Preface

The question of intolerance occupies the attention of Europe and the New World; and those who are accused of intolerance to-day retort upon their accusers with complaints of their intolerance in the past.

What is meant by tolerance and intolerance? How are we to judge of one or the other? On what grounds are we to approve or to condemn either? Is Catholicism intolerant? Is free thought tolerant?

These are important and practical questions, complex and much debated, and interesting to all. We propose in this work to discuss these questions candidly and dispassionately; not superficially, but comparing doctrines with facts, and principles with their applications.

In the fulfilment of this task we shall have to review the past, though we do not profess to write history. Our arguments are founded on facts; but our object is neither the narration of facts nor the description of manners and customs. Our study is not so much historical as moral and social.

We desire to be perfectly just; if our language appears sometimes to be severe, it will never be rancorous or vindictive. We write for all, whether Catholic or non-Catholic, who wish to form an impartial judgment of the present conjunction or of the institutions of the past; in short, to all who desire to be just and well-informed.

The author has had occasion to speak strongly on the subject of the intolerance shown in England at the time of the Protestant Reformation; but in offering to the public an English translation of his work, he feels it to be his duty as well as his pleasure to acknowledge the courteous and respectful consideration shown to Catholicism in England at the present day.

In this Western world, which owes to Christ its civilization, its life, and all its sentiments of charity and generosity, in which His personal character is admired even by those who refuse to acknowledge His divinity, no book has ever been written on tolerance without appealing to the example and the lessons of Jesus of Nazareth.¹

¹ See even the conferences of Jules Simon on liberty of conscience, Fourth Lesson.

He is the Peacemaker and the Comforter of all, as He came to be the Redeemer of all; and He has received the loving and fervent homage of Christian piety, and the colder but still sincere homage of respectful indifference. But, alas ! He has received also the homage of bigoted schismatics, who have sought in the words and actions of Christ to find the condemnation of His Church ; who have laboured to prove that the Church is in opposition to Him who promised to be with her for ever.

As we touch upon the delicate question of tolerance, how can we refrain from invoking the name of Him whom we profess to serve and imitate ? If we do not confess Him before men, we must expect that He will deny us in heaven.

Certainly in the life of Christ we cannot hope to find minute directions for our conduct in circumstances such as did not exist during His earthly life ; and hence the fallacy of the argument used against the Church.

We say, without fear of contradiction, that we Catholics derive our ideas of tolerance in its best and truest meaning from the Heart of Him who united the most loving tenderness with the most transcendent Majesty ; that Heart in which the fullness of human nature is joined to the fullness of the divinity ; in which God and man are loved as they are loved nowhere else ; in the Heart of God made man.

But we must study the character of Christ until we get a complete idea of His perfections ; and we cannot do this by limiting our attention to one or two qualities detached from the rest.

Let us pause for a moment to recall the impressions we derive even from a superficial reading of the Gospel narrative.

The Master, who is truth and holiness itself, has affection and forgiveness for repentant sinners, tears of fatherly affection for the most hardened, miracles for the Gentiles, excuses for Pilate and His own executioners, praise for strangers and schismatics ; while for an example of benevolent charity He points to a Samaritan.

The Gospel must be preached without doing violence to any ; it is by instruction, by persuasion,¹ by virtue,¹ and by meekness,² that a way is to be opened for the glad tidings which can never be opened by the sword, the way to the intellects and hearts of men. Resistance may be a cause of sorrow, but it can never justify angry or revengeful feelings. Beware of calling down the fire of heaven on the city that will not receive you : “ You know not of what spirit you are.”³

¹ [Teach all nations]—Teach ye all nations (St. Matt, xxviii. 19).

¹ Ut videant opera vestra bona, et glorificent Patrem vestrum qui in cœlis est—That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (St. Matt. v. 16).

² Ecce mitto vos sicut agnos inter lupos—Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves (St. Luke x. 3).

³ St. Luke ix. 55.

And yet Christ does not doubt. “ Woman,” He said, in that gentle voice that won all hearts, “woman, you adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know ; for salvation is of the Jews.”⁴

⁴ St. John iv. 22.

But His voice was terrible as thunder when He rebuked the narrow and arrogant hypocrisy of the Pharisees,⁵ and held out threats of divine vengeance over those who obstinately shut their ears to the faith. “ He that believeth not shall be condemned. Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words : going forth out of that house or city shake off the dust from your feet. Amen I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that city.”⁶

⁵ St. Matt. xviii. 17.

⁶ St. Mark xvi. 16 ; St. Matt. x. 14, 15.

Thus, then, generosity without weakness, con-stant restraint of the passions, patient but not doubtful preaching, the awakening of responsibility and appeal to good-will, and, above all, love and the desire to save souls¹—these are the characteristics and summary of the tolerance of Christ.

¹ The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save (St. Luke ix. 56 ; St. John xii. 47).

They teach us our duty, too. The life of Christ, which reveals the true principles of life, will serve as our guide and light in our arguments. Our conclusions would be false, if they were contrary to the teaching and example of Christ.

Summary : The object of tolerance ; an evil.—Subjects of tolerance ; private individuals and public authorities.— General definition.—Three kinds of tolerance, according to the subjects.—Religious tolerance and religious liberty.—Tolerance of the true religion.

The first thing necessary is to endeavour to form such a general idea of the meaning of the word “ tolerance ” as will enable us, in spite of its imperfections, to measure the extent and understand the complexity of our subject.

Strictly speaking, tolerance has always some evil for its object, such as a physical defect, an intellectual error, or a moral deformity. As Trautmans- dorff remarks, we approve only that which is good ; we tolerate what is evil.¹ Balmes goes farther, and says : “It is a monstrous absurdity to speak of tolerating goodness or virtue;’’² and long before Balmes, St. Augustine had made this just observation : “ There is no such thing as tolerance except in connection with evils.”³ We tolerate an affront or an injury, but not a favour ; and even in speaking of physical sensations, it is not pleasure, but pain, that we describe as tolerable or intolerable. It is true that opinions furnish matter for tolerance, but what sort of opinions ? Evidently those which are opposed to our own, and which, therefore, we consider erroneous. “ The opinion of another person is, in our judgment, an error.”¹

¹ De tolerantia ecclesiastica et civili, initio.

² Le protestantisme comparé avec le Catholicisme, c. 36.

³ “ [What is called tolerance exists only with respect to evils] ” Enarrat. in Ps. xxxii., (M.P.L., t. 36, col. 271).

¹ Balmes, op. cit., chap. xxxiv.

In matters of public interest, tolerance is exercised in respect of vices and abuses against which the authorities consider it impossible or unadvisable to take legal proceedings ; as, for instance, in the case of houses used for immoral traffic not punished by the law. St. Thomas also expressly recognizes the necessity imposed upon human legislators of allowing many things to be done which are repugnant to natural law, and restricting their repressive action to those graver excesses from which it is possible for the majority of the multitude to abstain.²

² Summa Theologica, 1, 2, Q. 96, Art. 2.

Tolerance, then, denotes an attitude towards evil, and the very word describes that attitude as characterized by caution and deliberation. We may say, then, that tolerance consists in a certain patience of evil, a forbearance which restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment.

Experience tells us that tolerance may be shown by individuals or by public authority : we may be tolerant or intolerant in our private relations, or in the exercise of official functions.

We distinguish between two kinds of authority, as we distinguish between two kinds of society : religious society and civil or political society. Tolerance, then, resides in the individual, the Church, or the State. In the first it is private tolerance, in the second ecclesiastical tolerance, in the third civil tolerance. There are essential distinctions between the three kinds of tolerance, and they must be looked at from different points of view.

Let us first consider private tolerance. What is the position of a private individual towards his fellow-men according to both human and divine law ? Except the right to resist violence, and to defend himself against injustice, he has no control over the acts of another, and no right to constitute himself a judge in respect of such acts ; he is bound to respect the liberty of his fellow-man as a right, even if that liberty be improperly granted. He may endeavour to dissuade another from a particular line of conduct, or blame him if he persists in it; but he has no power to prevent or to punish. If he is compelled to listen to language of which he may disapprove, or to be a passive witness of acts which he may deplore, he must exercise all his patience, so as to avoid any untimely exhibition of anger or disgust, and refrain from expressing his opinions in a manner which may offend against charity. This prudent self-control, much more than the occasion which has called for its exercise, draws attention to the tolerance of the individual, and makes him respected accordingly. Balmes says very justly: “ A man is called tolerant when he is habitually in a state of mind which allows him to endure the existence of opinions contrary to his own without any feeling of vexation or irritation;”¹ and we may accept the definition given in a lexicon of great repute :¹ “ Tolerance is a willingness to permit in others a way of living, thinking, and acting, different from our own.”

¹ Op. cit., chap. xxxiv.

¹ Dictionnaire Universel of Hatzfeld, Darmesteter, and Thomas.

The consideration of tolerance, which is subjective in the private individual, becomes objective in public authorities. Men who are invested with authority are equally bound by the obligation of self-restraint, personal moderation, and respect for others—in short, of all the duties incumbent on private individuals ; but they have the power by their official acts to extend or restrict the liberty of others, and their liberality and strictness are appreciated according to the principles by which they are dictated, and the good order they establish.

The mission, the competence, and the purpose of the civil authority are one thing ; the mission, the competence, and the purpose of the religious authority, another. Religious society derives its reason for existence from the teaching and diffusion of speculative and practical truths, which have only an indirect interest for civil society, constituted for the purpose of insuring temporal prosperity. These differences have an influence on the purpose, the extent, and even the form of tolerance ; and it may be added that the State, as such, is tolerant, or intolerant, only within its own territory, while ecclesiastical authority shows tolerance, or intolerance, in the manner in which it treats other religions, and persons who are not its own subjects.

Finally, private tolerance, considered in the person who practises it, is patience ; civil tolerance, con-sidered in those who are tolerated, is an impunity;¹ ecclesiastical tolerance is also an impunity, but sometimes also an independence.²

¹ “ Civil tolerance, that is to say, the impunity granted by the magistrate to all sects ” (Bossuet, Sixth Warning to Protestants, Part iii., n. 11).

² The independence of those who do not belong to the Church. The simple fact of remaining separated from, and independent of, a universal Church implies an opposition which requires the exercise of tolerance. It is not the same with a stranger’s independence of a political society, for as no State has universal jurisdiction, such independence has nothing offensive in it which can be the object of tolerance. 3 La Libertà Religiosa, p. 10.

What is good is free ; what is evil is tolerated. Edicts of tolerance, as distinct from laws of liberty, tacitly condemn and disapprove the things which they permit, and the idea of disapproval implies that of a temporary and revocable concession.

Tolerance, then, will not content those who assert the right of all opinions and all creeds to be openly preached. Ruffini, imbued with modern political ideas, wrote in this sense : “ Tolerance, which is an admirable private virtue, is a word which has a hateful sound when used of the relations of public life.”3 Mirabeau was logical when he said in the National Assembly : “ The most unfettered liberty of religion is to my mind so sacred a right, that the word tolerance, when used to express it, appears to me to a certain extent tyrannical, because it implies that the authority which tolerates has the right to refuse to do so.”⁴ And when Anglicanism was in its most persecuting mood, some fifty years after the passing of the famous Test Act (1672), Lord Stanhope, the Whig Minister of George I., an advocate of the complete emancipation of all dissenters, Catholics included, foretold three successive stages in the legislation on the subject of public worship : “ There was a time,” he told the House of Lords, " when the dissenters humbly asked for toleration as a favour ; to-day they claim it as a right; and the time will come when they will reject it as an insult.”¹ He described thus the three stages through which religious liberty was to pass : First appeared edicts of toleration, of which the Christian religion itself has received, and still receives, the advantage in pagan countries ; these were issued as a favour revocable at the will of the Sovereign or the Government. Then, by the side of an official and privileged Church, certain other religious bodies obtained a guarantee for the free practice of their religion, as by the Treaty of Augsburg (1555) and the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). Finally, all religions are placed on the same footing in the eye of the law, whether as regards one another, or as regards irreligion. Such is the tendency of the modern State. Though not yet universal, the principle of the equality of religions in the eye of the law, or religious indifference, is firmly established in the United States of America, and is gaining popularity in European countries

⁴ August 22, 1789, Discours et Opinions de Mirabeau, Barthe’s edition, vol. i., p. 328.

¹ The quotation is from Ruffini, p. 10 ; the original has not been traced.

When applied to the true religion, especially in countries in which it is professed by the majority of the inhabitants, the word tolerance is simply an insult. Truth and justice demand more than toler-ance ; they claim the right to be free and protected.¹ Politicians sometimes, under the influence of modern ideas, speak of showing great tolerance to Catholics, or persons who are attached to some form of religious belief. How is such language to be explained ? In countries where unbelievers are in the majority in Parliament, it is the expression of a fact and an intention : the fact that the State has the power to oppress Christians, and the intention not to abuse that power. But generally these words contain either a claim set up by the Government, or a philosophical idea—the claim, very strongly asserted nowadays by those in power, of a supremacy which gives them the right to legislate freely on the fate of the Church or Churches ; the philosophic idea which makes irreligion, or even atheism, the goal of contemporary speculation. Under this system the profession of a positive religion is looked upon as a weakness, an old-fashioned notion, which may be suffered to exist for a while, but is bound sooner or later to disappear. The literature of the day repeats this with infinite variety of expression.

¹ Béranger’s lines may be taken as a jest : “ On peut aller, même à la messe,

This first general view of the subject shows us that the problem of tolerance in public life is much more complex than in individuals, and that the two kinds of tolerance are quite distinct. For this reason we begin with a few simple observations on tolerance in individuals before proceeding to explain the systems and discuss the principles of tolerance in public life.

Ainsi le veut la liberté.”