Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

and at no place, can it be justifiable to persecute. There may be, and there probably are, races in which the belief of certain facts, a moral sympathy with particular precepts, and enthusiastic admiration for particular persons, run so rapidly into one indistinguishable whole, and identify themselves so closely with principles and practices utterly at variance with the spirit of the national institutions, and with the course which the vast majority of its members wish to run, that it is impossible to tolerate, and necessary either to persecute or be converted.

The alternative, 'Drink or Fight,' is by no means confined to the backwoods of America. There are states of society in which opinion, sentiment, and practice, are so closely and inseparably united, that neutrality and toleration are scarcely possible, and in such cases persecution can hardly be blamed. This, however, must be taken in connection with another principle of the utmost importance and of universal application -the principle, namely, that free inquiry is the great, and indeed almost the only possible guarantee for the truth of any doctrines whatever. Persecution destroys this guarantee, and is therefore unfavourable to any intelligent and real belief in the truth of any creed whatever.

It

This principle, however, goes a long way. applies to supernatural as well as to human punishments for religious belief. If God Almighty is regarded as an omnipotent persecutor, and human persecution is repudiated only as superfluous, men

are not much better off than they were before. Toleration may be defended without admitting the moral innocence of religious error. Persecution may be defended without asserting the guilt of religious error; but the controversy between those who tolerate and those who persecute will never be treated justly except by those who admit its innocence.

What can and ought to be said, with as much emphasis as may from time to time be required, in favour of toleration in our own age of the world, is that the religious questions which agitate Western Europe are perfectly capable of being discussed without violence, and that the use of violence would do unmixed harm, not only to the cause of truth, but also to the development and improvement of the whole character of mankind. None of the religions now in existence amongst us can, with any show of reason, be alleged to be so much better, truer, and more beautiful than all the rest, that it would be worth while to go to the terrible expense in labour, suffering, and heartburning which would be necessary to its establishment by force. On the other hand, all our existing forms of religion have so much good in them that it is highly desirable that they should mutually instruct each other; and there are besides a vast number of influences of various kinds at work in the world which are not dependent upon religion at all, but to which religious persecution would in all probability be utterly fatal.

These are the real arguments against persecution,

and it appears improbable to the last degree that, now that human society has reached its present condition, their force will ever be diminished, or indeed will ever cease to increase. If this view of the matter be correct, it will follow, that the fault of the ordinary commonplaces upon the subject of which Locke's Letters are the earliest, and one of the best, summaries, is that they apply to all ages what is true only of an age of high cultivation.

If Locke had limited his argument to his own days, and had avoided the mistake a mistake, as we have tried to show, which is altogether at variance with the tendency, if not with the express rules, of his own philosophy of laying down broad a priori principles as the justification of particular propositions which in reality have a firm foundation of their own to rest upon, his Letters would have been as true in theory as they undoubtedly were useful in practice. It is, however, quite another question whether they would not have lost as advocacy what they gained as philosophy; and what was wanted there and then certainly was advocacy, and not philosophy. In Locke's days philosophy had still a long road to travel before it could step boldly out of the old leading-strings and swaddling-clothes, and preach its own doctrines in its own words from its own pulpit.

ΧΙ

THE SCEPTICISM OF BAYLE1

THERE are no writers who have been more frequently misunderstood than those who have acquired the reputation of scepticism. A sceptic, properly speaking, is the antithesis to a dogmatist. He is a man who holds that nothing can be positively affirmed on any subject, and who keeps his mind in a state of perpetual doubt on all subjects. It may reasonably be doubted whether, in point of fact, such a person ever existed; but at all events it appears clear that considerable injustice is done by applying such a name to the principal persons to whom it has been applied in modern times.

It is difficult to form an opinion as to the ancient philosophers. We know about Zeno and Pyrrho only by reports which must have passed through almost any number of hands before they fell into their present shape, and there was a sort of simplicity and eager

1 Bayle's Dictionary. Articles - 'Arcesilas,' 'Paulicians,' 'Pyrrho,' 'Zenon,' etc.; and 'Éclaircissements.'

delight in ingenuity about the early days of speculation, which, in times of great artificial refinement, it is difficult to estimate correctly.

The

The mere pleasure of going through ingenious processes may have led many people to say much more than they really and practically meant. In modern times the whole tone of philosophy has been far more earnest, and the attempt to arrive at the real truth, or at all events to inquire with a view to real results, has been much more sincere. long and intimate alliance between theology and philosophy had many evils, but it had the advantage of making speculation a matter of infinitely greater practical importance, and of a much wider practical range, than was the case in the old world. In a state of society in which philosophical views led straight to moral, political, ecclesiastical, and international consequences of the most definite kind, there was much less probability that men should amuse themselves idly with verbal feats of ingenuity, than in those early times in which Hiram and Solomon sent each other riddles, and in which Zeno invented his remarkable puzzles about the impossibility of motion.

The two chief writers who in modern times have earned the title of sceptics are Bayle and Hume. We should feel much more inclined to describe Hume as what would now be called a Positivist; and as to Bayle, though it might be more difficult to say what his own views were, we think that to describe him as a sceptic, in the proper sense of the word, shows con

« PredošláPokračovať »