to desire that it should be conducted without any fear of unpleasant consequences. Rarely, indeed, may one find the most genuine champion of free thought entirely consistent. Milton, for example, could hardly be accused of advocating the root and branch destruction of contemporary persecution; for indeed he defended elsewhere the persecution of Catholics. But he certainly did plead, in theory, for the extension of free discussion from the region of politics to that of theology.
To hold that toleration need not be consciously sceptical is not equivalent to admitting that it has ever existed without a sceptical foundation. In an ideal society no opinions will be condemned without an exhaustive discussion of their merits; but as human nature is at present and always seems to have been constituted, men find no time for this; and were one to traverse the country preaching the duty of parricide on evolutionary or other grounds (and it might be preached as plausibly as any other doctrine), one would not meet with retorts either syllogistic or courteous. In fact the law would treat such an apostle as a disturber of the peace. Quite recently a magistrate declared that the sight of a lady publicly smoking a cigarette was calculated to promote a breach of the peace.
A perfect toleration could no doubt exist in a Spencerian millennium; but, as yet, we must reckon with our own kind, and men, as we know them,
