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MODERN TOLERATION

7

will not endure a really free discussion of matters they think all-important.^[1]

So far I have dealt with the purely individual aspect of the problem. But it is further complicated by all those social and political obstacles to the growth of toleration with which the historian is primarily concerned. In the crises of men's lives, theology has its social as well as its individual activities. Hence the sanctions of law and government are clothed with theological vestments-being the outward and visible signs that are needed by most men to symbolize an inward and invisible grace. Man, the inveterate idealist and idolater, cannot dispense with external trappings.

↑ Dr Johnson explained this with his superlative common sense. "No, sir, every man will dispute with great good humour upon & subject in which he is not interested. I will dispute very calmly upon the probability of another man's son being hanged; but if a man zealously enforces the probability that my own son will be hanged, I shall certainly not be in a very good humour with him." Murray: "But, sir, truth will always bear an examination." Johnson: "Yes, sir, but it is painful to be forced to defend it. Consider, sir, how should you like, though conscious of your innocence, to be tried before a jury for a capital crime once a week?" From another point of view he explains psychologically Hobbes' well-known apophthegm as to the bun-ing of books dealing with vested interests: " Nobody attempts to dispute that two and two make four; but with contests concerning moral truth, human passions are generally mixed, and therefore it must ever be liable to assault and misrepresentation." Vol. iv., Dent's edition, London 1897, pp. 12-17. He sums up the question (in a conversation reported by Boswell as taking place four years later), as follows:—" Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test." Vol. v., p. 154. This verdict, with certain reservations and qualifications, really hits the nail on the head.

[1] Dr Johnson explained this with his superlative common sense. "No, sir, every man will dispute with great good humour upon & subject in which he is not interested. I will dispute very calmly upon the probability of another man's son being hanged; but if a man zealously enforces the probability that my own son will be hanged, I shall certainly not be in a very good humour with him." Murray: "But, sir, truth will always bear an examination." Johnson: "Yes, sir, but it is painful to be forced to defend it. Consider, sir, how should you like, though conscious of your innocence, to be tried before a jury for a capital crime once a week?" From another point of view he explains psychologically Hobbes' well-known apophthegm as to the bun-ing of books dealing with vested interests: " Nobody attempts to dispute that two and two make four; but with contests concerning moral truth, human passions are generally mixed, and therefore it must ever be liable to assault and misrepresentation." Vol. iv., Dent's edition, London 1897, pp. 12-17. He sums up the question (in a conversation reported by Boswell as taking place four years later), as follows:—" Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test." Vol. v., p. 154. This verdict, with certain reservations and qualifications, really hits the nail on the head.

[1]