parties was surprised

by the Eastern idea of right belief as a thing of

surpassing moment for each individual, it was unable
to receive such a disturbing element without a violent

shock. There was no strength left to withstand it,

and Oriental ardour triumphed over the intellect of
the Eoman world. It might have been expected,
perhaps, that the modern doctrine of liberty of con-
science should have been among the first-fruits of a

system in which the responsibility of the individual

soul for its belief was brought into unwonted promi-
nence. But this was not the case. A brief and fitful

gleam of toleration appeared at a time when the

victory was yet in suspense, but only to be forgotten
as soon as victory was assured. When the new
theory of religion was once fully established, it lost
no time in producing a new theory of persecution :

not that the older motives, at least the popular one,

by any means lost their force.

If the authority of princes and rulers is divine,

and if salvation is more important than any temporal

interest, and the duty of saving one's sou] paramount
to all others, the manifest duty of princes and
it is

rulers to do what they can to ensure the salvation of

their subjects. holding the true faith is
Further, if

essential to salvation, and the one true faith is known

to be in the custody of the Church, it follows that the

princemust support the Church at all hazards in pre-

venting his subjects from holding any other. The
undertaking may be not impossible
difficult, but is ;

and a prince who really holds the Church's view of

human salvation is bound to go through with it if
it is possible at all. It is easy to say that opinion
cannot be coerced. But this, in the first place, is

true only of the small minority of mankind who are


in the habit of thinking for themselves ; and, secondly,

if it were true it would only show that in some cases
persecution is too late to be effectual. Not cure but
prevention the main object.
is A disease may be
incurable as to the individual it has once fastened
on. and yet the infection may be cut off by sanitary
police or stamped out by slaughter. If heretical

opinions are damnable, and the infection of them

dangerous to the soul, the best thing the prince can
do is to contrive, as far as in him lies, that his faithful
subjects shall have no opportunity of hearing them.
The readiest way of doing this is to make heresy a
crime, and inflict penalties on all persons who either

publish or willingly listen to anything contrary to

the Catholic faith. And if heresy be a crime at all,
it is
plainly a crime of the most heinous kind.

Every heretic is a centre of infection and corruption

infinitely more deadly than any physical pestilence.

Even if his own stubborn beyond saving, the
soul is

souls of his innocent neighbours are in constant

danger because of him. And if temporal welfare is

indeed of no account in comparison of spiritual, no
limit whatever can be assigned to the measures of

repression to which an orthodox ruler should commit

himself. Better a depopulated wilderness than a

garden cultivated by heretical hands; better a poverty-

stricken remnant of the faithful than an outwardly

prosperous multitude sitting in the darkness of mortal

error and under an eternal ban. Extermination is

the only true mercy : for every life that is spared

many souls may be lost. It is useless to say to the

persecutor that if the truth is on his side it will

surely prevail in the end. Such an argument might

be allowed on a question of mere human knowledge ;

but no delay is admissible where souls are to be

rescued from certain
perdition. How many poor
ignorant men may
not be hopelessly led astray while
the doctors are exposing the fallacies of a new heresy?
and do we not know that heretics are encouraged by
the devil to a pitch of obstinacy which is proof
against even the elements of Catholic truth? The|
case for theological persecution is unanswerable
w#j if

admit the fundamental supposition that one faithl-

is known to be true and necessary for salvation.

The case against persecution is that the persecuting

Sovereign must take the risk of this supposition

being unfounded. To Isabella the Catholic and

Philip II. , and to Catholic princes and clergy in

general down to a much later time, never occurred it

that such a risk existed. To most persons at this day

it appears too tremendous for any human being to
support. Even among devout Catholics there are
probably very few who really think it inappreciable.
Again, the preservation of the faith uncontaminated
by heretical influences is, on the thoroughgoing Catholic
hypothesis, a blessing for which no price can be too
high. But to the common apprehension of mankind
the hypothesis cannot be verified while the cost of

rooting out heresy is visible in the present world.

That cost appears to be terrible in direct proportion
to the success of the operation. Spain is the one

European country in which the policy of extermina-


tion has been consistently applied for a time long

enough to produce its full results. For once the

Church and the Inquisition had unbounded scope.
The Moors and the Jews were expelled; even the
suspicion of Judaizing or heresy was more dangerous
than treason ; the Catholic faith reigned without the
shadow of a rival from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic,
and Spain was politically and intellectually ruined.
Similar consequences, though on a far lesser scale,

may be distinctly traced to the revocation of the

Edict of Nantes, the most modern instance of theo-

logical persecution deliberately designed and rigor-

ously executed.
It is probable, however, that no ecclesiastical per-

secution, not even under the Spanish Inquisition, was

ever unmixed motive or perfectly consistent in
as to
its conduct. Even the most fanatical of temporal
and spiritual rulers are apt to be in some little degree
better than their creeds ; and, on the other hand,
they have had other reasons for persecuting besides
theological ones. The Inquisitors doubtless thought
that in burning heretics they were vindicating the
honour of God as well as preserving the souls of the
people and this is only a refinement of the old tribal

feeling that the heretic is a curse to the land, which

isby no means extinct even now in Catholic countries.
The periodical massacres of Jews which disgraced
every country in Europe in the Middle Ages were
partly due to this feeling and it is notable that they

were mostly not official but popular. In some cases

both civil and ecclesiastical authorities endeavoured

to restrain the mob, and endeavoured in vain. In

this respect, as also in respect of the monstrous
charges eagerly caught up by the multitude as a
reason for outrage, the position of the Jews in Catholic

Europe was very like that of the Christians in the

first two centuries of the Church. But the Jews
were victims not merely of superstition, but of the
coarsest kind of jealousy. They added to the crime
of infidelity that of being, in spite of vexatious and

oppressive laws, richer and more clever than their

neighbours. Superstition engendered hatred; envy

inflamed it ;
and envy, hatred, and the lust of plunder
fell back on superstition for an excuse.
In England
the Jews, before their expulsion by Edward I., were
treated as a preserve of the Crown, and their religious

perversity, and the other crimes associated with it

by vulgar belief, were used simply as a pretext for
extortion. observed by a writer of the last
It is

century that the Jews were not accused of murdering

Christian children except when the king was in great
want of money.
In modern times religious and ecclesiastical con-

troversies have become inextricably mixed up with

political ones, and so long as theological persecution
was esteemed a respectable motive, it was even found
convenient to put forward as a disguise or justifica-

tion for animosities which were in truth merely

political. It is barely needful to mention, as instances

in English affairs, the association of Anglicanism with

the cause of the Crown, and Puritanism with that of
the Parliament, or the conjunction in the following

century of the Pope with the Pretender. And if

Protestant supremacy had been doubtful at the

end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish Armada, a
gigantic and sinister hybrid of theological and political
ambition, would have sufficed to make it certain.

At present theological persecution is

generally dis-
credited, partly by force of reason, but still more by
force of circumstance. The continued existence of
Protestant kingdoms has been enough to make it
look not only shocking but absurd and Catholic ;

and Protestant a system of perpetual

rulers, finding

reprisals intolerable, were practically compelled to

allow existence on some terms to citizens who did
not accept the prevailing religion of the State. When
once heretics are suffered to live, and the principle of
toleration is so far established that the terms and
conditions of it can be discussed, persecution is driven
from its high
theological ground. The State admits
that there are limits within which religious belief is
an affair not of certainty but of probable opinion ;

and the repression of religious opinion, so far as it

survives, mus't be maintained, not as a necessity of

spiritual welfare, but by reasons of social expediency.

Ecclesiastical fury is no longer armed with fire and
sword, and the jurisdiction over opinions passes, in a
mild and comparatively reasonable form, to the civil

The severer forms of persecution can, as we have

seen, appear justifiable only when the extermination
of heretics is believed to be necessary either for the

purpose of averting divine wrath from the community ,

or to preserve the souls committed to the Sovereign's I

charge from the danger of a fatal infection. We now

have to consider a state of things in which such
beliefs no longer prevail. It might seem on first

sight that with their disappearance

plausible all

grounds of persecution had also vanished, and that

the continuance of it in milder forms, which has

everywhere preceded the introduction of complete

toleration, and is far from having wholly ceased,
must be regarded an
compromise between
as irrational

the old principle of unqualified repression and the

new one of religious liberty. It is true that man,
though he could not be political without being
rational, is never completely rational in his political
action ; and it is doubtless the fact that compromise
of this kind has its share in the partial preserva-
tion of compulsory and restrictive laws on religious
matters. But only a share, and not the principal
it is

one. No sooner does the case for persecution fail on

the theological ground than a fresh one is taken up
within the region of temporal considerations ; and the

position, if more confined than that which has been

abandoned, is all the more defensible. Absolute

knowledge of revealed truth and jurisdiction over

consciences are no longer claimed but it is affirmed ;

that the public weal does not suffer certain doctrines

to be openly disputed.
The civil or social reasons, as we have called them,
in favour of moderate persecution, may be presented
thus. It is conceded that individual citizens must

take care of their own souls, and that strict theological

uniformity cannot be enforced. But there is a certain

amount of fundamental religious doctrine, common
to all or nearly all persuasions, and essential for the

maintenance of morality and civil order. Whoever

does not believe this much has no rational motive for

being a good citizen or a good man whoever shakes :

these accepted beliefs is to that extent endangering

the stability of the commonwealth, and is
just as
much to be restrained as if he directly incited his

neighbours to wickedness and sedition. For this

purpose it becomes needful to impose penalties that

shall be sufficient, but not more than sufficient, to
secure a decent observance for the elements of religion
on which the welfare of society rests. The offence will
consist not in entertaining difficulties of conscience
on the most important points of belief, nor in the
discreet and private discussion of them, but in openly

controverting the received opinions the gist of it will


be, in the language of an Act of William III., writ-

ing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking." This

Act is worth studying as a specimen of the manner in
which legal persecution is transformed. The preamble
recites, in ungrammatical but not obscure language,
that many persons have of late years openly avowed
and published many blasphemous and impious opin-
ions contrary to the principles and doctrines of the
Christian religion" not of the Church, be it observed :

the Christian religion is tacitly assumed to be the

common possession of several denominations of Chris-
tians. These opinions are further described as " greatly

tending to the dishonour of Almighty God/' here the

old tribal superstition is expressed in a generalized
form, and may prove destructive to the peace and
welfare of this kingdom not to the salvation of

souls ; the Legislature no longer provides for that ;

but to the peace and welfare of the kingdom. " Where-

fore, for the more effectual suppressing of the said
" who
detestable crimes," it is enacted that any person

shall, by writing^ printing, teaching, or advised speak-

ing, deny any one of the Persons in the Holy Trinity
to be Godj or shall assert or maintain that there are
more gods than one, ordeny the Christian

religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of the Old

and New Testament to be of divine authority," shall,
on conviction by two witnesses, be disabled from hold-
ing any public office for a first offence, and incur
sweeping civil disabilities and three years' imprison-
ment for a second. Note that the penalties, exces-
sive as they are,have a purely cmXjcjiaracter, and do
not extend to life or limb. There is a qualification
which has the excepting unconverted Jews,
effect of

Turks, and heathens, presumably because they can-

not be expected to know better, and there are not

enough of them to affect the public welfare in any

sensible degree by such disputes as they may enter
upon with their orthodox neighbours. It seems clear
that the severity of the statute outran public opinion ;

for no instance is known of any one having been pro-

secuted under it, though ample occasion was afforded
by the Deistic writers of the eighteenth century. But
its existence was not wholly forgotten. Early in the

present century it was discovered that Unitarians

were not in any way dangerous to the peace and wel-
fare of the kingdom, but were very decent, well-

behaved, and well-to-do people and accordingly the


penalties were repealed for their benefit, so far as

concerned persons denying the Trinity.
This last incident marks a weak point in the social

theory of persecution. It suggests that the legislator's

estimate of the indispensable elements of belief which

support the welfare of society is more or less precari-

ous. In this case there is no mixture of substantial
political reasons, such as we have noticed before, and

may notice again. No one ever supposed that Socin-

ians or Unitarians were dangerous to the State, except
so far as their denial of the Trinity was equivalent
to denying the foundations of religion and morality.
The peril of allowing their doctrines to be openly
maintained, whatever might be, could not well have

diminished in the interval between William III. and

the Kegency. Yet under the Eegency, at a time by
no means favourable in other respects to speculative
novelties or to the relaxation of restraints, the Legis-
lature had become convinced that the danger was
infinitesimal. Parliament had taken the risk of being

wrong a risk which might have issued in depriving

the country of the services of many good citizens if

public opinion had not been wiser than Parliament ;

and after the experience of

something over a century,
Parliament formally admitted that it had been wrong.
But when the possibility of error is once allowed, we
cannot say within what limits it is possible. Absolute

bounds can be set to the scope of probable opinion

only if you have an infallible authority to set them.

Therefore, if the risk of error is not in its nature so

formidable persecution confines itself to mode-
rate civil penalties as when it proceeds on the theo-

logical principle of extermination, yet it is implied

in the theory of moderate persecution itself that the
risk does exist.

government and legislation what-

Nevertheless all

ever are founded on no surer base than probable

opinion and in order to show that repressive legisla-


tion is wrong, it is not enough to show that it may

possibly be mistaken. We must be satisfied either

that the assumption on which it proceeds, namely,
that the publication of certain opinions is
to society, is not tenable, or that, if that assumption

be taken as true, legislation of the kind proposed is

not fitted to attain the desired end. But those who
object to repression are, as relates to the conditions of
the argument, in a better plight than those who main-
tain For their purpose is served if they can make

out either branch of the alternative whereas the ;

advocate of restriction has a double burden of proof

on him. He must show that the alleged dangers are
real, and also that legal restraints will effectually pro-

vide against them. These are issues which can be

decided only on the ground of experience and ex- ;

perience has, in fact, given a tolerably clear answer

upon both branches of the question.
First, the policy of limited restraint has had a fair
trial for upwards of two centuries in the most civilized

countries of the world, and there can be no doubt that

Notwithstanding the direct and indirect
has failed.

penalties which recently were or still are attached to

various manifestations heterodoxy, people who

really cared to publish heterodox opinions have found

but little difficulty or inconvenience in so doing, so

long as they used" decent language and otherwise con-

formed to the ordinary law of the land. Probably it
has oftener been the desire to spare good men's feelings
and avoid controversial scandals than any dread of
surviving legal sanctions that has induced heterodox
writers in late years to express their speculations in

guarded, respectful, or even ambiguous terms. At

present it is certain that in all the Western nations
the public discussion of the most fundamental religious

questions is practically free nor is this such a new


thing as many people suppose. Ever since the theo-

logical theory of persecution disappeared, freedom of

speech has been in great measure enjoyed by any one
who would use a certain amount of prudence and pre-
caution. The difference between this century and the
last is not so much in the boldness of particular pub-
lications as in the general tone of society and litera-

ture. The necessary precaution is now reduced to a

minimum, and may be said to consist in nothing more
than the observance of good manners. Yet, with the
slight exception already noticed, the law has remained
unaltered. Nor is it open to those who may be dis-
satisfied with the result to say that if the law is
ineffectual it should be made more stringent. In Eng-
land it is nominally very stringent already, and the

fact is that public opinion does not allow it to be en-

forced. The proposal is not even admissible in theory.

From the theological point of view penalties for heresy

may be increased without limit; but from that of

secular expediency the limit of the severity which can

appear reasonable is very soon reached. If the civil

magistrate, acting on grounds of civil welfare, is

unable to suppress heresy by treating it as a simple
misdemeanour, he may as well renounce the hope of
suppressing it at all.

The same experience which shows petty persecu-

tion to be ineffectual has also shown its purpose to be
misconceived. Heterodoxy has had by this time a
scope quite sufficient to display the mischievous re-
sults of toleration. Where are those results ? The
foundations of morality have not been weakened the ;

practice of it has not ceased respect for the law has


not diminished ; society is not on the brink of dis-

solution. The civilized commonwealths of the world
are not on the whole less orderly, less prosperous, or

less flourishing in any way than they were two cen-

turies ago. The disturbances and discontents that
have arisen from time to time are traceable to natural
and political causes. Orthodoxy can allege with con-
fidence only one evil
consequence namely, that
heterodoxy and unbelief have increased. To an
orthodox beholder this is, of course, the greatest of
evils ;
but whether should be an evil in the eyes of

the civil authority, which by the hypothesis is to

judge of beliefs only by their fruits in action, is the

very matter in question.


The theoryof limited persecution for the sake of

public welfare is so far stronger than the older ones

that it rests on grounds capable of being tested by

experience, not on assumptions about the "conduct of

supernatural Powers. Itcannot be summarily dis-
missed as irrational; but when the test of experience
is applied, it is found to break down. Laws of this
kind do not work, and no harm appears to come of
their not working. The collateral evils of retaining

nominal penalties and restrictions with which public

feeling is not in accord have often been exposed, and
it is needless to speak of them here. The condemna-
tion of direct penalties for heresy involves the con-
demnation of all indirect ones which may be imposed
by way of condition or disability ;
for example, treat-

ing a man as unworthy of belief in a court of justice

because he declines to take an oath in a particular
form, or does not accept particular doctrines. This

principle has been acknowledged, though tardily, by

modern legislation and practice. What is here said
as to the inutility of legal persecution applies with
much the same force to the more subtle and really
more formidable restraints which the usage of society

can impose on private conversation. As the law in

its modern tendency and operation, if not as yet in
its form, regards not doctrine but only decency and
the public peace, so must the exchange of opinion in
social intercourse ultimately be limited only by the

rule of good manners, gentleness, and respect for the

feelings of those present, which equally governs
conversation on all topics.

There are still divers forms of restraint on conduct

and language which, though they are or may be con-
nected with religion, and may tend to impede the
manifestation of religious opinions, do not aim in the
firstinstance at that object. Whether these can be
dispensed with demands a separate inquiry.


Persecution has frequently been the ally of political

ambition, the chief moving part in the business be-

longing sometimes to the one and sometimes to the
other evil spirit. Ecclesiastical zealots have purchased
the support of temporal arms by promises of temporal
gain in sovereignty and possessions and princes have

generally been eager in the detection of heresy in pro-

portion to the immediate advantages which might be
expected from the confiscation of the heretic's worldly
goods. The crusade against the Albigenses developed
or degenerated (it
is of little importance to be accu-
rate in the degrees of infamy) into a war of mere
territorial conquest. And in a later age the Spanish

conquerors in America made the advancement of true

religion their pretext for rapine and cruelty which
excited hardly less indignation in Catholic than in
Protestant lands. But there are cases of another
kind in which acts bear a certain appearance of reli-

gious persecution which in truth belong chiefly or

wholly to secular policy or jurisprudence, and are to

be upheld or condemned on grounds independent of

religious opinion.
Thus the severities exercised against the Jesuits

under Queen Elizabeth, whatever may be thought of

their justice or expediency, were not in the nature of
a religious persecution. The Queen's Government
determined to treat the Jesuits as enemies of the
State, not because they believed in purgatory and the
invocation of saints, but because they taught English
citizens that the Pope could dispense them from their

allegiance. And the imposition of special disabilities

on Eoman Catholics which continued so long after-
wards was founded partly on the apprehension that
anarchical doctrines of this kind still were or might
be laid down by the authorities of the Eoman Church,
but more on the subsequent experience of a criti-

cal period in which the official influence of that

Church had been used against the liberties of Eng-

land. More clear and simple instances, however, will
be found in later times and they will be the more

instructive as the justice of the acts in question is

hardly open to doubt. The British Government in

India professes to regard the native religions with

indifference, neither encouraging nor discouraging any

one of them. But we have put down the practice of
widow -burning, in spite of the strong religious sanc-
tion it had obtained not because we wished to

enforce any particular theory as to the spiritual con-

dition or duties of Hindu widows, but because a

system of compulsory suicide was too contrary to the
first principles of justice and humanity to be tolerated

by a civilized government. It may seem a strange

reversal of the ancient relations between persecutors
and persecuted that the conceivable forms of persecu-

tion should include forbidding persons to burn them-

selves. But fanaticism can persuade men to any-
thing; and there is little doubt that not only
Brahmans, but a certain number of the widows them-
selves, Again, we
were aggrieved by the prohibition.
suppressed the sect of Thugs, not for being devotees
of the goddess Kali, but because their devotion
assumed the form of organized murder and highway
robbery. It is beyond all question that they were

sincere in their unique superstition and the procedure


of the British Government differed from persecution

only in being directed, not against opinions as such,
but against the actual crimes produced by them. At
home we have to deal with the Peculiar People, who
deliberately omit to procure medical attendance for
their children on a supposed ground of religious obli-
gation ;
and they no doubt consider themselves per-
secuted when they find that if the children die the
result of the parents' following of their peculiar reli-

gious lights a prosecution for manslaughter.

is The
law is not concerned with the interpretation of the

passages of Scripture relied on by the Peculiar People,

nor does it interfere with any endeavours they may
make to persuade as many of their neighbours as they
can, and ultimately Parliament, to adopt the same
interpretation. But in the meantime they are not free
to act upon it ; for it is settled by the law of England,
on grounds independent of particular religious beliefs,
that a father's duty to provide necessaries for his
it is

children, including medical attendance when required ;

and while the law is such it must be enforced.

Provisions relating to the maintenance of. an

established Church are of a mixed religious and poli-
tical kind. They may be a cloak for persecution, but
they may also stand together with a very wide tolera-

tion of opinions. In fact, there was a time when

writers who advocated freedom of thought and speech
to the full extent assumed it to be a matter of political

necessity that there should be some form of public

worship specially ordained by law, and enjoying some
sort of legal preference and privileges. The reasons
for and against keeping up relations of this kind
between Church and State at least those which in
our time can be used with any effect are but remotely
connected with the general political doctrine of toler-
ation. But the intimate connexion between civil and
ecclesiastical polity which was once universal, and is

now relaxed only in the most advanced of civilized

countries, has greatly contributed to maintain the

belief that civil morality depends on religious opinions.
In the first instance the State had no choice whether
to be associated with the Church or not. The Church
was a power not merely co-extensive with the State,
but more extensive and better disciplined than any

single State or any possible alliance of States. And

when the State became strong enough to go alone, it
was so thoroughly committed by habit and precedent
to supporting the Church that statesmen easily brought
themselves to regard the alliance which had once been
a condition of the State's existence as a thing to be
continued from deliberate choice and policy. When
men are discontented with the government they live

under, and the Church presented to them as a part


of that government, their anger is for many reasons

apt to be most strongly drawn towards the Church.

And the probability of this will be the greater in pro-

portion to the amplitude of ecclesiastical claims ; for

an institution which pretends to have superhuman
powers confided to it, and to exercise them under
supernatural guidance, cannot expect those allowances
which are tacitly made by all reasonable men for the
necessary infirmities of their governors. Repugnance
to the established order in things ecclesiastical mani-

fests itself in divers ways, according to times and cir-

cumstances. Where it stops short of actual commo-

tion, it may be expected to assume the form either of
bitter sectarianism or of coarse and violent denial of
religion whatever. Distinctions between specula-
tive tenets and the discipline by which it is sought to
enforce them are not always easily made by educated
men, much less by those on whom the weight of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction chiefly presses. But in such
troubles the Church finds a new opportunity. Men
become heretics or infidels because they are disgusted
with the behaviour of the officers who represent the
Church, or because they hold themselves wronged
by an established order of things which the Church
officially supports. It is both natural and convenient
for Churchmen to invert the real order of cause and
effect, and assign the origin of every general disorder
to the heresy or infidelity which is in truth only a

symptom of it. The political distress may perhaps be

represented as a divine judgment on heresy, or, at any

be pointed out to the civil authorities that

rate, it will

they have another conclusive instance of the manner

in which free-thinking breeds sedition, and a plainer
demonstration than ever how nearly the interests of
society are bound up with those of the established

have said nothing as yet of the punishment
by law of blasphemy as distinguished from heresy.
Formerly the distinction was only one of jurisdiction
blasphemy being a matter of temporal, heresy of
ecclesiastical, cognisance. In England it is believed
that blasphemy, as a distinct offence, was invented by
the judges of the King's Bench about the time when
the power of the ecclesiastical courts was cut short.
At that time it meant nothing more than the distinct
expression of opinions contrary to the established
ones. The statute of William III. which we have
already cited proclaims by its title the intention of
" "
suppressing blasphemy and profaneness but inde- ;

cency of manner is not an ingredient in the offence.

" Advised "
speaking against orthodox doctrine is to
be punished, whether temperate or not. And the
common law was understood to be to the same effect.

But at this day we should never think of calling a

serious and decently worded argument blasphemous.
The simple denial of cherished doctrines may shock a
believer's religious feelings but what we mean by

blasphemy is language which denies with studious

insult, or insults without caring to deny. Now it is
a broad fact of human nature that, next to men's own
persons and families, their religion is the point where

they are most easily touched ;

and it should seem
that wanton offence on that point is no less fit to be

punished by the law than attacks on personal honour

and reputation. Where between people of dif-

ferent religions or sects is common, it may be neces-

sary for the lawgiver, looking simply to the preser-
vation of the common peace, to forbid mutual insults
of this kind with some stringency. This has been
done by the Indian Penal Code in perfectly impartial
and general terms.
If a certain belief is notoriously professed by a
great majority of the people, gross and wanton attacks
upon it will presumably give widespread offence and
pain, and it may be fair enough to punish them with-
out requiring proof that individuals have been in fact
offended. This is the modern rationalized theory of
the English law of blasphemy, which is made possible

by the vagueness of the early authorities. When it is

said that Christianity parcel of the law of England,

this would naturally mean that the law of England

regards a certain set of religious doctrines as true,
and makes it a crime to deny them even in becoming
language ; and this was no doubt the original inten-
tion. But it can also be made to mean that the law,

taking note of the fact that most Englishmen are

professed Christians of some denomination, will not
suffer the Christian religion to be assailed with gross
and indecent vituperation. And there is fortunately
no positive decision which binds an English lawyer to
hold that the sober and serious expression of hetero-
dox opinions must by the common law be deemed a

crime. A law thus limited reason itself compared


with what it has been evolved from but it is less


rational, less comprehensive, and more liable to abuse,

than such a general provision as that of the Indian

Code. It is difficult to see why only the prevailing

religion should be protected. There are many Jews

and very few Buddhists in England. But it seems to
us that those Buddhists are no less entitled to be
secured against hearing gross abuse of the Buddha
than the Jews are to be secured against hearing gross
abuse of Moses.
The draft Criminal Code
1878-9 proposed
Bill of

to make the publication of blasphemous libels an

offence. The task a blasphemous libel
of defining
was wisely not undertaken except in a negative sense.
There is a proviso that statements or arguments used
in good faith are not of themselves to be punishable.

Subject to this, the character of the publication is left

to be dealt with as a question of fact in each case.
Juries would thus have the same power that they
already have by statute in other cases of criminal
libel,and for the same purpose, to ensure the adminis-
tration of the law being fairly in harmony with public

opinion. But public opinion may now and then be

carried away by a panic and although the proviso is

distinct enough, we can imagine circumstances in

which it would not give much security against per-
verse and oppressive verdicts. It would perhaps be

desirable to require the action or consent of the

Attorney-General for prosecutions of this kind.

The general result of the considerations set forth

in this essay has been toshow that persecution has

been practised on several distinct grounds, some of
which we can now see to be unreasonable in them-
selves, asassuming absolute knowledge on subjects of
which little or nothing can be known while others are

of a far more plausible character, and can be effectually

set aside only by the teaching of experience. We
may sum up the argument from experience by saying
that persecution is found to succeed only when pushed
to extremes that when it succeeds the consequences

are, in a temporal point of view, most mischievous,

and when it the only harm that comes of it

(which, however, may be great) is the disaffection and

irritation produced by the attempt. General argu-
ments concerning the sanctity of individual opinions
as such, or of religious opinions above others, are of
littleuse for the various theories of persecution deny

the premisses on which these arguments are founded.

It is not the demonstration of abstract right, but the

experience of inutility, that has made governments

leave off persecuting. We must always be careful,
moreover, to distinguish from persecution those meas-
ures of temporal police, often perfectly just and neces-

sary, which bear a superficial resemblance to it.