2 28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Let it be the last word of ours ! It is the most honest course ; it 

 may, perhaps, also be the most efficacious and certain for the progress 

 of civilization. 



Humanity, indeed, advances on the way of progress by prodigious- 

 ly unequal steps. The rude and violent Esau is out of patience with 

 the slow pace of Jacob's flock. Let us give time to all. We may 

 not, indeed, permit simplicity and ignorance to hinder the free move- 

 ments of the intellect, but let us not either interfere with the slow 

 evolution of less active intelligences. The liberty of absurdity in 

 these is the condition of the liberty of reason in those. Services ren- 

 dered to the human mind by violence are not services after all. That 

 such as lay no stress on truth should exercise constraint in order to 

 obtain outward submission, what can be more natural ? But we, who 

 believe that truth is something real, and deserving of supreme re- 

 spect, how can we dream of obtaining by force an adherence which is 

 valueless except as the fruit of free conviction? We no longer admit 

 sacramental formulas operating by their own virtue independently of 

 the mind of him to whom they are applied. In our eyes, a belief has 

 no worth if it be not gained by the reflection of the individual if he 

 have not understood and assimilated it. A mental conviction brought 

 about by superior order is as absolute nonsense as loA^e obtained by 

 force or sympathy by command. Let us promise to ourselves not only 

 to defend our own liberty against all who seek to attack it, but, if 

 need be, to defend the liberty of those who have not always respected 

 ours, and who, it is probable, if they were the masters, would not re- 

 spect it. 



It is Holland that had the glory, more than two hundred years 

 ago, to demonstrate the possibility of these theories by realizing 

 them. 



" Must we prove," said Spinoza, "that this freedom of thought gives rise to 

 no serious inconvenience, and that it is competent to keep men, openly diverse 

 in their opinions, reciprocally respectful of each other's rights? Examples 

 abound, nor need we go far to seek them. Let us instance the town of Amster- 

 dam, whose considei-able growth an object of admiration to other nations is 

 simply the fruit of this freedom. In the midst of this flourishing repubhc, this 

 eminent city, men of all nations and all sects live together in most perfect con- 

 cord; . . . and there is no sect, however odious, whose adepts, provided they 

 do not oflFend against the rights of any, may not meet with public aid and pro- 

 tection before the magistrates." 



"&' 



Descartes was of the same opinion when he came to ask from this 

 country the calm essential to his thinking. Later thanks to that 

 noble privilege of a free land so gloriously maintained by your fathers 

 against all opponents ! your Holland became the asylum where the hu- 

 man intellect, sheltered from the tyrannies that overspread Europe, 

 found air to breathe, a public to comprehend it, organs to multiply its 

 voice, then gagged elsewhere. 



