I venture to think that some enlightened and magnanimous minister,
some humane and wise prelate, some prince who puts his interest in
the number of his subjects and his glory in their welfare, may deign
to glance at this inartistic and defective paper. He will supply
its defects and say to himself: What do I risk in seeing my land
cultivated and enriched by a larger number of industrious workers,
the revenue increased, the State more flourishing?
Germany would be a desert strewn with the bones of Catholics,
Protestants, and Anabaptists, slain by each other, if the peace of
Westphalia had not at length brought freedom of conscience.
We have Jews at Bordeaux and Metz and in Alsace; we have Lutherans,
Molinists, and Jansenists; can we not suffer and control Calvinists
on much the same terms as those on which Catholics are tolerated
at London? The more sects there are, the less danger in each.
Multiplicity enfeebles them. They are all restrained by just laws
which forbid disorderly meetings, insults, and sedition, and are ever
enforced by the community.
We know that many fathers of families, who have made large fortunes
in foreign lands, are ready to return to their country. They ask
only the protection of natural law, the validity of their marriages,
security as to the condition of their children, the right to inherit
from their fathers, and the enfranchisement of their persons. They
ask not for public chapels, or the right to municipal offices and
dignities. Catholics have not these things in England and other
countries. It is not a question of giving immense privileges and
secure positions to a faction, but of allowing a peaceful people to
live, and of moderating the laws once, but no longer, necessary. It
is not our place to tell the ministry what is to be done; we do but
ask consideration for the unfortunate.
How many ways there are of making them useful, and preventing them
from ever being dangerous! The prudence of the ministry and the
Council, supported as it is by force, will easily discover these
means, which are already happily employed by other nations.
There are still fanatics among the Calvinistic populace; but it is
certain that there are far more among the convulsionary [bigoted
Catholic] populace. The dregs of the fanatical worshippers of St.
Médard count as nothing in the nation; the dregs of the Calvinistic
prophets are annihilated. The great means to reduce the number of
fanatics, if any remain, is to submit that disease of the mind to
the treatment of reason, which slowly, but infallibly, enlightens
men. Reason is gentle and humane. It inspires liberality, suppresses
discord, and strengthens virtue; it has more power to make obedience
to the laws attractive than force has to compel it. And shall we take
no account of the ridicule that attaches to-day to the enthusiasm of
these good people? Ridicule is a strong barrier to the extravagance
of all sectarians. The past is as if it had never been. We must
always start from the present--from the point which nations have
already reached.
There was a time when it was thought necessary to issue decrees
against those who taught a doctrine at variance with the categories
of Aristotle, the abhorrence of a vacuum, the quiddities, the
universal apart from the object. We have in Europe more than
a hundred volumes of jurisprudence on sorcery and the way to
distinguish between false and real sorcerers. The excommunication of
grasshoppers and harmful insects has been much practised, and still
survives in certain rituals. But the practice is over; Aristotle and
the sorcerers and grasshoppers are left in peace. There are countless
instances of this folly, once thought so important. Other follies
arise from time to time; but they have their day and are abandoned.
What would happen to-day if a man were minded to call himself a
Carpocratian, a Eutychian, a Monothelite, a Monophysist, a Nestorian,
or a Manichæan? We should laugh at him, as at a man dressed in the
garb of former days.
The nation was beginning to open its eyes when the Jesuits Le Tellier
and Doucin fabricated the bull _Unigenitus_ and sent it to Rome. They
thought that they still lived in those ignorant times when the most
absurd statements were accepted without inquiry. They ventured even
to condemn the proposition, a truth of all times and all places: “The
fear of unjust excommunication should not prevent one from doing
one’s duty.” It was a proscription of reason, of the liberties of
the Gallican Church, and of the fundamental principle of morals. It
was to say to men: God commands you never to do your duty if you
fear injustice. Never was common-sense more outrageously challenged!
The counsellors of Rome were not on their guard. The papal court was
persuaded that the bull was necessary, and that the nation desired
it; it was signed, sealed, and dispatched. You know the results;
assuredly, if they had been foreseen, the bull would have been
modified. There were angry quarrels, which the prudence and goodness
of the king have settled.
So it is in regard to a number of the points which divide the
Protestants and ourselves. Some are of no consequence; some are more
serious; but on these points the fury of the controversy has so far
abated that the Protestants themselves no longer enter into disputes
in their churches.
It is a time of disgust, of satiety, or, rather, of reason, that may
be used as an epoch and guarantee of public tranquillity. Controversy
is an epidemic disease that nears its end, and what is now needed
is gentle treatment. It is to the interest of the State that its
expatriated children should return modestly to the homes of their
fathers. Humanity demands it, reason counsels it, and politics need
not fear it.
WHETHER INTOLERANCE IS OF NATURAL AND
HUMAN LAW
Natural law is that indicated to men by nature. You have reared a
child; he owes you respect as a father, gratitude as a benefactor.
You have a right to the products of the soil that you have cultivated
with your own hands. You have given or received a promise; it must be
kept.
Human law must in every case be based on natural law. All over the
earth the great principle of both is: Do not unto others what you
would that they do not unto you. Now, in virtue of this principle,
one man cannot say to another: “Believe what I believe, and what
thou canst not believe, or thou shalt perish.” Thus do men speak
in Portugal, Spain, and Goa. In some other countries they are now
content to say: “Believe, or I detest thee; believe, or I will do
thee all the harm I can. Monster, thou sharest not my religion, and
therefore hast no religion; thou shalt be a thing of horror to thy
neighbours, thy city, and thy province.”
If it were a point of human law to behave thus, the Japanese should
detest the Chinese, who should abhor the Siamese; the Siamese, in
turn, should persecute the Thibetans, who should fall upon the
Hindoos. A Mogul should tear out the heart of the first Malabarian he
met; the Malabarian should slay the Persian, who might massacre the
Turk; and all of them should fling themselves against the Christians,
who have so long devoured each other.
The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the
right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in
order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs.