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could never have been introduced. Had not free en- 

 quiry been indulged at the aera of the reformation, the 

 corruptions of Christianity could not have been purg- 

 ed away. If it be restrained now, the present cor- 

 ruptions will be protected and new ones encouraged. 

 Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine 

 and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our 

 souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once 

 forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article 

 of food. Government is just as infallible too when it 

 fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the In- 

 quisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere : the 

 government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, 

 and Gahleo was obliged to abjure his error. This er- 

 ror however at length prevailed, the earth became a 

 globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round 

 its axis by a vortex. The government in which he 

 lived was wise enough to see that this was no ques- 

 tion of civil jurisdiction, or we should all have been 

 involved by authority in vortices. In fact, the vorti- 

 ces have been exploded, and the Newtonian principle 

 of gravitation is now more firndy established, on the 

 basis of reason, than it would be were the govern- 

 ment to step in, and to make it an article of necessary 

 faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, 

 and error has fled before them. It is error alone 

 which needs the suj)port of government. Truth can 

 stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion : whom 

 will you make your inquisitors? Fallible nien ; men 

 governed by bad passions, by private as well as public 

 reasons. And why subject it to coercion ? To produce 

 uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable ? 

 No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed 

 of Procrustes, then, and as there is danger that the 

 large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, 

 by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Dif- 

 ference of opiniojK is advantageous in religion. The 

 several sects perform the oflice of a censor morum over 

 each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of in- 

 nocent men, women, and children, since the introduc- 



