John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

no ESSAY ON LIBERTY. 1849-1872.
satisfactory and creditable results, but their theories have
presented those defects which are inseparable from the theories
of a weak and unpopular party making its way towards power.
They could persuade those whom they had to persuade only
by discovering arguments to show how toleration could be
reconciled with the admission of the absolute truth of religious
dogmas. They had to disconnect religious liberty from scep_it_
cism^and it is pretty clear that they were not aware of the
degree in which they really are connected. At all events, they
avoided the admission of the fact by resting their case princi
pally on the three following points, each of which would have
its due weight upon the theory I have stated :
"
v The first point was that, though persecution silences, it does
.
not convince, and that what is wanted is conviction and not
acquiescence. This is an argument to show that persecution
does not effect its purpose, and is answered, or at least greatly
diminished in weight, by the consideration that, though by
silencing A you do not convince A, you make it very much
easier to convince B, and you protect B s existing convictions
against A s influence.
" The
second point was that people will not be damned for for!
bona-fide errors of opinion. This is an argument to show that hat
a severe and bloody persecution is too high a price to pay for)
the absence of religious error,,,
" The third point^ which I am inclined to think was in practice
the most powerful of all with the class who feel more than
they think, was that to support religion by persecution is alien
to the sentiment of most religions, and especially to that of the
Christian religion, which is regarded as peculiarly humane. In
so far as Christianity recognises and is founded on hell, this
has always appeared to me to be an inconsistency, not in all
cases unamiable when genuine, but weak and often hypocritical.
Whatever its value may be, it falls under the same head as the
second point. It is an argument to show that persecution is
an excessive price to pay for religious uniformity."