The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [227]
11. So that they cannot be maintained without great peril to the state.
12. Moreover, such laws are almost always useless, for those who hold that the opinions proscribed are sound, cannot possibly obey the law;
13. Whereas those who already reject them as false, accept the law as a kind of privilege,
14. And make such boast of it that authority is powerless to repeal it, even if such a course be subsequently desired.
15. And, lastly, how many divisions have arisen from the attempt of authorities to decide by law the intricacies of opinion!
16. If people were not allured by the hope of getting the law and the authorities on their side,
17. Of triumphing over their adversaries in the sight of an applauding multitude,
18. And of acquiring honourable distinctions, they would not strive so maliciously, nor would such fury sway their minds.
19. This is taught not only by reason but by daily examples,
20. For laws of this kind prescribing what all the people shall think and forbidding anyone to speak or write to the contrary, have often been passed,
21. As concessions to the anger of those who cannot tolerate people of enlightenment and freedom,
22. And who, by such harsh and crooked enactments, can easily turn the loyalty of the masses into fury and direct it against whom they will.
23. How much better would it be to restrain popular anger, instead of passing inutile laws which can only be broken by those who love virtue and the liberal arts,
24. Thus paring down the state till it is too small to harbour people of talent.
25. What greater misfortune for a state than that honourable people should be sent into exile like criminals because they hold diverse opinions which they cannot disguise?
26. What can be more hurtful than that people who have committed no crime or wickedness should, because they are enlightened, be treated as enemies and put to death,
27. And that the scaffold, the terror of evildoers, should become the arena where the highest examples of tolerance and virtue are displayed to the people with all the marks of ignominy that authority can devise?
28. He that knows himself to be upright does not fear the death of a criminal, and shrinks from no punishment;
29. His mind is not wrung with remorse for any disgraceful deed:
30. He holds that death in a good cause is no punishment, but an honour, and that death for freedom is glory.
31. What purpose then is served by the death of such people, what example is proclaimed?
32. The cause for which they die is unknown to the idle and the foolish, hateful to the turbulent, loved by the upright.
33. The only lesson we can draw from such scenes is to flatter the persecutor, or else to imitate the victim.
Chapter 5
1. If formal assent is not to be esteemed above conviction, and if governments are to retain authority and not be compelled to yield to agitators,
2. It is imperative that freedom of judgement should be granted, so that people may live together in harmony,
3. However diverse, or even openly contradictory their opinions may be.
4. We cannot doubt that such is the best system of government and open to the fewest objections,
5. Since it is the one most in harmony with human nature.
6. In a democracy everyone submits to the control of authority over his actions, but not over his judgement and reason;
7. That is, seeing that all cannot think alike, the voice of the majority has the force of law, subject to repeal if circumstances bring about a change of opinion.
8. In proportion as the power of free judgement is withheld we depart from the natural condition of humanity, and the government becomes more tyrannical.
9. Laws seeking to settle controversies of opinion and outlook are more likely to irritate than to reform, and thus can give rise to extreme licence.
10. Further, it was seen that divisions do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness,
11. But rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy.
12. From all these considerations it is clearer than the sun at noonday,