THE RADIANCIES OF TOLERATION
I want to radiate my conception of what, in religion, is commonly termed
"toleration." To me the term is a misnomer. Its use is based upon a
gross and small-minded misunderstanding of the right, inherent to each
human being, to live according to the dictates of his own conscience in
all things that do not militate against what the majority conceive to be
the public good.
What is religion? My own definition is that _it is the highest within
myself reaching out to the highest I can see or conceive outside of
myself_. In this "reaching out," this "following after," or
"apprehending," as St. Paul calls it, I alone must determine that which
I will seek for. Others may aid me in my search, others may point out to
me and for me that which they have reached, or are striving to reach,
and in that way they may aid and help me. But for another to say,
"_This_ is that alone for which you should strive," or "That is the
supreme end of all effort," and to refuse me any right of appeal to my
own judgment is to stultify my own God-given powers and to make a mere
puppet of me. Hence I stand, or fall, on the platform of individualism
in religion. I affirm that it is a purely personal matter, that there
can be no coercion, no forcing of any individual to adopt a _general_
plan which another individual asserts that all must follow to their
eternal well-being, or disregard to their own damnation.
The attitude I would radiate is this. For myself I know, or am learning,
what I must believe, what I must strive for, what I must seek to become.
So long as this belief, this striving, this aim, does not interfere with
the exercise of the belief, the striving, the aim of others, and is not
subversive of the public good, I demand my inherent right of individual
belief, individual striving, individual aim. When one who differs from
me offers me his "charity," or his "toleration," I regard his offer as
an insolence and small-minded impertinence. I want no charity, I refuse
all toleration, for I own as many inherent rights as the one who thus
presumes to offer me his charity and his tolerance. He needs my charity
and tolerance to cover his individualism as much as I need his. I have
as much right to offer mine to him as he to offer his to me. Hence,
boldly, fearlessly, restful in my God-given right, I believe, I strive,
I aim to reach God as best I may. But in the very self-assertiveness of
this right it is an essential condition of my perfect freedom that I
absolutely accord it to all others, no matter how diverse from mine
their beliefs, their strivings, their aims. There must be no mental
reservations, no subterfuges, no playing with one's own intellect or
conscience. The freedom to others must be as large and complete as the
freedom I demand for myself, for, wherein I limit, even in my most
secret mind and heart, the freedom of my neighbor, I am giving to him
the right to limit me. "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured
to you again."
I resent any interference with my right to believe as I choose. My
friends, G---- and S----, are Catholics. In the exercise of their
God-given right they accept a different faith from mine. They are
equally earnest, equally intelligent, equally sincere in their
profession of faith as am I. Just as I resent any interference with my
own right to believe as I choose, so do I resent, with equal, and even
stronger fervor, any interference with G----'s and S----'s rights to
believe as they choose.
I say with "even stronger fervor." You may ask, "Why with stronger
fervor?" The reason is this. I find, within my own soul, a greater
readiness to demand freedom for myself than I do to accord it to those
who differ from me. Hence honor demands that I watch with even closer
scrutiny the rights of my neighbors than I guard against encroachments
upon my own. Selfishness will care for my own. Indifference to my
neighbors _may_ lead me to be careless of theirs.
Other neighbors, P---- and X----, are Christian Scientists; still
others, A---- and J----, are Unitarians; others, D---- and C----, are
Universalists; and I have friends, dear to my heart, whom I love with
true, pure fervor and who, I am assured, love me with an equal
sincerity, who are Jews, Hopis, Wallapais, Havasupais, Apaches, Greeks,
Mohammedans, Hindoos, Theosophists, Spiritualists, Atheists, Shakers,
Agnostics, Communists, and Mormons. Take these beliefs and non-beliefs
with the one I profess and the others I have referred to, and there is
as perfect a hodge-podge of diversities and differences as one can
possibly imagine. Do I attempt to reconcile them? No! Do I agree with
them all? No! Can I harmonize them all? No! It is neither my business to
reconcile them, agree with them, nor harmonize them. I am not sent to
earth to make all men's minds and souls alike, any more than Burbank is
sent to make all flowers and plants, shrubs and trees alike. My business
is to develop and live my own life, in harmony with my own beliefs,
aims, and strivings, to the utmost, and seek the utmost good for my
fellow. And in no way can I better do that than by aiding him to live
his highest beliefs to the utmost, helping him in his strivings, make
clearer to him the beauty of his own aims. Hence, even as I want all
good men and true to bid me a hearty, an earnest, a sincere "God-speed!"
in my own strivings, so do I, with all my heart, bid my many and
diverse-believing, diverse-aiming friends God-speed in their endeavors.
If, for the public good, I should ever be called upon to pass judgment
upon any of the actions that are the result of the beliefs of my
neighbors and friends, and I, with my fellow jurors, deemed these
actions subversive of the public good, I could unite with my fellows in
suppressing these actions. But this would be done with a perfectly open
heart, without malice, without censure even, without any presumption,
without any interference with the _principle_ I have sought clearly to
state and exemplify. It would be done as the result of our united
judgment upon a matter of public policy--not a fixed, established
assurance of right or wrong, but as a matter wherein, for the benefit of
others, we regarded the restriction of an inherent and God-given freedom
a justifiable act.
Herein, to my mind, lies the power of the argument of the political
prohibitionists. They seek to prohibit men from the exercise of their
undoubted right to manufacture and sell alcoholic stimulants--their
undoubted right provided it could be done without injury to the bodies
and souls of their fellow-beings. No one can claim an inherent right to
injure his neighbor willfully and deliberately. No one can claim a
God-given right to transgress God's own laws. Those who believe in God
believe He has ordained laws for the government of all that He has
created. The interpretation of the "moral law" as handed down to us in
the Scriptures is, in the main, similar in all creeds in Christendom,
and practically the same among all who, without so-called creeds,
believe in the brotherhood of man.
Upon those points wherein men have conscientiously differed there have
been instances where the ruling majority has restricted or taken away
the rights of the minority to put their beliefs into practice, because
the consensus of opinion has decided such acts to be contrary to public
policy or public good, but it does not necessarily follow that the
interference was based upon incontrovertible ideas of right or wrong.
My contention is that no man or body of men has the inherent right to
interfere with the beliefs and acts of their fellow-beings who are
sincerely and conscientiously seeking to love God with all the heart and
their neighbors as themselves, but in all countries where the majority
is supposed to rule it is expedient to submit to prevailing customs and
laws unless conscience imperatively demands otherwise. In any case,
however, it does not necessarily follow that the majority is always in
the right and the minority in the wrong, especially in religious
matters.