cessary to punishable offences, ought to be liable to punish ment. Thus, the pretence for prosecuting on the score of bad tendency is seen for what it is worth.

The fact is, that no religion could have any success that were opposed to the common duties of morality. No man from a sincere and religious motive can be supposed capable of opposing them. But the only non-religious motive which can excite to the promulgation of a new doctrine, is the hope of drawing the reverence and admiration of mankind. The moral duties, however, are the very bond of society; the foundation of all the happiness which human beings can enjoy; and on that account so deeply rooted in the affections of mankind, that any doctrine subversive of them would, together with its au thor, be sure of their detestation. It is, therefore, very certain, that no man can ever have a motive for propagating any such doctrine. All religions are, for this reason, favourable to morality; and the only ethical error that the authors of new sects or opinions have almost ever been found to commit, is that of availing themselves of the popularity of some favourite article. of morality, and for the sake of the popularity pushing that article too far; as chastity, for example, to anchoretism and vows of celibacy; temperance, to asceticism, and self-inflicted

torture.

There is no possible view which can be taken of persecution in which the enormity of it does not appear. If we consider, in the next place, the nature and ends of punishment, we shall find, that in the application of it to religious opinions every rule is violated which the good of society has prescribed for the regulation of that necessary, but still unhappy and undesirable instrument of government.

"The general object," says Mr. Bentham, in that most important work of his, which has laid so firmly the foundation of morals and legislation," which all laws have, or ought to have, in common, is to augment the total happiness of the community; and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that tends to subtract from that happiness; in other words, to exclude mischief.

"But all punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil. Upon the principle of utility, if it ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in as far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.

"It is plain, therefore, that in the following cases punishment ought not to be inflicted.

* Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.

"1. Where it is groundless; where there is no mischief for it to prevent, the act not being mischievous upon the whole. "2. Where it must be inefficacious; where it cannot act so as to prevent the mischief.

3. Where it is unprofitable, or too expensive; where the mischief it would produce would be greater than what it pre

yented.

4. Where it is needless: where the mischief may be prevented, or cease of itself, without it, that is, at a cheaper rate."

Let us apply each of these indisputable maxims of legislation to punishment for religious opinions.

1. Diversity of religious opinions is not mischievous. In every country in Christendom, save in those barbarian countries Spain and Portugal, this is an acknowledged truth. Therefore we may take it for granted.

It may be said, that the proposition is true in general; but that there may be opinions of which an exception ought to be made. Be it so, we answer. What then are those opinions? One party says one thing, another party says another thing. Who, then, is to judge? the magistrate? He of all men is the least fit, because he has the strongest interest to decide wrong. One mark there is, in which all men will agree, and only one; that which we have already pointed out, the suborning of punishable offences. Religious, or any other discourse, clearly, directly, and unam biguously of that description, should be punished; no other.

It is clear that on the ground of social good, that with a view to sublunary purposes, this is the unmoveable boundary. There is but one other consideration, viz. what is most agreeable to the all-perfect Being. But that, no man is entitled to deter mine for another. Besides, is it not a tenet of all religions, that the all-perfect being regards the heart more than the head? If candour and sincerity of heart be not more acceptable in his sight than accuracy and subtlety of reasoning, then intellectual strength is the passport to heaven; involuntary ignorance, or weakness of intellect, merits hell.

Neither on religious, therefore, nor on political grounds, is punishment for religious opinions any other than groundless.

2. That it is inefficacious we cannot, alas! determine in the same manner. It may be tremendously efficacious. Witness Spain and Portugal! And wherever suflicient power and sufficient cruelty are combined, it may no doubt be everywhere and always efficacious. The consequences are indeed deplo rable: but these fall to be considered under the next bead."

3. That it is inseparable from punishment for religious opi

nions to produce greater evils than those which it would prevent, seems to be a proposition demonstrated by such an effulgence of proof, that the sun in his meridian splendour is not more manifest. When it accomplishes its purpose, when it is effectual in rooting out all forbidden opinions, what is the result? To purify religion? To make religion better than where other opinions prevail? Most exactly and undeniably the reverse: to corrupt religion to the last excess, as is unanswerably proved by the state of Christianity immediately before the appearance of Luther to make it an institute not of good but of evil; to give it a far more malevolent and mischievous shape than by any other process it can ever assume. Is it not universally allowed, and even by the members of the Catholic church itself, that Protestantism has reformed it? That the competition of opposite opinions has purged it of a great many of the corruptions which the crushing of all opposition for so many ages had enabled it to contract? Has not the contention of opposite opinions purified Protestantism itself? Was not every sect of Protestants at the time of the Reformation nearly as intolerant as the Catholics? Is not then improvement in this respect the natural effect of the free competition of opinions? Is not the absence of competition, in almost every thing human, a corruptor? And when fale opinions may be the source of power, are not opinions more subject to this corruption than perhaps any thing else?

But is the corruption of religion, its sure corruption, in proportion to the degree of the corruptive force, the only effect of intolerance? No! it extends its baneful influence over the whole field both of intellect and morality. The human mind suffers by it in all its fibres. If it dare not trust itself to think on religious subjects, the being inured to this weakness debilitates it in every nerve. Nor is this all; for the very same authority which commands people not to think on religious subjects, usually commands them not to think on other subjects. Wherever there is power adequate to suppress freedom of thought in regard to religion, that power is adequate to suppress it in every thing else; and wherever there is power to suppress freedom of thought on the subjects most interesting to human welfare, the will is sure to be there, because the interest is there. Let the times, accordingly, preceding the Reformation, bear witness! What doctrines on the subject of government! Kings, and priests, by the ordinance of God, slavemasters, and the rest of the human race slaves! the one born to. command whatever they pleased, responsible only to God; the rest to obey, and to what degree soever oppressed, to leave

all pursuit of redress to invisible hands! What was the consequence? Every where the most abominable state of govern ment; every where the most abject and degraded state of hu man nature; oppression and misery; ignorance and brutality, perfidy, cruelty, and rapine. If any period in the history of Europe can be pointed out when intellectual and moral depravity had attained their height, it was that at which intolerance had accomplished its task!

Such are the evils which it is the tendency of punishment for religious opinions to produce. What are the evils which, in compensation, it seeks to prevent? None; absolutely none : for diversity of opinion in religion is a good rather than an evil. Intolerance, therefore, seeks to prevent good by an inundation of the greatest evils which society can be made to endure.

4. In the last place, as far as it can be satisfactorily determined what are erroneous opinions, what not, there is a better instrument of correction than punishment; viz. discourse. Erroneous opinions may be refuted. If there is real evidence against any opinion, whoever is acquainted with that evidence, that is to say, whoever is made to feel its force, will depart from the opinion. Now to feel the force of real evidence two things alone are necessary. 1st. That a man should be presented with sufficient motives to attend to it; 2dly, That it should be laid before him in a shape adapted to his intellectual capacity. It is better to do these two things than to punish; and if these two things are done in the way in which it is always possible they may be done, the result will be infallible with mankind at large. If any man has an interest in adhering, in spite of conviction, to what he inwardly knows to be error, this is a particular case which never can comprehend more than a few, nor exist unless where there exists some great mismanagement or misconstruction of the political machine, which ought to be rectified.

If the removal of error be the end of persecution, is an opinion ever the more true or false because it is persecuted? Does pain inflicted on the body infer a misapprehension in the mind? If not, how absurd is punishment applied as a cure for error! Can a man change his opinion because he is tortured? Could any force of pain make a man who knows the use of the terms believe himself wrong in thinking that two times two make four? As soon would he believe that he was on a bed of roses while you were stretching him on the rack.

Having thus reminded our readers of the number and impres siveness of the reasons for freedom of thought in regard to reli gion, the only thing further of which we shall be able to take

notice on the present occasion is the distinction adverted to in the beginning of this article, between those who, like the Spaniards and Portuguese, or like the Protestants themselves of former days, would exterminate heretics by fire and sword, and those who would only depress them by certain mitigated operations, like a great many Englishmen of the present day.

It is to be observed that the difference is only in degree, not in kind. Persecution is still persecution, as a debt is a debt, whether it consists of a farthing or of a thousand pounds: and if the small trader in persecution is less mischievous than the great one, he is also less consistent. If any thing deserves to be suppressed by punishment, apply to it a punishment adequate to the effect: to punish, but in a manner inadequate to the production of the effect, is to employ punishment in mere waste; it is just to create so much evil for no purpose. The test-laws, for example, and the illiberal words and deeds of many among the churchmen, certainly make not one dissenter the less in England; but they produce an uneasy sensation among the dissenters, which is pure evil; and not unaccompanied with some unhappy effects. As the persecuted is miserable to the extent of his persecution, so also is the persecutor. If the one is wretched by what he feels, the other is wretched by what he fears-fears from the resentment which he knows he justly raises, and fears in proportion to the injury he inflicts, and the number of those he oppresses.

There is some chicanery about the meaning of the word punishment. Some persons refuse to call the penalties of the test laws by the name of punishment; and if they are not called by the name of punishment, then conclude that they must be perfectly unexceptionable. Suppose five men to cultivate a fieldtogether, and to labour equally; and three of them at last to say, We three must have the sole disposal of the produce; we shall give you what we think belongs to you; but you must trust to us, because we are of one religion, you another and mind, this is not persecution for it is not punishment, it is only the withholding of reward. Would this potent logic be very satisfactory to the dissenting two? Would they admit injustice to be converted into justice by the magical power of changing a name? and that too when the injustice consisted in the extruding themselves from an equal share in the disposal of that to the production of which they had equally contributed?

There are many important deductions from the principles of toleration, which only the most enlightened among Christians are even yet sufficiently aware of; but to these we can proceed only at some future opportunity.