Note: Numbers enclosed in square brackets are page numbers.
HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
No. 69
Editors:
HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.
Prof. GILBERT MURRAY, Litt.D., LL.D., F.B.A.
Prof. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
Prof. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
BY
J. B. BURY, M.A., F.B.A
HON. D.LITT. OF OXFORD, DURHAM, AND DUBLIN, AND HON. LL.D. OF EDINBURGH,
GLASGOW, AND ABERDEEN UNIVERSITIES; REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF “HISTORY OF THE LATTER ROMAN EMPIRE,” “HISTORY OF GREECE,”
“HISTORY OF THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE,” ETC.
[IV]
1913,
[V]
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I Introductory
II Reason Free (Greece And Rome)
III Reason in Prison (The Middle Ages)
IV Prospect of Deliverance (The Renaissance and the Reformation)
V Religious Toleration
VI The Growth of Rationalism (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)
VII The Progress of Rationalism (Nineteenth Century)
VIII The Justification of Liberty of Thought
Bibliography
Index
[7] A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
CHAPTER I
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND THE FORCES AGAINST IT
(INTRODUCTORY)
IT is a common saying that thought is free. A man can never be hindered
from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks.
The working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience
and the power of his imagination. But this natural liberty of private
thinking is of little value. It is unsatisfactory and even painful to
the thinker himself, if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts
to others, and it is obviously of no value to his neighbours. Moreover
it is extremely difficult to hide thoughts that have any power over the
mind. If a man’s thinking leads him to call in question ideas and
customs which regulate the behaviour of those about him, to reject
beliefs which they hold, to see better ways of life than those they
follow, it is almost
[8] impossible for him, if he is convinced of the truth of his own
reasoning, not to betray by silence, chance words, or general attitude
that he is different from them and does not share their opinions. Some
have preferred, like Socrates, some would prefer to-day, to face death
rather than conceal their thoughts. Thus freedom of thought, in any
valuable sense, includes freedom of speech.
At present, in the most civilized countries, freedom of speech is taken
as a matter of course and seems a perfectly simple thing. We are so
accustomed to it that we look on it as a natural right. But this right
has been acquired only in quite recent times, and the way to its
attainment has lain through lakes of blood. It has taken centuries to
persuade the most enlightened peoples that liberty to publish one’s
opinions and to discuss all questions is a good and not a bad thing.
Human societies (there are some brilliant exceptions) have been
generally opposed to freedom of thought, or, in other words, to new
ideas, and it is easy to see why.
The average brain is naturally lazy and tends to take the line of least
resistance. The mental world of the ordinary man consists of beliefs
which he has accepted without questioning and to which he is firmly
attached; he is instinctively hostile to anything which
[9] would upset the established order of this familiar world. A new
idea, inconsistent with some of the beliefs which he holds, means the
necessity of rearranging his mind; and this process is laborious,
requiring a painful expenditure of brain-energy. To him and his fellows,
who form the vast majority, new ideas, and opinions which cast doubt on
established beliefs and institutions, seem evil because they are
disagreeable.
The repugnance due to mere mental laziness is increased by a positive
feeling of fear. The conservative instinct hardens into the conservative
doctrine that the foundations of society are endangered by any
alterations in the structure. It is only recently that men have been
abandoning the belief that the welfare of a state depends on rigid
stability and on the preservation of its traditions and institutions
unchanged. Wherever that belief prevails, novel opinions are felt to be
dangerous as well as annoying, and any one who asks inconvenient
questions about the why and the wherefore of accepted principles is
considered a pestilent person.
The conservative instinct, and the conservative doctrine which is its
consequence, are strengthened by superstition. If the social structure,
including the whole body of customs and opinions, is associated
intimately
[10] with religious belief and is supposed to be under divine patronage,
criticism of the social order savours of impiety, while criticism of the
religious belief is a direct challenge to the wrath of supernatural
powers.
The psychological motives which produce a conservative spirit hostile to
new ideas are reinforced by the active opposition of certain powerful
sections of the community, such as a class, a caste, or a priesthood,
whose interests are bound up with the maintenance of the established
order and the ideas on which it rests.
Let us suppose, for instance, that a people believes that solar eclipses
are signs employed by their Deity for the special purpose of
communicating useful information to them, and that a clever man
discovers the true cause of eclipses. His compatriots in the first place
dislike his discovery because they find it very difficult to reconcile
with their other ideas; in the second place, it disturbs them, because
it upsets an arrangement which they consider highly advantageous to
their community; finally, it frightens them, as an offence to their
Divinity. The priests, one of whose functions is to interpret the divine
signs, are alarmed and enraged at a doctrine which menaces their power.
In prehistoric days, these motives, operating
[11] strongly, must have made change slow in communities which
progressed, and hindered some communities from progressing at all. But
they have continued to operate more or less throughout history,
obstructing knowledge and progress. We can observe them at work to-day
even in the most advanced societies, where they have no longer the power
to arrest development or repress the publication of revolutionary
opinions. We still meet people who consider a new idea an annoyance and
probably a danger. Of those to whom socialism is repugnant, how many are
there who have never examined the arguments for and against it, but turn
away in disgust simply because the notion disturbs their mental universe
and implies a drastic criticism on the order of things to which they are
accustomed? And how many are there who would refuse to consider any
proposals for altering our imperfect matrimonial institutions, because
such an idea offends a mass of prejudice associated with religious
sanctions? They may be right or not, but if they are, it is not their
fault. They are actuated by the same motives which were a bar to
progress in primitive societies. The existence of people of this
mentality, reared in an atmosphere of freedom, side by side with others
who are always looking out for new ideas and
[12] regretting that there are not more about, enables us to realize
how, when public opinion was formed by the views of such men, thought
was fettered and the impediments to knowledge enormous.
Although the liberty to publish one’s opinions on any subject without
regard to authority or the prejudices of one’s neighbours is now a well-
established principle, I imagine that only the minority of those who
would be ready to fight to the death rather than surrender it could
defend it on rational grounds. We are apt to take for granted that
freedom of speech is a natural and inalienable birthright of man, and
perhaps to think that this is a sufficient answer to all that can be
said on the other side. But it is difficult to see how such a right can
be established.
If a man has any “natural rights,” the right to preserve his life and
the right to reproduce his kind are certainly such. Yet human societies
impose upon their members restrictions in the exercise of both these
rights. A starving man is prohibited from taking food which belongs to
somebody else. Promiscuous reproduction is restricted by various laws or
customs. It is admitted that society is justified in restricting these
elementary rights, because without such restrictions an ordered society
could not exist. If then we
[13] concede that the expression of opinion is a right of the same kind,
it is impossible to contend that on this ground it can claim immunity
from interference or that society acts unjustly in regulating it. But
the concession is too large. For whereas in the other cases the
limitations affect the conduct of every one, restrictions on freedom of
opinion affect only the comparatively small number who have any
opinions, revolutionary or unconventional, to express. The truth is that
no valid argument can be founded on the conception of natural rights,
because it involves an untenable theory of the relations between society
and its members.
On the other hand, those who have the responsibility of governing a
society can argue that it is as incumbent on them to prohibit the
circulation of pernicious opinions as to prohibit any anti-social
actions. They can argue that a man may do far more harm by propagating
anti-social doctrines than by stealing his neighbour’s horse or making
love to his neighbour’s wife. They are responsible for the welfare of
the State, and if they are convinced that an opinion is dangerous, by
menacing the political, religious, or moral assumptions on which the
society is based, it is their duty to protect society against it, as
against any other danger.
[14]
The true answer to this argument for limiting freedom of thought will
appear in due course. It was far from obvious. A long time was needed to
arrive at the conclusion that coercion of opinion is a mistake, and only
a part of the world is yet convinced. That conclusion, so far as I can
judge, is the most important ever reached by men. It was the issue of a
continuous struggle between authority and reason—the subject of this
volume. The word authority requires some comment.
If you ask somebody how he knows something, he may say, “I have it on
good authority,” or, “I read it in a book,” or, “It is a matter of
common knowledge,” or, “I learned it at school.” Any of these replies
means that he has accepted information from others, trusting in their
knowledge, without verifying their statements or thinking the matter out
for himself. And the greater part of most men’s knowledge and beliefs is
of this kind, taken without verification from their parents, teachers,
acquaintances, books, newspapers. When an English boy learns French, he
takes the conjugations and the meanings of the words on the authority of
his teacher or his grammar. The fact that in a certain place, marked on
the map, there is a populous city called Calcutta, is for most
[15] people a fact accepted on authority. So is the existence of
Napoleon or Julius Caesar. Familiar astronomical facts are known only in
the same way, except by those who have studied astronomy. It is obvious
that every one’s knowledge would be very limited indeed, if we were not
justified in accepting facts on the authority of others.
But we are justified only under one condition. The facts which we can
safely accept must be capable of demonstration or verification. The
examples I have given belong to this class. The boy can verify when he
goes to France or is able to read a French book that the facts which he
took on authority are true. I am confronted every day with evidence
which proves to me that, if I took the trouble, I could verify the
existence of Calcutta for myself. I cannot convince myself in this way
of the existence of Napoleon, but if I have doubts about it, a simple
process of reasoning shows me that there are hosts of facts which are
incompatible with his non-existence. I have no doubt that the earth is
some 93 millions of miles distant from the sun, because all astronomers
agree that it has been demonstrated, and their agreement is only
explicable on the supposition that this has been demonstrated and that,
if I took the trouble to work out the calculation, I should reach the
same result.
[16]
But all our mental furniture is not of this kind. The thoughts of the
average man consist not only of facts open to verification, but also of
many beliefs and opinions which he has accepted on authority and cannot
verify or prove. Belief in the Trinity depends on the authority of the
Church and is clearly of a different order from belief in the existence
of Calcutta. We cannot go behind the authority and verify or prove it.
If we accept it, we do so because we have such implicit faith in the
authority that we credit its assertions though incapable of proof.
The distinction may seem so obvious as to be hardly worth making. But it
is important to be quite clear about it. The primitive man who had
learned from his elders that there were bears in the hills and likewise
evil spirits, soon verified the former statement by seeing a bear, but
if he did not happen to meet an evil spirit, it did not occur to him,
unless he was a prodigy, that there was a distinction between the two
statements; he would rather have argued, if he argued at all, that as
his tribesmen were right about the bears they were sure to be right also
about the spirits. In the Middle Ages a man who believed on authority
that there is a city called Constantinople and that comets are portents
signifying divine wrath, would not
[17] distinguish the nature of the evidence in the two cases. You may
still sometimes hear arguments amounting to this: since I believe in
Calcutta on authority, am I not entitled to believe in the Devil on
authority?
Now people at all times have been commanded or expected or invited to
accept on authority alone—the authority, for instance, of public
opinion, or a Church, or a sacred book—doctrines which are not proved or
are not capable of proof. Most beliefs about nature and man, which were
not founded on scientific observation, have served directly or
indirectly religious and social interests, and hence they have been
protected by force against the criticisms of persons who have the
inconvenient habit of using their reason. Nobody minds if his neighbour
disbelieves a demonstrable fact. If a sceptic denies that Napoleon
existed, or that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, he causes
amusement or ridicule. But if he denies doctrines which cannot be
demonstrated, such as the existence of a personal God or the immortality
of the soul, he incurs serious disapprobation and at one time he might
have been put to death. Our mediaeval friend would have only been called
a fool if he doubted the existence of Constantinople, but if he had
questioned the significance of comets he
[18] might have got into trouble. It is possible that if he had been so
mad as to deny the existence of Jerusalem he would not have escaped with
ridicule, for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible.
In the Middle Ages a large field was covered by beliefs which authority
claimed to impose as true, and reason was warned off the ground. But
reason cannot recognize arbitrary prohibitions or barriers, without
being untrue to herself. The universe of experience is her province, and
as its parts are all linked together and interdependent, it is
impossible for her to recognize any territory on which she may not
tread, or to surrender any of her rights to an authority whose
credentials she has not examined and approved.
The uncompromising assertion by reason of her absolute rights throughout
the whole domain of thought is termed rationalism, and the slight stigma
which is still attached to the word reflects the bitterness of the
struggle between reason and the forces arrayed against her. The term is
limited to the field of theology, because it was in that field that the
self-assertion of reason was most violently and pertinaciously opposed.
In the same way free thought, the refusal of thought to be controlled by
any authority but its own, has a definitely theological reference.
Throughout
[19] the conflict, authority has had great advantages. At any time the
people who really care about reason have been a small minority, and
probably will be so for a long time to come. Reason’s only weapon has
been argument. Authority has employed physical and moral violence, legal
coercion and social displeasure. Sometimes she has attempted to use the
sword of her adversary, thereby wounding herself. Indeed the weakest
point in the strategical position of authority was that her champions,
being human, could not help making use of reasoning processes and the
result was that they were divided among themselves. This gave reason her
chance. Operating, as it were, in the enemy’s camp and professedly in
the enemy’s cause, she was preparing her own victory.
It may be objected that there is a legitimate domain for authority,
consisting of doctrines which lie outside human experience and therefore
cannot be proved or verified, but at the same time cannot be disproved.
Of course, any number of propositions can be invented which cannot be
disproved, and it is open to any one who possesses exuberant faith to
believe them; but no one will maintain that they all deserve credence so
long as their falsehood is not demonstrated. And if only some deserve
credence, who, except reason,
[20] is to decide which? If the reply is, Authority, we are confronted
by the difficulty that many beliefs backed by authority have been
finally disproved and are universally abandoned. Yet some people speak
as if we were not justified in rejecting a theological doctrine unless
we can prove it false. But the burden of proof does not lie upon the
rejecter. I remember a conversation in which, when some disrespectful
remark was made about hell, a loyal friend of that establishment said
triumphantly, “But, absurd as it may seem, you cannot disprove it.” If
you were told that in a certain planet revolving round Sirius there is a
race of donkeys who talk the English language and spend their time in
discussing eugenics, you could not disprove the statement, but would it,
on that account, have any claim to be believed? Some minds would be
prepared to accept it, if it were reiterated often enough, through the
potent force of suggestion. This force, exercised largely by emphatic
repetition (the theoretical basis, as has been observed, of the modern
practice of advertising), has played a great part in establishing
authoritative opinions and propagating religious creeds. Reason
fortunately is able to avail herself of the same help.
The following sketch is confined to Western
[21] civilization. It begins with Greece and attempts to indicate the
chief phases. It is the merest introduction to a vast and intricate
subject, which, treated adequately, would involve not only the history
of religion, of the Churches, of heresies, of persecution, but also the
history of philosophy, of the natural sciences and of political
theories. From the sixteenth century to the French Revolution nearly all
important historical events bore in some way on the struggle for freedom
of thought. It would require a lifetime to calculate, and many books to
describe, all the directions and interactions of the intellectual and
social forces which, since the fall of ancient civilization, have
hindered and helped the emancipation of reason. All one can do, all one
could do even in a much bigger volume than this, is to indicate the
general course of the struggle and dwell on some particular aspects
which the writer may happen to have specially studied.
[21] CHAPTER II
REASON FREE
(GREECE AND ROME)
WHEN we are asked to specify the debt which civilization owes to the
Greeks, their
[22] achievements in literature and art naturally occur to us first of
all. But a truer answer may be that our deepest gratitude is due to them
as the originators of liberty of thought and discussion. For this
freedom of spirit was not only the condition of their speculations in
philosophy, their progress in science, their experiments in political
institutions; it was also a condition of their literary and artistic
excellence. Their literature, for instance, could not have been what it
is if they had been debarred from free criticism of life. But apart from
what they actually accomplished, even if they had not achieved the
wonderful things they did in most of the realms of human activity, their
assertion of the principle of liberty would place them in the highest
rank among the benefactors of the race; for it was one of the greatest
steps in human progress.
We do not know enough about the earliest history of the Greeks to
explain how it was that they attained their free outlook upon the world
and came to possess the will and courage to set no bounds to the range
of their criticism and curiosity. We have to take this character as a
fact. But it must be remembered that the Greeks consisted of a large
number of separate peoples, who varied largely in temper, customs and
traditions,
[23] though they had important features common to all. Some were
conservative, or backward, or unintellectual compared with others. In
this chapter “the Greeks” does not mean all the Greeks, but only those
who count most in the history of civilization, especially the Ionians
and Athenians.
Ionia in Asia Minor was the cradle of free speculation. The history of
European science and European philosophy begins in Ionia. Here (in the
sixth and fifth centuries B.C.) the early philosophers by using their
reason sought to penetrate into the origin and structure of the world.
They could not of course free their minds entirely from received
notions, but they began the work of destroying orthodox views and
religious faiths. Xenophanes may specially be named among these pioneers
of thought (though he was not the most important or the ablest), because
the toleration of his teaching illustrates the freedom of the atmosphere
in which these men lived. He went about from city to city, calling in
question on moral grounds the popular beliefs about the gods and
goddesses, and ridiculing the anthropomorphic conceptions which the
Greeks had formed of their divinities. “If oxen had hands and the
capacities of men, they would make gods in the shape of oxen.” This
attack on received
[24] theology was an attack on the veracity of the old poets, especially
Homer, who was considered the highest authority on mythology. Xenophanes
criticized him severely for ascribing to the gods acts which, committed
by men, would be considered highly disgraceful. We do not hear that any
attempt was made to restrain him from thus assailing traditional beliefs
and branding Homer as immoral. We must remember that the Homeric poems
were never supposed to be the word of God. It has been said that Homer
was the Bible of the Greeks. The remark exactly misses the truth. The
Greeks fortunately had no Bible, and this fact was both an expression
and an important condition of their freedom. Homer’s poems were secular,
not religious, and it may be noted that they are freer from immorality
and savagery than sacred books that one could mention. Their authority
was immense; but it was not binding like the authority of a sacred book,
and so Homeric criticism was never hampered like Biblical criticism.
In this connexion, notice may be taken of another expression and
condition of freedom, the absence of sacerdotalism. The priests of the
temples never became powerful castes, tyrannizing over the community in
their own interests and able to silence voices raised against religious
beliefs. The civil authorities
[25] kept the general control of public worship in their own hands, and,
if some priestly families might have considerable influence, yet as a
rule the priests were virtually State servants whose voice carried no
weight except concerning the technical details of ritual.
To return to the early philosophers, who were mostly materialists, the
record of their speculations is an interesting chapter in the history of
rationalism. Two great names may be selected, Heraclitus and Democritus,
because they did more perhaps than any of the others, by sheer hard
thinking, to train reason to look upon the universe in new ways and to
shock the unreasoned conceptions of common sense. It was startling to be
taught, for the first time, by Heraclitus, that the appearance of
stability and permanence which material things present to our senses is
a false appearance, and that the world and everything in it are changing
every instant. Democritus performed the amazing feat of working out an
atomic theory of the universe, which was revived in the seventeenth
century and is connected, in the history of speculation, with the most
modern physical and chemical theories of matter. No fantastic tales of
creation, imposed by sacred authority, hampered these powerful brains.
All this philosophical speculation prepared
[26] the way for the educationalists who were known as the Sophists.
They begin to appear after the middle of the fifth century. They worked
here and there throughout Greece, constantly travelling, training young
men for public life, and teaching them to use their reason. As educators
they had practical ends in view. They turned away from the problems of
the physical universe to the problems of human life—morality and
polities. Here they were confronted with the difficulty of
distinguishing between truth and error, and the ablest of them
investigated the nature of knowledge, the method of reason—logic— and
the instrument of reason—speech. Whatever their particular theories
might be, their general spirit was that of free inquiry and discussion.
They sought to test everything by reason. The second half of the fifth
century might be called the age of Illumination.
It may be remarked that the knowledge of foreign countries which the
Greeks had acquired had a considerable effect in promoting a sceptical
attitude towards authority. When a man is acquainted only with the
habits of his own country, they seem so much a matter of course that he
ascribes them to nature, but when he travels abroad and finds totally
different habits and standards of conduct prevailing, he begins to
understand
[27] the power of custom; and learns that morality and religion are
matters of latitude. This discovery tends to weaken authority, and to
raise disquieting reflections, as in the case of one who, brought up as
a Christian, comes to realize that, if he had been born on the Ganges or
the Euphrates, he would have firmly believed in entirely different
dogmas.
Of course these movements of intellectual freedom were, as in all ages,
confined to the minority. Everywhere the masses were exceedingly
superstitious. They believed that the safety of their cities depended on
the good-will of their gods. If this superstitious spirit were alarmed,
there was always a danger that philosophical speculations might be
persecuted. And this occurred in Athens. About the middle of the fifth
century Athens had not only become the most powerful State in Greece,
but was also taking the highest place in literature and art. She was a
full-fledged democracy. Political discussion was perfectly free. At this
time she was guided by the statesman Pericles, who was personally a
freethinker, or at least was in touch with all the subversive
speculations of the day. He was especially intimate with the philosopher
Anaxagoras who had come from Ionia to teach at Athens. In regard to the
popular gods Anaxagoras was a thorough-going
[28] unbeliever. The political enemies of Pericles struck at him by
attacking his friend. They introduced and carried a blasphemy law, to
the effect that unbelievers and those who taught theories about the
celestial world might be impeached. It was easy to prove that Anaxagoras
was a blasphemer who taught that the gods were abstractions and that the
sun, to which the ordinary Athenian said prayers morning and evening,
was a mass of flaming matter. The influence of Pericles saved him from
death; he was heavily fined and left Athens for Lampsacus, where he was
treated with consideration and honour.
Other cases are recorded which show that anti-religious thought was
liable to be persecuted. Protagoras, one of the greatest of the
Sophists, published a book On the Gods, the object of which seems to
have been to prove that one cannot know the gods by reason. The first
words ran: “Concerning the gods, I cannot say that they exist nor yet
that they do not exist. There are more reasons than one why we cannot
know. There is the obscurity of the subject and there is the brevity of
human life.” A charge of blasphemy was lodged against him and he fled
from Athens. But there was no systematic policy of suppressing free
thought. Copies of the work of Protagoras were collected and
[29] burned, but the book of Anaxagoras setting forth the views for
which he had been condemned was for sale on the Athenian book-stalls at
a popular price. Rationalistic ideas moreover were venturing to appear
on the stage, though the dramatic performances, at the feasts of the god
Dionysus, were religious solemnities. The poet Euripides was saturated
with modern speculation, and, while different opinions may be held as to
the tendencies of some of his tragedies, he often allows his characters
to express highly unorthodox views. He was prosecuted for impiety by a
popular politician. We may suspect that during the last thirty years of
the fifth century unorthodoxy spread considerably among the educated
classes. There was a large enough section of influential rationalists to
render impossible any organized repression of liberty, and the chief
evil of the blasphemy law was that it could be used for personal or
party reasons. Some of the prosecutions, about which we know, were
certainly due to such motives, others may have been prompted by genuine
bigotry and by the fear lest sceptical thought should extend beyond the
highly educated and leisured class. It was a generally accepted
principle among the Greeks, and afterwards among the Romans, that
religion was a good and necessary thing
[30] for the common people. Men who did not believe in its truth
believed in its usefulness as a political institution, and as a rule
philosophers did not seek to diffuse disturbing “truth” among the
masses. It was the custom, much more than at the present day, for those
who did not believe in the established cults to conform to them
externally. Popular higher education was not an article in the programme
of Greek statesmen or thinkers. And perhaps it may be argued that in the
circumstances of the ancient world it would have been hardly
practicable.
There was, however, one illustrious Athenian, who thought
differently—Socrates, the philosopher. Socrates was the greatest of the
educationalists, but unlike the others he taught gratuitously, though he
was a poor man. His teaching always took the form of discussion; the
discussion often ended in no positive result, but had the effect of
showing that some received opinion was untenable and that truth is
difficult to ascertain. He had indeed certain definite views about
knowledge and virtue, which are of the highest importance in the history
of philosophy, but for our present purpose his significance lies in his
enthusiasm for discussion and criticism. He taught those with whom he
conversed—and he conversed indiscriminately
[31] with all who would listen to him—to bring all popular beliefs
before the bar of reason, to approach every inquiry with an open mind,
and not to judge by the opinion of majorities or the dictate of
authority; in short to seek for other tests of the truth of an opinion
than the fact that it is held by a great many people. Among his
disciples were all the young men who were to become the leading
philosophers of the next generation and some who played prominent parts
in Athenian history.
If the Athenians had had a daily press, Socrates would have been
denounced by the journalists as a dangerous person. They had a comic
drama, which constantly held up to ridicule philosophers and sophists
and their vain doctrines. We possess one play (the Clouds of
Aristophanes) in which Socrates is pilloried as a typical representative
of impious and destructive speculations. Apart from annoyances of this
kind, Socrates reached old age, pursuing the task of instructing his
fellow-citizens, without any evil befalling him. Then, at the age of
seventy, he was prosecuted as an atheist and corrupter of youth and was
put to death (399 B.C.). It is strange that if the Athenians really
thought him dangerous they should have suffered him so long. There can,
I think, be
[32] little doubt that the motives of the accusation were political. [1]
Socrates, looking at things as he did, could not be sympathetic with
unlimited democracy, or approve of the principle that the will of the
ignorant majority was a good guide. He was probably known to sympathize
with those who wished to limit the franchise. When, after a struggle in
which the constitution had been more than once overthrown, democracy
emerged triumphant (403 B.C.), there was a bitter feeling against those
who had not been its friends, and of these disloyal persons Socrates was
chosen as a victim. If he had wished, he could easily have escaped. If
he had given an undertaking to teach no more, he would almost certainly
have been acquitted. As it was, of the 501 ordinary Athenians who were
his judges, a very large minority voted for his acquittal. Even then, if
he had adopted a different tone, he would not have been condemned to
death.
He rose to the great occasion and vindicated freedom of discussion in a
wonderful unconventional speech. The Apology of Socrates, which was
composed by his most brilliant pupil, Plato the philosopher, reproduces
[33] the general tenor of his defence. It is clear that he was not able
to meet satisfactorily the charge that he did not acknowledge the gods
worshipped by the city, and his explanations on this point are the weak
part of his speech. But he met the accusation that he corrupted the
minds of the young by a splendid plea for free discussion. This is the
most valuable section of the Apology; it is as impressive to-day as
ever. I think the two principal points which he makes are these—
(1) He maintains that the individual should at any cost refuse to be
coerced by any human authority or tribunal into a course which his own
mind condemns as wrong. That is, he asserts the supremacy of the
individual conscience, as we should say, over human law. He represents
his own life-work as a sort of religious quest; he feels convinced that
in devoting himself to philosophical discussion he has done the bidding
of a super-human guide; and he goes to death rather than be untrue to
this personal conviction. “If you propose to acquit me,” he says, “on
condition that I abandon my search for truth, I will say: I thank you, O
Athenians, but I will obey God, who, as I believe, set me this task,
rather than you, and so long as I have breath and strength I will never
[34] cease from my occupation with philosophy. I will continue the
practice of accosting whomever I meet and saying to him, ‘Are you not
ashamed of setting your heart on wealth and honours while you have no
care for wisdom and truth and making your soul better?’ I know not what
death is—it may be a good thing, and I am not afraid of it. But I do
know that it is a bad thing to desert one’s post and I prefer what may
be good to what I know to be bad.”
(2) He insists on the public value of free discussion. “In me you have a
stimulating critic, persistently urging you with persuasion and
reproaches, persistently testing your opinions and trying to show you
that you are really ignorant of what you suppose you know. Daily
discussion of the matters about which you hear me conversing is the
highest good for man. Life that is not tested by such discussion is not
worth living.”
Thus in what we may call the earliest justification of liberty of
thought we have two significant claims affirmed: the indefeasible right
of the conscience of the individual —a claim on which later struggles
for liberty were to turn; and the social importance of discussion and
criticism. The former claim is not based on argument but on intuition;
it rests in fact on the assumption
[35] of some sort of superhuman moral principle, and to those who, not
having the same personal experience as Socrates, reject this assumption,
his pleading does not carry weight. The second claim, after the
experience of more than 2,000 years, can be formulated more
comprehensively now with bearings of which he did not dream.
The circumstances of the trial of Socrates illustrate both the tolerance
and the intolerance which prevailed at Athens. His long immunity, the
fact that he was at last indicted from political motives and perhaps
personal also, the large minority in his favour, all show that thought
was normally free, and that the mass of intolerance which existed was
only fitfully invoked, and perhaps most often to serve other purposes. I
may mention the case of the philosopher Aristotle, who some seventy
years later left Athens because he was menaced by a prosecution for
blasphemy, the charge being a pretext for attacking one who belonged to
a certain political party. The persecution of opinion was never
organized.
It may seem curious that to find the persecuting spirit in Greece we
have to turn to the philosophers. Plato, the most brilliant disciple of
Socrates, constructed in his later years an ideal State. In this State
he instituted
[36] a religion considerably different from the current religion, and
proposed to compel all the citizens to believe in his gods on pain of
death or imprisonment. All freedom of discussion was excluded under the
cast-iron system which he conceived. But the point of interest in his
attitude is that he did not care much whether a religion was true, but
only whether it was morally useful; he was prepared to promote morality
by edifying fables; and he condemned the popular mythology not because
it was false, but because it did not make for righteousness.
The outcome of the large freedom permitted at Athens was a series of
philosophies which had a common source in the conversations of Socrates.
Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Sceptics—it may be
maintained that the efforts of thought represented by these names have
had a deeper influence on the progress of man than any other continuous
intellectual movement, at least until the rise of modern science in a
new epoch of liberty.
The doctrines of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics all aimed at
securing peace and guidance for the individual soul. They were widely
propagated throughout the Greek world from the third century B.C., and
we may say that from this time onward most
[37] well-educated Greeks were more or less rationalists. The teaching
of Epicurus had a distinct anti-religious tendency. He considered fear
to be the fundamental motive of religion, and to free men’s minds from
this fear was a principal object of his teaching. He was a Materialist,
explaining the world by the atomic theory of Democritus and denying any
divine government of the universe. [2] He did indeed hold the existence
of gods, but, so far as men are concerned, his gods are as if they were
not—living in some remote abode and enjoying a “sacred and everlasting
calm.” They just served as an example of the realization of the ideal
Epicurean life.
There was something in this philosophy which had the power to inspire a
poet of singular genius to expound it in verse. The Roman Lucretius
(first century B.C.) regarded Epicurus as the great deliverer of the
human race and determined to proclaim the glad tidings of his philosophy
in a poem On the Nature of the World. [3] With all the fervour
[38] of a religious enthusiast he denounces religion, sounding every
note of defiance, loathing, and contempt, and branding in burning words
the crimes to which it had urged man on. He rides forth as a leader of
the hosts of atheism against the walls of heaven. He explains the
scientific arguments as if they were the radiant revelation of a new
world; and the rapture of his enthusiasm is a strange accompaniment of a
doctrine which aimed at perfect calm. Although the Greek thinkers had
done all the work and the Latin poem is a hymn of triumph over prostrate
deities, yet in the literature of free thought it must always hold an
eminent place by the sincerity of its audacious, defiant spirit. In the
history of rationalism its interest would be greater if it had exploded
in the midst of an orthodox community. But the educated Romans in the
days of Lucretius were sceptical in religious matters, some of them were
Epicureans, and we may suspect that not many of those who read it were
shocked or influenced by the audacities of the champion of irreligion.
The Stoic philosophy made notable contributions to the cause of liberty
and could hardly have flourished in an atmosphere where discussion was
not free. It asserted the rights of individuals against public
[39] authority. Socrates had seen that laws may be unjust and that
peoples may go wrong, but he had found no principle for the guidance of
society. The Stoics discovered it in the law of nature, prior and
superior to all the customs and written laws of peoples, and this
doctrine, spreading outside Stoic circles, caught hold of the Roman
world and affected Roman legislation.
These philosophies have carried us from Greece to Rome. In the later
Roman Republic and the early Empire, no restrictions were imposed on
opinion, and these philosophies, which made the individual the first
consideration, spread widely. Most of the leading men were unbelievers
in the official religion of the State, but they considered it valuable
for the purpose of keeping the uneducated populace in order. A Greek
historian expresses high approval of the Roman policy of cultivating
superstition for the benefit of the masses. This was the attitude of
Cicero, and the view that a false religion is indispensable as a social
machine was general among ancient unbelievers. It is common, in one form
or another, to-day; at least, religions are constantly defended on the
ground not of truth but of utility. This defence belongs to the
statecraft of Machiavelli, who taught that religion is necessary for
government,
[40] and that it may be the duty of a ruler to support a religion which
he believes to be false.
A word must be said of Lucian (second century A.D.), the last Greek man
of letters whose writings appeal to everybody. He attacked the popular
mythology with open ridicule. It is impossible to say whether his
satires had any effect at the time beyond affording enjoyment to
educated infidels who read them. Zeus in a Tragedy Part is one of the
most effective. The situation which Lucian imagined here would be
paralleled if a modern writer were blasphemously to represent the
Persons of the Trinity with some eminent angels and saints discussing in
a celestial smoke-room the alarming growth of unbelief in England and
then by means of a telephonic apparatus overhearing a dispute between a
freethinker and a parson on a public platform in London. The absurdities
of anthropomorphism have never been the subject of more brilliant
jesting than in Lucian’s satires.
The general rule of Roman policy was to tolerate throughout the Empire
all religions and all opinions. Blasphemy was not punished. The
principle was expressed in the maxim of the Emperor Tiberius: “If the
gods are insulted, let them see to it themselves.” An exception to the
rule of tolerance
[41] was made in the case of the Christian sect, and the treatment of
this Oriental religion may be said to have inaugurated religious
persecution in Europe. It is a matter of interest to understand why
Emperors who were able, humane, and not in the least fanatical, adopted
this exceptional policy.
For a long time the Christians were only known to those Romans who
happened to hear of them, as a sect of the Jews. The Jewish was the one
religion which, on account of its exclusiveness and intolerance, was
regarded by the tolerant pagans with disfavour and suspicion. But though
it sometimes came into collision with the Roman authorities and some
ill-advised attacks upon it were made, it was the constant policy of the
Emperors to let it alone and to protect the Jews against the hatred
which their own fanaticism aroused. But while the Jewish religion was
endured so long as it was confined to those who were born into it, the
prospect of its dissemination raised a new question. Grave misgivings
might arise in the mind of a ruler at seeing a creed spreading which was
aggressively hostile to all the other creeds of the world—creeds which
lived together in amity—and had earned for its adherents the reputation
of being the enemies of the human race. Might not its expansion
[42] beyond the Israelites involve ultimately a danger to the Empire?
For its spirit was incompatible with the traditions and basis of Roman
society. The Emperor Domitian seems to have seen the question in this
light, and he took severe measures to hinder the proselytizing of Roman
citizens. Some of those whom he struck may have been Christians, but if
he was aware of the distinction, there was from his point of view no
difference. Christianity resembled Judaism, from which it sprang, in
intolerance and in hostility towards Roman society, but it differed by
the fact that it made many proselytes while Judaism made few.
Under Trajan we find that the principle has been laid down that to be a
Christian is an offence punishable by death. Henceforward Christianity
remained an illegal religion. But in practice the law was not applied
rigorously or logically. The Emperors desired, if possible, to extirpate
Christianity without shedding blood. Trajan laid down that Christians
were not to be sought out, that no anonymous charges were to be noticed,
and that an informer who failed to make good his charge should be liable
to be punished under the laws against calumny. Christians themselves
recognized that this edict practically protected them. There were
[43] some executions in the second century—not many that are well
attested—and Christians courted the pain and glory of martyrdom. There
is evidence to show that when they were arrested their escape was often
connived at. In general, the persecution of the Christians was rather
provoked by the populace than desired by the authorities. The populace
felt a horror of this mysterious Oriental sect which openly hated all
the gods and prayed for the destruction of the world. When floods,
famines, and especially fires occurred they were apt to be attributed to
the black magic of the Christians.
When any one was accused of Christianity, he was required, as a means of
testing the truth of the charge, to offer incense to the gods or to the
statues of deified Emperors. His compliance at once exonerated him. The
objection of the Christians—they and the Jews were the only objectors—to
the worship of the Emperors was, in the eyes of the Romans, one of the
most sinister signs that their religion was dangerous. The purpose of
this worship was to symbolize the unity and solidarity of an Empire
which embraced so many peoples of different beliefs and different gods;
its intention was political, to promote union and loyalty; and it is not
surprising that those who denounced it should
[44] be suspected of a disloyal spirit. But it must be noted that there
was no necessity for any citizen to take part in this worship. No
conformity was required from any inhabitants of the Empire who were not
serving the State as soldiers or civil functionaries. Thus the effect
was to debar Christians from military and official careers.
The Apologies for Christianity which appeared at this period (second
century) might have helped, if the Emperors (to whom some of them were
addressed) had read them, to confirm the view that it was a political
danger. It would have been easy to read between the lines that, if the
Christians ever got the upper hand, they would not spare the cults of
the State. The contemporary work of Tatian (A Discourse to the Greeks)
reveals what the Apologists more or less sought to disguise, invincible
hatred towards the civilization in which they lived. Any reader of the
Christian literature of the time could not fail to see that in a State
where Christians had the power there would be no tolerance of other
religious practices. [4] If the Emperors made an exception to their
tolerant policy in the case of Christianity, their purpose was to
safeguard tolerance.
[45]
In the third century the religion, though still forbidden, was quite
openly tolerated; the Church organized itself without concealment;
ecclesiastical councils assembled without interference. There were some
brief and local attempts at repression, there was only one grave
persecution (begun by Decius, A.D. 250, and continued by Valerian). In
fact, throughout this century, there were not many victims, though
afterwards the Christians invented a whole mythology of martyrdoms. Many
cruelties were imputed to Emperors under whom we know that the Church
enjoyed perfect peace.
A long period of civil confusion, in which the Empire seemed to be
tottering to its fall, had been terminated by the Emperor Diocletian,
who, by his radical administrative reforms, helped to preserve the Roman
power in its integrity for another century. He desired to support his
work of political consolidation by reviving the Roman spirit, and he
attempted to infuse new life into the official religion. To this end he
determined to suppress the growing influence of the Christians, who,
though a minority, were very numerous, and he organized a persecution.
It was long, cruel and bloody; it was the most whole-hearted, general
and systematic effort to crush the forbidden faith. It was a
[46] failure, the Christians were now too numerous to be crushed. After
the abdication of Diocletian, the Emperors who reigned in different
parts of the realm did not agree as to the expediency of his policy, and
the persecution ended by edicts of toleration (A.D. 311 and 313). These
documents have an interest for the history of religious liberty.
The first, issued in the eastern provinces, ran as follows:—
“We were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and
nature the deluded Christians, who had renounced the religion and
ceremonies instituted by their fathers and, presumptuously despising the
practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions
according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various
society from the different provinces of our Empire. The edicts which we
have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many
of the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death and
many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left
destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend
to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them,
therefore, freely to profess their private opinions, and to assemble in
their conventicles
[47] without fear or molestation, provided always that they preserve a
due respect to the established laws and government.” [5]
The second, of which Constantine was the author, known as the Edict of
Milan, was to a similar effect, and based toleration on the Emperor’s
care for the peace and happiness of his subjects and on the hope of
appeasing the Deity whose seat is in heaven.
The relations between the Roman government and the Christians raised the
general question of persecution and freedom of conscience. A State, with
an official religion, but perfectly tolerant of all creeds and cults,
finds that a society had arisen in its midst which is uncompromisingly
hostile to all creeds but its own and which, if it had the power, would
suppress all but its own. The government, in self-defence, decides to
check the dissemination of these subversive ideas and makes the
profession of that creed a crime, not on account of its particular
tenets, but on account of the social consequences of those tenets. The
members of the society cannot without violating their consciences and
incurring damnation abandon their exclusive doctrine. The principle of
freedom of conscience is asserted as superior to all obligations to the
State, and the State, confronted
[48] by this new claim, is unable to admit it. Persecution is the
result.
Even from the standpoint of an orthodox and loyal pagan the persecution
of the Christians is indefensible, because blood was shed uselessly. In
other words, it was a great mistake because it was unsuccessful. For
persecution is a choice between two evils. The alternatives are violence
(which no reasonable defender of persecution would deny to be an evil in
itself) and the spread of dangerous opinions. The first is chosen simply
to avoid the second, on the ground that the second is the greater evil.
But if the persecution is not so devised and carried out as to
accomplish its end, then you have two evils instead of one, and nothing
can justify this. From their point of view, the Emperors had good
reasons for regarding Christianity as dangerous and anti-social, but
they should either have let it alone or taken systematic measures to
destroy it. If at an early stage they had established a drastic and
systematic inquisition, they might possibly have exterminated it. This
at least would have been statesmanlike. But they had no conception of
extreme measures, and they did not understand —they had no experience to
guide them —the sort of problem they had to deal with. They hoped to
succeed by intimidation.
[49] Their attempts at suppression were vacillating, fitful, and
ridiculously ineffectual. The later persecutions (of A.D. 250 and 303)
had no prospect of success. It is particularly to be observed that no
effort was made to suppress Christian literature.
The higher problem whether persecution, even if it attains the desired
end, is justifiable, was not considered. The struggle hinged on
antagonism between the conscience of the individual and the authority
and supposed interests of the State. It was the question which had been
raised by Socrates, raised now on a wider platform in a more pressing
and formidable shape: what is to happen when obedience to the law is
inconsistent with obedience to an invisible master? Is it incumbent on
the State to respect the conscience of the individual at all costs, or
within what limits? The Christians did not attempt a solution, the
general problem did not interest them. They claimed the right of freedom
exclusively for themselves from a non-Christian government; and it is
hardly going too far to suspect that they would have applauded the
government if it had suppressed the Gnostic sects whom they hated and
calumniated. In any case, when a Christian State was established, they
would completely forget the principle which they
[50] had invoked. The martyrs died for conscience, but not for liberty.
To-day the greatest of the Churches demands freedom of conscience in the
modern States which she does not control, but refuses to admit that,
where she had the power, it would be incumbent on her to concede it.
If we review the history of classical antiquity as a whole, we may
almost say that freedom of thought was like the air men breathed. It was
taken for granted and nobody thought about it. If seven or eight
thinkers at Athens were penalized for heterodoxy, in some and perhaps in
most of these cases heterodoxy was only a pretext. They do not
invalidate the general facts that the advance of knowledge was not
impeded by prejudice, or science retarded by the weight of unscientific
authority. The educated Greeks were tolerant because they were friends
of reason and did not set up any authority to overrule reason. Opinions
were not imposed except by argument; you were not expected to receive
some “kingdom of heaven” like a little child, or to prostrate your
intellect before an authority claiming to be infallible.
But this liberty was not the result of a conscious policy or deliberate
conviction, and therefore it was precarious. The problems
[51] of freedom of thought, religious liberty, toleration, had not been
forced upon society and were never seriously considered. When
Christianity confronted the Roman government, no one saw that in the
treatment of a small, obscure, and, to pagan thinkers, uninteresting or
repugnant sect, a principle of the deepest social importance was
involved. A long experience of the theory and practice of persecution
was required to base securely the theory of freedom of thought. The
lurid policy of coercion which the Christian Church adopted, and its
consequences, would at last compel reason to wrestle with the problem
and discover the justification of intellectual liberty. The spirit of
the Greeks and Romans, alive in their works, would, after a long period
of obscuration, again enlighten the world and aid in re-establishing the
reign of reason, which they had carelessly enjoyed without assuring its
foundations.
[1] This has been shown very clearly by Professor Jackson in the article
on “Socrates” in the Encyclopoedia Britannica, last edition.
[2] He stated the theological difficulty as to the origin of evil in
this form: God either wishes to abolish evil and cannot, or can and will
not, or neither can nor will, or both can and will. The first three are
unthinkable, if he is a God worthy of the name; therefore the last
alternative must be true. Why then does evil exist? The inference is
that there is no God, in the sense of a governor of the world.
[3] An admirable appreciation of the poem will be found in R. V.
Tyrrell’s Lectures on Latin Poetry.
[4] For the evidence of the Apologists see A. Bouché-Leclercq, Religious
Intolerance and Politics (French, 1911) —a valuable review of the whole
subject.
[5] This is Gibbon’s translation.