ipso facto authority from God. Consequently the nation has full power to nominate itself as the sovereign chosen, and it will then reign (through its properly chosen delegates) as fully and perfectly by divine right' as ever did Cæsar or Bourbon. Thus the teaching of revelation harmonises with the most advanced thought in politics, as fully as it does in physical science.

Next as to the State's duty to itself: it was before said,10 the State may justly seek its own preservation, and (for the sake of moral good to be obtained by such preservation, though not for any merely material good) even,' with extreme reluctance and as the last resort, justly exercise pressure on consciences.' It will be objected to this remark that by such restrictions and limitations the door is opened to any amount of intolerance and persecution, made yet more odious by hypocrisy; and the force of the objection must be regretfully admitted. For, as has been said, it seems absolutely impossible to draw hard and fast abstract line which shall at once secure all rights and protect all consciences. Still, practically, if the principles here advocated were honestly and sincerely acted on, individuals would have little to complain of. Freedom, and above all freedom for conscience, would then be held aloft as the great ideal, and pressure on conscience would be most scrupulously minimised and only employed to stave off direct and evident extreme moral evil, and no one could venture to deny that to that extent it must be employed.

any

As to lesser goods, as it is with the individual, so it is with the State or organised community. It may most fitly pursue all such lower goods as ends according to their several degrees and claims, seeking to develope its own life, health, strength, and beauty-its æsthetic cultivation-in due subordination to moral good, the supreme end both of the State and of the individual.

6

In an ideally perfect State' all social activities should be duly developed in their relative degree-agriculture, manufactures, commerce, education, art, science, and religion. Yet in the concrete we can never hope to find such a perfect balance, but rather atrophy in one direction and hypertrophy in another. Happy must be the state in which the atrophy is not in the region of morals. A due balance is, in fact, practically all but unattainable on account of the limited nature of human intelligence. However good the will and intention, and however we may be bent on developing, in due subordination and proportion, our physical, intellectual, and moral powers, the accurate carrying out of the process is so impeded as to be rendered all but practically impossible through a deficiency of our organisation which may be compared to that attending our optical instruments. When we wish to examine a transparent microscopic object by a very high power, we find that it is impossible for us to do so directly at all. We may see distinctly its superficial stratum, but what is beneath is

10 Loc. cit. p. 505.

invisible without a fresh adjustment, and if, in order to observe structures a minute degree deeper, we slightly alter the focus, we cease any longer to see the superficial stratum. We cannot see the two together; to see one clearly, we must put the other out of focus. In the same way it is practically impossible for all the goods, physical, intellectual, æsthetic, and moral, to be attended to and cultivated in the exact proportion they merit even by the individual man, and a fortiori by the State. We cannot attend adequately to either the lowest or the highest good without one becoming, as it were, out of focus and so being inadequately appreciated. Thus it follows, with individuals and with communities, that in most cases the really honest and intelligent pursuit of a higher or of the highest good, though in the abstract it is no bar to the attainment of all lower goods, yet practically issues in a more or less disappointing result even to the sympathetic observer.

In fact there is absolute good in everything save in the perverse exercise of will. Even the lowest pleasures and the acts which minister to them are always 'good' in themselves in so far as they are no bar to the attainment of the higher goods, but yet directly the intellect is much occupied about them they become more or less relatively 'bad' on account of the neglect of higher things which they thus accidentally occasion. This consideration affords another argument in support of asceticism.

Leaving, however, this subject, of which want of space forbids the further pursuit, we may turn to the next consideration, which is that concerning the duties of States to other States. It was before said " that, in spite of the general duty of benevolent action, the destruction of one State by another may be a truly moral action. That this is indeed the case it is not difficult to demonstrate by patent examples, and it will probably suffice to quote the instances of Mexico and Tahiti as they were when discovered by Europeans.

The transformation of such social conditions was manifestly called for, though the modes adopted may have been objectionable in the extreme. It is plain then that such destruction may be not only permissible or even laudable, but that it may be an obligation binding under the law of duty.

Still a due regard for the rights of our fellow-men shows that conquest and destruction of this kind can only be good when those who attack have really taken due pains to inform themselves thoroughly as to the facts, have weighed the question maturely, and have become thoroughly convinced that duty, and not a predominant lower motive, calls upon them for such aggressive action.

And here one more protest may be entered against the reckless destruction of the lower races of mankind. The existence of every moral being, however low in the scale of morality, constitutes an end

11 Loc. cit. p. 505.

in itself. The same cannot of course be said of the conditions of their aggregation, or their 'states,' which, as we have just seen, may call for transformation or destruction. But the men themselves have not only as good a right to existence as we have, but there may be latent within them special qualities the development of which in beneficially transformed communities might at some distant day enrich the life of humanity as a whole. It is, for example, at least a question whether, if the Indians of Paraguay had been allowed to continue their peaceful social evolution under their beloved guides, the world. would not have been a gainer. How many potentialities of good may not the past reckless destruction of savage races have annihilated! Who knows but the cruelty of Spaniards in the West Indies may not have deprived the world of much good at the hands of developed Caribs ?

6

The next matter formerly considered 12 was the duties of the State. to God, and it was said that such duties should be made the supreme concern in social regulations, which should be harmoniously ordered in accordance with them.' In a community of men who think alike about God and their religious duties, Church and State will be in a natural and most intimate union. In a community the individuals of which think differently about God and their religious duties, those duties are no less to be made their supreme concern, but, on that very account, their social regulations can be only so far regulated by them as may be possible without undue pressure upon the consciences of any. For, duty to God being the supreme duty, it would evidently be the greatest calamity in the eyes of conscientious and religious men that any individuals should be tempted to violate their consciences by bribes or threats, and on the principle qui facit per alium facit per se, each man would shrink from incurring the guilt of aiding or even consenting to such proceedings. Respect for conscience will be the leading motive and idea. However it may here and there have been for a time obscured, it will be recognised as a moral axiom that all the citizens of a State save one are deeply culpable if they seek to force or bribe that one to do an act against his conscience, such as might be to curse the Koran, salute the Host, or tread upon the Cross.

Thus religious freedom will be maintained, not from religious indifference, but from the maximum of regard for religion. It will be maintained first and mainly from considerations of right and justice, and but secondarily from considerations of prudence and expediency. The prudential reasons which render religious freedom desirable can here only be glanced at. They may perhaps be summarised thus: (1) Religious persecution is injurious in the long run to the interests of truth, by abolishing opposition, and therewith a most important stimulus to truth's energetic support and extension.

12 Loc. cit. p. 506.

(2) It tends to lessen the diffusion of a keen, intelligent, and reasoned apprehension of the doctrines and teachings which it is intended to protect. (3) It promotes hypocrisy and cowardice. (4) Religious freedom promotes the more and more reflex, self-conscious, and deliberate adherence to religion and morality, and consequently to the highest forms of the practice of both, and therefore to the highest good of which man is capable. Even these practical motives of expediency repose indirectly on moral perceptions and aspirations, and thus the cry for freedom' appeals both to the highest and most disinterested, as well as to the lower and more selfish, feelings of our nature.

An argumentum ad hominem, grounded on the alleged intolerance of the Church, or at least of its ministers, may perhaps be opposed to the views here put forward. But however much and however sadly persons in authority may have in fact oppressed individual consciences, however fiery or bloody may have been many persecutions which all right-minded men will ever deplore and execrate, the Christian Church none the less always officially defended the rights of conscience. However grossly such rights may have been trampled on in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, or England, the Church's executive never claimed jurisdiction over any but her own spiritual children-i.e. the baptised-and the Jews and others who were burned were burned in the mistaken conviction that they were necessarily acting in bad faith and against their consciences. It was due to mistakes as to matters of fact, not to a false principle as to conscience. Such mistakes were indeed lamentable, but need not surely surprise us when we recollect how in those days 'faith' was all but universal in Christendom-how all authorities, secular as well as religious, were its supporters, and had been so for centuries. It surely must have been difficult, in such circumstances, for churchmen who were themselves clearly persuaded of the certainty of their system to believe that individual dissenters were acting conscientiously, and this the more from the glaring moral obliquities which so often went with mediæval heresies. Those conscientious dissenters whose sincerity could be believed, had their rights of conscience respected by ecclesiastical authority, however brutal was their treatment by barbarous populations and by rapacious despots. The Jews were ever protected at Rome, meeting there with a shelter long denied them in almost the whole of Christendom besides.

To objections which may be raised by some Churchmen to principles advocated here and in the former paper 13 as tending to base religious authority on popular election, it may be replied that all theologians will admit that the highest certainty for the individual must be subjective certainty, and that in seeking to act rightly each man 13 See loc. cit. p. 507, where Church' and 'State' were treated as the outcome of the bipolarities of individuals.

must of necessity ultimately repose upon his own subjective moral judgment. When even he accepts the Church's teaching as infallible, and so submits his own persuasions to its behests, he can only do so because he thinks it probable or certain that it is right, and because he therefore judges that it is his duty so to submit, and elects its ministers as his guides.

No church can exist on earth save through the subjective convictions of individuals that it is the true religion, and all who believe in its truth virtually elect it, and it can exist only through such election. Any man who is converted to the Church, or who, having been educated a churchman, deliberately adheres to his religion as an adult, virtually elects the whole hierarchy of spiritual governors who govern the Church of his day, and in his region. Of course the Church, in the eyes of her children, extends beyond the limits of this world, and has a Divine invisible Head; but such considerations have no place in an argument which appeals to reason only, and in no way to revelation. In such a line of argument the Church must necessarily be treated but as an expression for the mass of individuals who agree in certain religious views and desires, and who have given themselves certain voluntary rules resulting in a definite organisation and spiritual government. To speak of the 'rights of the Church' means necessarily the rights of the individuals who compose it,' and an attack on the spiritual executive is an attack on the individuals who have actually or virtually chosen that executive as their own.

How manifest a violation of just liberty is the intrusion of the civil governor into the spiritual domain is made clear by the concrete example we have in Germany now. The May Falk laws of Prussia, in fact, deny to individuals the right to group and associate themselves in voluntary associations for spiritual ends, to select from their fellows those to whom they will confide the education of their children, or to obey the dictates of their conscience by acts which are innocent of all encroachment on the similar rights of others. For to deny the right of an episcopally nominated priest to officiate in a parish, the parishioners of which desire him, is to infringe not so much his rights as the rights of election of those who, by calling themselves Catholics, show that they have delegated that power to their bishop, and have virtually elected as their minister the man appointed by such bishop. To exile or imprison such bishop is to outrage the rights of a number yet greater-namely, the rights of all those who, by calling themselves Catholics, show that they, in fact, voluntarily elect as the man they will have as their episcopal superintendent the one indicated to them by the supreme Pontiff.14

This antiquated tyranny-antiquated from the advanced standpoint of the English- and Dutch-speaking people-is, thank God,

'See Contemporary Evolution (H. S. King & Co., 1876), p. 85.