,,tolerance ,,tolerance ,by ,,hendrik ,,willem ,,van ,,loon ,the final end of the ,state consists not in dominating over men1 restraining them by fear1 subjecting them to the will of others4 ,rather it has for its end so to act that its citizens shall in security develop soul and body and make free use of their reason4 ,for the true end of the ,state is ,liberty4 ,,spinoza4 ,farewell1 good ,sirs1 ,i am leaving for the future4 ,i will wait for ,humanity at the crossroads1 three hundred years hence4 ,,luigi ,,lucatelli4 ,illustration ,,new ,,york ,,boni ,,liveright #aibe ,,copyright #aibe ,illustration ,,by ,,boni ,,liveright1 ,,inc4 ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,illustration ,,to ,,the ,,memory ,,of ,,john ,w4 ,t4 ,,nichols ,,contents ,,page ,,prologue #aa ,,chapter ,i4 ,,the ,,tyranny ,,of ,,ignorance #ag ,,ii4 ,,the ,,greeks #bh ,,iii4 ,,the ,,beginning ,,of ,,restraint #fh ,,iv4 ,,the ,,twilight ,,of ,,the ,,gods #hj ,v4 ,,imprisonment #ajd ,,vi4 ,,the ,,pure ,,of ,,life #aad ,,vii4 ,,the ,,inquisition #abf ,,viii4 ,,the ,,curious ,,ones #adf ,,ix4 ,,the ,,war ,,upon ,,the ,,printed ,,word #afj ,x4 ,,concerning ,,the ,,writing ,,of ,,history ,,in ,,general ,,and ,,this ,,book ,,in ,,particular #afh ,,xi4 ,,renaissance #agb ,,xii4 ,,the ,,reformation #aha ,,xiii4 ,,erasmus #aie ,,xiv4 ,,rabelais #bab ,,xv4 ,,new ,,signboards ,,for ,,old #bbc ,,xvi4 ,,the ,,anabaptists #bdf ,,xvii4 ,,the ,,sozzini ,,family #beg ,,xviii4 ,,montaigne #bfi ,,xix4 ,,arminius #bge ,,xx4 ,,bruno #bhf ,,xxi4 ,,spinoza #bib ,,xxii4 ,,the ,,new ,,zion #cjg ,,xxiii4 ,,the ,,sun ,,king #cba ,,xxiv4 ,,frederick ,,the ,,great #cbf ,,xxv4 ,,voltaire #ccj ,,xxvi4 ,,the ,,encyclopedia #ceb ,,xxvii4 ,,the ,,intolerance ,,of ,,revolution #cfa ,,xxviii4 ,,lessing #cgb ,,xxix4 ,,tom ,,paine #chg ,,xxx4 ,,the ,,last ,,hundred ,,years #cic ,,tolerance ,,tolerance ,,prologue ,happily lived ,mankind in the peaceful ,valley of ,ignorance4 ,to the north1 to the south1 to the west and to the east stretched the ridges of the ,hills ,everlasting4 ,a little stream of ,knowledge trickled slowly through a deep worn gully4 ,it came out of the ,mountains of the ,past4 ,it lost itself in the ,marshes of the ,future4 ,it was not much1 as rivers go4 ,but it was enough for the humble needs of the villagers4 ,in the evening1 when they had watered their cattle and had filled their casks1 they were content to sit down to enjoy life4 ,the ,old ,men ,who ,knew were brought forth from the shady corners where they had spent their day1 pondering over the mysterious pages of an old book4 ,they mumbled strange words to their grandchildren1 who would have preferred to play with the pretty pebbles1 brought down from distant lands4 ,often these words were not very clear4 ,but they were writ a thousand years ago by a forgotten race4 ,hence they were holy4 ,for in the ,valley of ,ignorance1 whatever was old was venerable4 ,and those who dared to gainsay the wisdom of the fathers were shunned by all decent people4 ,and so they kept their peace4 ,fear was ever with them4 ,what if they should be refused the common share of the products of the garden8 ,vague stories there were1 whispered at night among the narrow streets of the little town1 vague stories of men and women who had dared to ask questions4 ,they had gone forth1 and never again had they been seen4 ,a few had tried to scale the high walls of the rocky range that hid the sun4 ,their whitened bones lay at the foot of the cliffs4 ,the years came and the years went by4 ,happily lived ,mankind in the peaceful ,valley of ,ignorance4 99 99 99 99 99 ,out of the darkness crept a man4 ,the nails of his hands were torn4 ,his feet were covered with rags1 red with the blood of long marches4 ,he stumbled to the door of the nearest hut and knocked4 ,then he fainted4 ,by the light of a frightened candle1 he was carried to a cot4 ,in the morning throughout the village it was known3 8,he has come back40 ,the neighbors stood around and shook their heads4 ,they had always known that this was to be the end4 ,defeat and surrender awaited those who dared to stroll away from the foot of the mountains4 ,and in one corner of the village the ,old ,men shook their heads and whispered burning words4 ,they did not mean to be cruel1 but the ,law was the ,law4 ,bitterly this man had sinned against the wishes of ,those ,who ,knew4 ,as soon as his wounds were healed he must be brought to trial4 ,they meant to be lenient4 ,they remembered the strange1 burning eyes of his mother4 ,they recalled the tragedy of his father1 lost in the desert these thirty years ago4 ,the ,law1 however1 was the ,law2 and the ,law must be obeyed4 ,the ,men ,who ,knew would see to that4 99 99 99 99 99 ,they carried the wanderer to the ,market ,place1 and the people stood around in respectful silence4 ,he was still weak from hunger and thirst and the ,elders bade him sit down4 ,he refused4 ,they ordered him to be silent4 ,but he spoke4 ,upon the ,old ,men he turned his back and his eyes sought those who but a short time before had been his comrades4 8,listen to me10 he implored4 8,listen to me and be rejoiced4 ,i have come back from beyond the mountains4 ,my feet have trod a fresh soil4 ,my hands have felt the touch of other races4 ,my eyes have seen wondrous sights4 8,when ,i was a child1 my world was the garden of my father4 8,to the west and to the east1 to the south and to the north lay the ranges from the ,beginning of ,time4 8,when ,i asked what they were hiding1 there was a hush and a hasty shaking of heads4 ,when ,i insisted1 ,i was taken to the rocks and shown the bleached bones of those who had dared to defy the ,gods4 8,when ,i cried out and said1 #8,it is a lie6 ,the ,gods love those who are brave6' the ,men ,who ,knew came and read to me from their sacred books4 ,the ,law1 they explained1 had ordained all things of ,heaven and ,earth4 ,the ,valley was ours to have and to hold4 ,the animals and the flowers1 the fruit and the fishes were ours1 to do our bidding4 ,but the mountains were of the ,gods4 ,what lay beyond was to remain unknown until the ,end of ,time4 8,so they spoke1 and they lied4 ,they lied to me1 even as they have lied to you4 8,there are pastures in those hills4 ,meadows too1 as rich as any4 ,and men and women of our own flesh and blood4 ,and cities resplendent with the glories of a thousand years of labor4 8,i have found the road to a better home4 ,i have seen the promise of a happier life4 ,follow me and ,i shall lead you thither4 ,for the smile of the ,gods is the same there as here and everywhere40 99 99 99 99 99 ,he stopped and there went up a great cry of horror4 8,blasphemy60 cried the ,old ,men4 8,blasphemy and sacrilege6 ,a fit punishment for his crime6 ,he has lost his reason4 ,he dares to scoff at the ,law as it was written down a thousand years ago4 ,he deserves to die60 ,and they took up heavy stones4 ,and they killed him4 ,and his body they threw at the foot of the cliffs1 that it might lie there as a warning to all who questioned the wisdom of the ancestors4 99 99 99 99 99 ,then it happened a short time later that there was a great drought4 ,the little ,brook of ,knowledge ran dry4 ,the cattle died of thirst4 ,the harvest perished in the fields1 and there was hunger in the ,valley of ,ignorance4 ,the ,old ,men ,who ,knew1 however1 were not disheartened4 ,everything would all come right in the end1 they prophesied1 for so it was writ in their most ,holy ,chapters4 ,besides1 they themselves needed but little food4 ,they were so very old4 99 99 99 99 99 ,winter came4 ,the village was deserted4 ,more than half of the populace died from sheer want4 ,the only hope for those who survived lay beyond the mountains4 ,but the ,law said 8,no60 ,and the ,law must be obeyed4 99 99 99 99 99 ,one night there was a rebellion4 ,despair gave courage to those whom fear had forced into silence4 ,feebly the ,old ,men protested4 ,they were pushed aside4 ,they complained of their lot4 ,they bewailed the ingratitude of their children1 but when the last wagon pulled out of the village1 they stopped the driver and forced him to take them along4 ,the flight into the unknown had begun4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it was many years since the ,wanderer had returned4 ,it was no easy task to discover the road he had mapped out4 ,thousands fell a victim to hunger and thirst before the first cairn was found4 ,from there on the trip was less difficult4 ,the careful pioneer had blazed a clear trail through the woods and amidst the endless wilderness of rock4 ,by easy stages it led to the green pastures of the new land4 ,silently the people looked at each other4 8,he was right after all10 they said4 8,he was right1 and the ,old ,men were wrong4444 8,he spoke the truth1 and the ,old ,men lied4444 8,his bones lie rotting at the foot of the cliffs1 but the ,old ,men sit in our carts and chant their ancient lays4444 8,he saved us1 and we slew him4444 8,we are sorry that it happened1 but of course1 if we could have known at the time44440 ,then they unharnessed their horses and their oxen and they drove their cows and their goats into the pastures and they built themselves houses and laid out their fields and they lived happily for a long time afterwards4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a few years later an attempt was made to bury the brave pioneer in the fine new edifice which had been erected as a home for the ,wise ,old ,men4 ,a solemn procession went back to the now deserted valley1 but when the spot was reached where his body ought to have been1 it was no longer there4 ,a hungry jackal had dragged it to his lair4 ,a small stone was then placed at the foot of the trail 7now a magnificent highway74 ,it gave the name of the man who had first defied the dark terror of the unknown1 that his people might be guided into a new freedom4 ,and it stated that it had been erected by a grateful posterity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,as it was in the beginning--as it is now--and as some day 7so we hope7 it shall no longer be4 ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,tyranny ,,of ,,ignorance ,in the year #ebg ,flavius ,anicius ,justinianus became ruler of the eastern half of the ,roman ,empire4 ,this ,serbian peasant 7he came from ,uskub1 the much disputed railroad junction of the late war7 had no use for 8book-learnin'40 ,it was by his orders that the ancient ,athenian school of philosophy was finally suppressed4 ,and it was he who closed the doors of the only ,egyptian temple that had continued to do business centuries after the valley of the ,nile had been invaded by the monks of the new ,christian faith4 ,this temple stood on a little island called ,philae1 not far from the first great waterfall of the ,nile4 ,ever since men could remember1 the spot had been dedicated to the worship of ,isis and for some curious reason1 the ,goddess had survived where all her ,african and ,greek and ,roman rivals had miserably perished4 ,until finally1 in the sixth century1 the island was the only spot where the old and most holy art of picture writing was still understood and where a small number of priests continued to practice a trade which had been forgotten in every other part of the land of ,cheops4 ,and now1 by order of an illiterate farmhand1 known as ,his ,imperial ,majesty1 the temple and the adjoining school were declared state property1 the statues and images were sent to the museum of ,constantinople and the priests and the writing-masters were thrown into jail4 ,and when the last of them had died from hunger and neglect1 the age-old trade of making hieroglyphics had become a lost art4 ,all this was a great pity4 ,if ,justinian 7a plague upon his head67 had been a little less thorough and had saved just a few of those old picture experts in a sort of literary ,noah's ,ark1 he would have made the task of the historian a great deal easier4 ,for while 7owing to the genius of ,champollion7 we can once more spell out the strange ,egyptian words1 it remains exceedingly difficult for us to understand the inner meaning of their message to posterity4 ,and the same holds true for all other nations of the ancient world4 ,what did those strangely bearded ,babylonians1 who left us whole brickyards full of religious tracts1 have in mind when they exclaimed piously1 8,who shall ever be able to understand the counsel of the ,gods in ,heaven80 ,how did they feel towards those divine spirits which they invoked so continually1 whose laws they endeavored to interpret1 whose commands they engraved upon the granite shafts of their most holy city8 ,why were they at once the most tolerant of men1 encouraging their priests to study the high heavens1 and to explore the land and the sea1 and at the same time the most cruel of executioners1 inflicting hideous punishments upon those of their neighbors who had committed some breach of divine etiquette which today would pass unnoticed8 ,until recently we did not know4 ,we sent expeditions to ,nineveh1 we dug holes in the sand of ,sinai and deciphered miles of cuneiform tablets4 ,and everywhere in ,mesopotamia and ,egypt we did our best to find the key that should unlock the front door of this mysterious store-house of wisdom4 ,and then1 suddenly and almost by accident1 we discovered that the back door had been wide open all the time and that we could enter the premises at will4 ,but that convenient little gate was not situated in the neighborhood of ,akkad or ,memphis4 ,it stood in the very heart of the jungle4 ,and it was almost hidden by the wooden pillars of a pagan temple4 99 99 99 99 99 ,our ancestors1 in search of easy plunder1 had come in contact with what they were pleased to call 8wild men0 or 8savages40 ,the meeting had not been a pleasant one4 ,the poor heathen1 misunderstanding the intentions of the white men1 had welcomed them with a salvo of spears and arrows4 ,the visitors had retaliated with their blunderbusses4 ,after that there had been little chance for a quiet and unprejudiced exchange of ideas4 ,the savage was invariably depicted as a dirty1 lazy1 good-for-nothing loafer who worshiped crocodiles and dead trees and deserved all that was coming to him4 ,then came the reaction of the eighteenth century4 ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau began to contemplate the world through a haze of sentimental tears4 ,his contemporaries1 much impressed by his ideas1 pulled out their handkerchiefs and joined in the weeping4 ,the benighted heathen was one of their most favorite subjects4 ,in their hands 7although they had never seen one7 he became the unfortunate victim of circumstances and the true representative of all those manifold virtues of which the human race had been deprived by three thousand years of a corrupt system of civilization4 ,today1 at least in this particular field of investigation1 we know better4 ,we study primitive man as we study the higher domesticated animals1 from which as a rule he is not so very far removed4 ,in most instances we are fully repaid for our trouble4 ,the savage1 but for the grace of ,god1 is our own self under much less favorable conditions4 ,by examining him carefully we begin to understand the early society of the valley of the ,nile and of the peninsula of ,mesopotamia and by knowing him thoroughly we get a glimpse of many of those strange hidden instincts which lie buried deep down beneath the thin crust of manners and customs which our own species of mammal has acquired during the last five thousand years4 ,this encounter is not always flattering to our pride4 ,on the other hand a realization of the conditions from which we have escaped1 together with an appreciation of the many things that have actually been accomplished1 can only tend to give us new courage for the work in hand and if anything it will make us a little more tolerant towards those among our distant cousins who have failed to keep up the pace4 ,this is not a handbook of anthropology4 ,it is a volume dedicated to the subject of tolerance4 ,but tolerance is a very broad theme4 ,the temptation to wander will be great4 ,and once we leave the beaten track1 ,heaven alone knows where we will land4 ,i therefore suggest that ,i be given half a page to state exactly and specifically what ,i mean by tolerance4 ,language is one of the most deceptive inventions of the human race and all definitions are bound to be arbitrary4 ,it therefore behooves an humble student to go to that authority which is accepted as final by the largest number of those who speak the language in which this book is written4 ,i refer to the ,encyclopedia ,britannica4 ,there on page #ajeb of volume ,,xxvi stands written3 8,tolerance 7from ,latin tolerare--to endure73--,the allowance of freedom of action or judgment to other people1 the patient and unprejudiced endurance of dissent from one's own or the generally received course or view40 ,there may be other definitions but for the purpose of this book ,i shall let myself be guided by the words of the ,britannica4 ,and having committed myself 7for better or worse7 to a definite policy1 ,i shall return to my savages and tell you what ,i have been able to discover about tolerance in the earliest forms of society of which we have any record4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is still generally believed that primitive society was very simple1 that primitive language consisted of a few simple grunts and that primitive man possessed a degree of liberty which was lost only when the world became 8complex40 ,the investigations of the last fifty years made by explorers and missionaries and doctors among the aborigines of central ,africa and the ,polar regions and ,polynesia show the exact opposite4 ,primitive society was exceedingly complicated1 primitive language had more forms and tenses and declensions than ,russian or ,arabic1 and primitive man was a slave not only to the present1 but also to the past and to the future2 in short1 an abject and miserable creature who lived in fear and died in terror4 ,this may seem far removed from the popular picture of brave red-skins merrily roaming the prairies in search of buffaloes and scalps1 but it is a little nearer to the truth4 ,and how could it have been otherwise8 ,i have read the stories of many miracles4 ,but one of them was lacking2 the miracle of the survival of man4 ,how and in what manner and why the most defenseless of all mammals should have been able to maintain himself against microbes and mastodons and ice and heat and eventually become master of all creation1 is something ,i shall not try to solve in the present chapter4 ,one thing1 however1 is certain4 ,he never could have accomplished all this alone4 ,in order to succeed he was obliged to sink his individuality in the composite character of the tribe4 99 99 99 99 99 ,primitive society therefore was dominated by a single idea1 an all-overpowering desire to survive4 ,this was very difficult4 ,and as a result all other considerations were sacrificed to the one supreme demand--to live4 ,the individual counted for nothing1 the community at large counted for everything1 and the tribe became a roaming fortress which lived by itself and for itself and of itself and found safety only in exclusiveness4 ,but the problem was even more complicated than at first appears4 ,what ,i have just said held good only for the visible world1 and the visible world in those early times was a negligible quantity compared to the realm of the invisible4 ,in order to understand this fully we must remember that primitive people are different from ourselves4 ,they are not familiar with the law of cause and effect4 ,if ,i sit me down among the poison ivy1 ,i curse my negligence1 send for the doctor and tell my young son to get rid of the stuff as soon as he can4 ,my ability to recognize cause and effect tells me that the poison ivy has caused the rash1 that the doctor will be able to give me something that will make the itch stop and that the removal of the vine will prevent a repetition of this painful experience4 ,the true savage would act quite differently4 ,he would not connect the rash with the poison ivy at all4 ,he lives in a world in which past1 present and future are inextricably interwoven4 ,all his dead leaders survive as ,gods and his dead neighbors survive as spirits and they all continue to be invisible members of the clan and they accompany each individual member wherever he goes4 ,they eat with him and sleep with him and they stand watch over his door4 ,it is his business to keep them at arm's length or gain their friendship4 ,if ever he fail to do this he will be immediately punished and as he cannot possibly know how to please all those spirits all the time1 he is in constant fear of that misfortune which comes as the revenge of the ,gods4 ,he therefore reduces every event that is at all out of the ordinary not to a primary cause but to interference on the part of an invisible spirit and when he notices a rash on his arms he does not say1 8,damn that poison ivy60 but he mumbles1 8,i have offended a ,god4 ,the ,god has punished me10 and he runs to the medicine-man1 not however to get a lotion to counteract the poison of the ivy but to get a 8charm0 that shall prove stronger than the charm which the irate ,god 7and not the ivy7 has thrown upon him4 ,as for the ivy1 the primary cause of all his suffering1 he lets it grow right there where it has always grown4 ,and if perchance the white man comes with a can of kerosene and burns the shrub down1 he will curse him for his trouble4 ,it follows that a society in which everything happens as the result of the direct personal interference on the part of an invisible being must depend for its continued existence upon a strict obedience of such laws as seem to appease the wrath of the ,gods4 ,such a law1 according to the opinion of a savage1 existed4 ,his ancestors had devised it and had bestowed it upon him and it was his most sacred duty to keep that law intact and hand it over in its present and perfect form to his own children4 ,this1 of course1 seems absurd to us4 ,we firmly believe in progress1 in growth1 in constant and uninterrupted improvement4 ,but 8progress0 is an expression that was coined only year before last1 and it is typical of all low forms of society that the people see no possible reason why they should improve what 7to them7 is the best of all possible worlds because they never knew any other4 99 99 99 99 99 ,granted that all this be true1 then how does one prevent a change in the laws and in the established forms of society8 ,the answer is simple4 ,by the immediate punishment of those who refuse to regard common police regulations as an expression of the divine will1 or in plain language1 by a rigid system of intolerance4 99 99 99 99 99 ,if ,i hereby state that the savage was the most intolerant of human beings1 ,i do not mean to insult him1 for ,i hasten to add that given the circumstances under which he lived1 it was his duty to be intolerant4 ,had he allowed any one to interfere with the thousand and one rules upon which his tribe depended for its continued safety and peace of mind1 the life of the tribe would have been put in jeopardy and that would have been the greatest of all possible crimes4 ,but 7and the question is worth asking7 how could a group of people1 relatively limited in number1 protect a most complex system of verbal regulations when we in our own day with millions of soldiers and thousands of policemen find it difficult to enforce a few plain laws8 ,again the answer is simple4 ,the savage was a great deal cleverer than we are4 ,he accomplished by shrewd calculation what he could not do by force4 ,he invented the idea of 8taboo40 ,perhaps the word 8invented0 is not the right expression4 ,such things are rarely the product of a sudden inspiration4 ,they are the result of long years of growth and experiment4 ,let that be as it may1 the wild men of ,africa and ,polynesia devised the taboo1 and thereby saved themselves a great deal of trouble4 ,the word taboo is of ,australian origin4 ,we all know more or less what it means4 ,our own world is full of taboos1 things we simply must not do or say1 like mentioning our latest operation at the dinner table1 or leaving our spoon in our cup of coffee4 ,but our taboos are never of a very serious nature4 ,they are part of the handbook of etiquette and rarely interfere with our own personal happiness4 ,to primitive man1 on the other hand1 the taboo was of the utmost importance4 ,it meant that certain persons or inanimate objects had been 8set apart0 from the rest of the world1 that they 7to use the ,hebrew equivalent7 were 8holy0 and must not be discussed or touched on pain of instant death and everlasting torture4 ,a fairly large order but woe unto him or her who dared to disobey the will of the spirit-ancestors4 99 99 99 99 99 ,whether the taboo was an invention of the priests or the priesthood was created to maintain the taboo is a problem which had not yet been solved4 ,as tradition is much older than religion1 it seems more than likely that taboos existed long before the world had heard of sorcerers and witch-doctors4 ,but as soon as the latter had made their appearance1 they became the staunch supporters of the idea of taboo and used it with such great virtuosity that the taboo became the 8verboten0 sign of prehistoric ages4 ,when first we hear the names of ,babylon and ,egypt1 those countries were still in a state of development in which the taboo counted for a great deal4 ,not a taboo in the crude and primitive form as it was afterwards found in ,new ,zealand1 but solemnly transformed into negative rules of conduct1 the sort of 8thou-shalt-not0 decrees with which we are all familiar through six of our ,ten ,commandments4 ,needless to add that the idea of tolerance was entirely unknown in those lands at that early age4 ,what we sometimes mistake for tolerance was merely indifference caused by ignorance4 ,but we can find no trace of any willingness 7however vague7 on the part of either kings or priests to allow others to exercise that 8freedom of action or judgment0 or of that 8patient and unprejudiced endurance of dissent from the generally received cause or view0 which has become the ideal of our modern age4 99 99 99 99 99 ,therefore1 except in a very negative way1 this book is not interested in prehistoric history or what is commonly called 8ancient history40 ,the struggle for tolerance did not begin until after the discovery of the individual4 ,and the credit for this1 the greatest of all modern revelations1 belongs to the ,greeks4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,greeks ,how it happened that a little rocky peninsula in a remote corner of the ,mediterranean was able to provide our world in less than two centuries with the complete framework for all our present day experiments in politics1 literature1 drama1 sculpture1 chemistry1 physics and ,heaven knows what else1 is a question which has puzzled a great many people for a great many centuries and to which every philosopher1 at one time or another during his career1 has tried to give an answer4 ,respectable historians1 unlike their colleagues of the chemical and physical and astronomical and medical faculties1 have always looked with ill-concealed contempt upon all efforts to discover what one might call 8the laws of history40 ,what holds good of polliwogs and microbes and shooting stars seems to have no business within the realm of human beings4 ,i may be very much mistaken1 but it seems to me that there must be such laws4 ,it is true that thus far we have not discovered many of them4 ,but then again we have never looked very hard4 ,we have been so busy accumulating facts that we have had no time to boil them and liquefy them and evaporate them and extract from them the few scraps of wisdom which might be of some real value to our particular variety of mammal4 ,it is with considerable trepidation that ,i approach this new field of research and taking a leaf out of the scientist's book1 offer the following historical axiom4 ,according to the best knowledge of modern scientists1 life 7animate existence as differentiated from inanimate existence7 began when for once all physical and chemical elements were present in the ideal proportion necessary for the creation of the first living cell4 ,translate this into terms of history and you get this3 8,a sudden and apparently spontaneous outbreak of a very high form of civilization is only possible when all the racial1 climatic1 economic and political conditions are present in an ideal proportion or in as nearly an ideal condition and proportion as they can be in this imperfect world40 ,let me elaborate this statement by a few negative observations4 ,a race with the brain development of a cave-man would not prosper1 even in ,paradise4 ,rembrandt would not have painted pictures1 ,bach would not have composed fugues1 ,praxiteles would not have made statues if they had been born in an igloo near ,upernivik and had been obliged to spend most of their waking hours watching a seal-hole in an ice-field4 ,darwin would not have made his contributions to biology if he had been obliged to gain his livelihood in a cotton mill in ,lancashire4 ,and ,alexander ,graham ,bell would not have invented the telephone if he had been a conscripted serf and had lived in a remote village of the ,romanow domains4 ,in ,egypt1 where the first high form of civilization was found1 the climate was excellent1 but the original inhabitants were not very robust or enterprising1 and political and economic conditions were decidedly bad4 ,the same held true of ,babylonia and ,assyria4 ,the ,semitic races which afterwards moved into the valley between the ,tigris and the ,euphrates were strong and vigorous people4 ,there was nothing the matter with the climate4 ,but the political and economic environment remained far from good4 ,in ,palestine the climate was nothing to boast of4 ,agriculture was backward and there was little commerce outside of the caravan route which passed through the country from ,africa to ,asia and vice versa4 ,furthermore1 in ,palestine politics were entirely dominated by the priests of the temple of ,jerusalem and this of course did not encourage the development of any sort of individual enterprise4 ,in ,phoenicia1 the climate was of little consequence4 ,the race was strong and trade conditions were good4 ,the country1 however1 suffered from a badly balanced economic system4 ,a small class of ship owners had been able to get hold of all the wealth and had established a rigid commercial monopoly4 ,hence the government in ,tyre and ,sidon had at an early date fallen into the hands of the very rich4 ,the poor1 deprived of all excuse for the practice of a reasonable amount of industry1 grew callous and indifferent and ,phoenicia eventually shared the fate of ,carthage and went to ruin through the short-sighted selfishness of her rulers4 ,in short1 in every one of the early centers of civilization1 certain of the necessary elements for success were always lacking4 ,when the miracle of a perfect balance finally did occur1 in ,greece in the fifth century before our era1 it lasted only a very short time1 and strange to say1 even then it did not take place in the mother country but in the colonies across the ,aegean ,sea4 ,in another book ,i have given a description of those famous island-bridges which connected the mainland of ,asia with ,europe and across which the traders from ,egypt and ,babylonia and ,crete since time immemorial had traveled to ,europe4 ,the main point of embarkation1 both for merchandise and ideas bound from ,asia to ,europe1 was to be found on the western coast of ,asia ,minor in a strip of land known as ,ionia4 ,a few hundred years before the ,trojan war1 this narrow bit of mountainous territory1 ninety miles long and only a few miles wide1 had been conquered by ,greek tribes from the mainland who there had founded a number of colonial towns of which ,ephesus1 ,phocaea1 ,erythrae and ,miletus were the best known1 and it was along those cities that at last the conditions of success were present in such perfect proportion that civilization reached a point which has sometimes been equaled but never has been surpassed4 ,in the first place1 these colonies were inhabited by the most active and enterprising elements from among a dozen different nations4 ,in the second place1 there was a great deal of general wealth derived from the carrying trade between the old and the new world1 between ,europe and ,asia4 ,in the third place1 the form of government under which the colonists lived gave the majority of the freemen a chance to develop their talents to the very best of their ability4 ,if ,i do not mention the climate1 the reason is this2 that in countries devoted exclusively to commerce1 the climate does not matter much4 ,ships can be built and goods can be unloaded1 rain or shine4 ,provided it does not get so cold that the harbors freeze or so wet that the towns are flooded1 the inhabitants will take very little interest in the daily weather reports4 ,but aside from this1 the weather of ,ionia was distinctly favorable to the development of an intellectual class4 ,before the existence of books and libraries1 learning was handed down from man to man by word of mouth and the town-pump was the earliest of all social centers and the oldest of universities4 ,in ,miletus it was possible to sit around the town-pump for #cej out of every #cfe days4 ,and the early ,ionian professors made such excellent use of their climatic advantages that they became the pioneers of all future scientific development4 ,the first of whom we have any report1 the real founder of modern science1 was a person of doubtful origin4 ,not in the sense that he had robbed a bank or murdered his family and had fled to ,miletus from parts unknown4 ,but no one knew much about his antecedents4 ,was he a ,boeotian or a ,phoenician1 a ,nordic 7to speak in the jargon of our learned racial experts7 or a ,semite8 ,it shows what an international center this little old city at the mouth of the ,meander was in those days4 ,its population 7like that of ,new ,york today7 consisted of so many different elements that people accepted their neighbors at their face value and did not look too closely into the family antecedents4 ,since this is not a history of mathematics or a handbook of philosophy1 the speculations of ,thales do not properly belong in these pages1 except in so far as they tend to show the tolerance towards new ideas which prevailed among the ,ionians at a time when ,rome was a small market-town on a muddy river somewhere in a distant and unknown region1 when the ,jews were still captives in the land of ,assyria and when northern and western ,europe were naught but a howling wilderness4 ,in order that we may understand how such a development was possible1 we must know something about the changes which had taken place since the days when ,greek chieftains sailed across the ,aegean ,sea1 intent upon the plunder of the rich fortress of ,troy4 ,those far-famed heroes were still the product of an exceedingly primitive form of civilization4 ,they were over-grown children who regarded life as one long1 glorified rough-house1 full of excitement and wrestling matches and running races and all the many things which we ourselves would dearly love to do if we were not forced to stick to the routine jobs which provide us with bread and bananas4 ,the relationship between these boisterous paladins and their ,gods was as direct and as simple as their attitude towards the serious problems of every-day existence4 ,for the inhabitants of high ,olympus1 who ruled the world of the ,hellenes in the tenth century before our era1 were of this earth earthy1 and not very far removed from ordinary mortals4 ,exactly where and when and how man and his ,gods had parted company was a more or less hazy point1 never clearly established4 ,even then the friendship which those who lived beyond the clouds had always felt towards their subjects who crawled across the face of the earth had in no way been interrupted and it had remained flavored with those personal and intimate touches which gave the religion of the ,greeks its own peculiar charm4 ,of course1 all good little ,greek boys were duly taught that ,zeus was a very powerful and mighty potentate with a long beard who upon occasion would juggle so violently with his flashes of lightning and his thunderbolts that it seemed that the world was coming to an end4 ,but as soon as they were a little older and were able to read the ancient sagas for themselves1 they began to appreciate the limitations of those terrible personages of whom they had heard so much in their nursery and who now appeared in the light of a merry family-party--everlastingly playing practical jokes upon each other and taking such bitter sides in the political disputes of their mortal friends that every quarrel in ,greece was immediately followed by a corresponding row among the denizens of the aether4 ,of course in spite of all these very human short-comings1 ,zeus remained a very great ,god1 the mightiest of all rulers and a personage whom it was not safe to displease4 ,but he was 8reasonable0 in that sense of the word which is so well understood among the lobbyists of ,washington4 ,he was reasonable4 ,he could be approached if one knew the proper way4 ,and best of all1 he had a sense of humor and did not take either himself or his world too seriously4 ,this was1 perhaps1 not the most sublime conception of a divine figure1 but it offered certain very distinct advantages4 ,among the ancient ,greeks there never was a hard and fast rule as to what people must hold true and what they must disregard as false4 ,and because there was no 8creed0 in the modern sense of the word1 with adamantine dogmas and a class of professional priests1 ready to enforce them with the help of the secular gallows1 the people in different parts of the country were able to reshape their religious ideas and ethical conceptions as best suited their own individual tastes4 ,the ,thessalians1 who lived within hailing distance of ,mount ,olympus1 showed of course much less respect for their august neighbors than did the ,asopians who dwelled in a distant village on the ,laconian ,gulf4 ,the ,athenians1 feeling themselves under the direct protection of their own patron saint1 ,pallas ,athene1 felt that they could take great liberties with the lady's father1 while the ,arcadians1 whose valleys were far removed from the main trade routes1 clung tenaciously to a simpler faith and frowned upon all levity in the serious matter of religion1 and as for the inhabitants of ,phocis1 who made a living from the pilgrims bound for the village of ,delphi1 they were firmly convinced that ,apollo 7who was worshiped at that profitable shrine7 was the greatest of all divine spirits and deserved the special homage of those who came from afar and still had a couple of drachmas in their pocket4 ,the belief in only one ,god which soon afterwards was to set the ,jews apart from all other nations1 would never have been possible if the life of ,judaea had not centered around a single city which was strong enough to destroy all rival places of pilgrimage and was able to maintain an exclusive religious monopoly for almost ten consecutive centuries4 ,in ,greece such a condition did not prevail4 ,neither ,athens nor ,sparta ever succeeded in establishing itself as the recognized capital of a united ,greek fatherland4 ,their efforts in this direction only led to long years of unprofitable civil war4 ,no wonder that a race composed of such sublime individualists offered great scope for the development of a very independent spirit of thought4 ,the ,iliad and the ,odyssey have sometimes been called the ,bible of the ,greeks4 ,they were nothing of the sort4 ,they were just books4 ,they were never united into 8,the ,book40 ,they told the adventures of certain wonderful heroes who were fondly believed to be the direct ancestors of the generation then living4 ,incidentally they contained a certain amount of religious information because the ,gods1 without exception1 had taken sides in the quarrel and had neglected all other business for the joy of watching the rarest prize-fight that had ever been staged within their domain4 ,the idea1 however1 that the works of ,homer might either directly or indirectly have been inspired by ,zeus or ,minerva or ,apollo never even dawned upon the ,greek mind4 ,these were a fine piece of literature and made excellent reading during the long winter evenings4 ,furthermore they caused children to feel proud of their own race4 ,and that was all4 ,in such an atmosphere of intellectual and spiritual freedom1 in a city filled with the pungent smell of ships from all the seven seas1 rich with fabrics of the ,orient1 merry with the laughter of a well fed and contented populace1 ,thales was born4 ,in such a city he worked and taught and in such a city he died4 ,if the conclusions which he reached differed greatly from the opinions held by most of his neighbors1 remember that his ideas never penetrated beyond a very limited circle4 ,the average ,miletian may have heard the name of ,thales1 just as the average ,new ,yorker has probably heard the name of ,einstein4 ,ask him who ,einstein is1 and he will answer that he is a fellow with long hair who smokes a pipe and plays the fiddle and who wrote something about a man walking through a railroad train1 about which there once was an article in a ,sunday paper4 ,that this strange person who smokes a pipe and plays the fiddle has got hold of a little spark of truth which eventually may upset 7or at least greatly modify7 the scientific conclusions of the last sixty centuries1 is a matter of profound indifference to the millions of easy-going citizens whose interest in mathematics does not reach beyond the conflict which arises when their favorite batsman tries to upset the law of gravity4 ,the text-books of ancient history usually get rid of the difficulty by printing 8,thales of ,miletus 7#fdj-edf ,b4,c471 the founder of modern science40 ,and we can almost see the headlines in the 8,miletus ,gazette0 saying1 8,local graduate discovers secret of true science40 ,but just how and where and when ,thales left the beaten track and struck out for himself1 ,i could not possibly tell you4 ,this much is certain1 that he did not live in an intellectual vacuum1 nor did he develop his wisdom out of his inner consciousness4 ,in the seventh century before ,christ1 a great deal of the pioneer work in the realm of science had already been done and there was quite a large body of mathematical and physical and astronomical information at the disposal of those intelligent enough to make use of it4 ,babylonian star-gazers had searched the heavens4 ,egyptian architects had done considerable figuring before they dared to dump a couple of million tons of granite on top of a little burial chamber in the heart of a pyramid4 ,the mathematicians of the ,nile ,valley had seriously studied the behavior of the sun that they might predict the wet and dry seasons and give the peasants a calendar by which they could regulate their work on the farms4 ,all these problems1 however1 had been solved by people who still regarded the forces of nature as the direct and personal expression of the will of certain invisible ,gods who administered the seasons and the course of the planets and the tides of the ocean as the members of the ,president's cabinet manage the department of agriculture or the post-office or the treasury4 ,thales rejected this point of view4 ,but like most well educated people of his day1 he did not bother to discuss it in public4 ,if the fruit vendors along the water front wanted to fall upon their faces whenever there was an eclipse of the sun and invoke the name of ,zeus in fear of this unusual sight1 that was their business and ,thales would have been the last man to try to convince them that any schoolboy with an elementary knowledge of the behavior of heavenly bodies would have foretold that on the #beth of ,may of the year #ehe ,b4,c41 at such and such an hour1 the moon would find herself between the earth and the sun and that therefore the town of ,miletus would experience a few minutes of comparative darkness4 ,even when it appeared 7as it did appear7 that the ,persians and the ,lydians had been engaged in battle on the afternoon of this famous eclipse and had been obliged to cease killing each other for lack of sufficient light1 he refused to believe that the ,lydian deities 7following a famous precedent established a few years previously during a certain battle in the valley of ,ajalon7 had performed a miracle1 and had suddenly turned off the light of ,heaven that the victory might go to those whom they favored4 ,for ,thales had reached the point 7and that was his great merit7 where he dared to regard all nature as the manifestation of one ,eternal ,will1 subject to one ,eternal ,law and entirely beyond the personal influence of those divine spirits which man was forever creating after his own image4 ,and the eclipse1 so he felt1 would have taken place just the same if there had been no more important engagement that particular afternoon than a dog fight in the streets of ,ephesus or a wedding feast in ,halicarnassus4 ,drawing the logical conclusions from his own scientific observations1 he laid down one general and inevitable law for all creation and guessed 7and to a certain extent guessed correctly7 that the beginning of all things was to be found in the water which apparently surrounded the world on all sides and which had probably existed from the very beginning of time4 ,unfortunately we do not possess anything that ,thales himself wrote4 ,it is possible that he may have put his ideas into concrete form 7for the ,greeks had already learned the alphabet from the ,phoenicians7 but not a page which can be directly attributed to him survives today4 ,for our knowledge of himself and his ideas we depend upon the scanty bits of information found in the books of some of his contemporaries4 ,from these1 however1 we have learned that ,thales in private life was a merchant with wide connections in all parts of the ,mediterranean4 ,that1 by the way1 was typical of most of the early philosophers4 ,they were 8lovers of wisdom40 ,but they never closed their eyes to the fact that the secret of life is found among the living and that 8wisdom for the sake of wisdom0 is quite as dangerous as 8art for art's sake0 or a dinner for the sake of the food4 ,to them1 man with all his human qualities1 good and bad and indifferent1 was the supreme measure of all things4 ,wherefore they spent their leisure time patiently studying this strange creature as he was and not as they thought that he ought to be4 ,this made it possible for them to remain on the most amicable terms with their fellow citizens and allowed them to wield a much greater power than if they had undertaken to show their neighbors a short cut to the ,millennium4 ,they rarely laid down a hard and fast rule of conduct4 ,but by their own example they managed to show how a true understanding of the forces of nature must inevitably lead to that inner peace of the soul upon which all true happiness depends and having in this way gained the good-will of their community they were given full liberty to study and explore and investigate and were even permitted to venture within those domains which were popularly believed to be the exclusive property of the ,gods4 ,and as one of the pioneers of this new gospel did ,thales spend the long years of his useful career4 ,although he had pulled the entire world of the ,greeks apart1 although he had examined each little piece separately1 and had openly questioned all sorts of things which the majority of the people since the beginning of time had held to be established facts1 he was allowed to die peacefully in his own bed1 and if any one ever called him to account for his heresies1 we fail to have a record of the fact4 ,and once he had shown the way1 there were many others eager to follow4 ,there was1 for example1 ,anaxagoras of ,clazomenae1 who left ,asia ,minor for ,athens at the age of thirty-six and spent the following years as a 8sophist0 or private tutor in different ,greek cities4 ,he specialized in astronomy and among other things he taught that the sun was not a heavenly chariot1 driven by a ,god1 as was generally believed1 but a red-hot ball of fire1 thousands and thousands of times larger than the whole of ,greece4 ,when nothing happened to him1 when no bolt from ,heaven killed him for his audacity1 he went a little further in his theories and stated boldly that the moon was covered with mountains and valleys and finally he even hinted at a certain 8original matter0 which was the beginning and the end of all things and which had existed from the very beginning of time4 ,but here1 as many other scientists after him were to discover1 he trod upon dangerous ground1 for he discussed something with which people were familiar4 ,the sun and the moon were distant orbs4 ,the average ,greek did not care what names the philosopher wished to call them4 ,but when the professor began to argue that all things had gradually grown and developed out of a vague substance called 8original matter0--then he went decidedly too far4 ,such an assertion was in flat contradiction with the story of ,deucalion and ,pyrrha1 who after the great flood had re-populated the world by turning bits of stone into men and women4 ,to deny the truth of a most solemn tale which all little ,greek boys and girls had been taught in their early childhood was most dangerous to the safety of established society4 ,it would make the children doubt the wisdom of their elders and that would never do4 ,hence ,anaxagoras was made the subject of a formidable attack on the part of the ,athenian ,parents' ,league4 ,during the monarchy and the early days of the republic1 the rulers of the city would have been more than able to protect a teacher of unpopular doctrines from the foolish hostility of the illiterate ,attic peasants4 ,but ,athens by this time had become a full-fledged democracy and the freedom of the individual was no longer what it used to be4 ,furthermore1 ,pericles1 just then in disgrace with the majority of the people1 was himself a favorite pupil of the great astronomer1 and the legal prosecution of ,anaxagoras was welcomed as an excellent political move against the city's old dictator4 ,a priest by the name of ,diopheites1 who also was a ward-leader in one of the most densely populated suburbs1 got a law passed which demanded 8the immediate prosecution of all those who disbelieved in the established religion or held theories of their own about certain divine things40 ,under this law1 ,anaxagoras was actually thrown into prison4 ,finally1 however1 the better elements in the city prevailed4 ,anaxagoras was allowed to go free after the payment of a small fine and move to ,lampsacus in ,asia ,minor where he died1 full of years and honor1 in the year #dbh ,b4,c4 ,his case shows how little is ever accomplished by the official suppression of scientific theories4 ,for although ,anaxagoras was forced to leave ,athens1 his ideas remained behind and two centuries later they came to the notice of one ,aristotle1 who in turn used them as a basis for many of his own scientific speculations4 ,reaching merrily across a thousand years of darkness1 he handed them on to one ,abul-,walid ,muhammad ibn-,ahmad 7commonly known as ,averros71 the great ,arab physician who in turn popularized them among the students of the ,moorish universities of southern ,spain4 ,then1 together with his own observations1 he wrote them down in a number of books4 ,these were duly carried across the ,pyrenees until they reached the universities of ,paris and ,boulogne4 ,there they were translated into ,latin and ,french and ,english and so thoroughly were they accepted by the people of western and northern ,europe that today they have become an integral part of every primer of science and are considered as harmless as the tables of multiplication4 ,but to return to ,anaxagoras4 ,for almost an entire generation after his trial1 ,greek scientists were allowed to teach doctrines which were at variance with popular belief4 ,and then1 during the last years of the fifth century1 a second case took place4 ,the victim this time was a certain ,protagoras1 a wandering teacher who hailed from the village of ,abdera1 an ,ionian colony in northern ,greece4 ,this spot already enjoyed a doubtful reputation as the birthplace of ,democritus1 the original 8laughing philosopher10 who had laid down the law that 8only that society is worth while which offers to the largest number of people the greatest amount of happiness obtainable with the smallest amount of pain10 and who therefore was regarded as a good deal of a radical and a fellow who should be under constant police supervision4 ,protagoras1 deeply impressed by this doctrine1 went to ,athens and there1 after many years of study1 proclaimed that man was the measure of all things1 that life was too short to waste valuable time upon an inquiry into the doubtful existence of any ,gods1 and that all energies ought to be used for the purpose of making existence more beautiful and more thoroughly enjoyable4 ,this statement1 of course1 went to the very root of the matter and it was bound to shock the faithful more than anything that had ever been written or said4 ,furthermore it was made during a very serious crisis in the war between ,athens and ,sparta and the people1 after a long series of defeats and pestilence1 were in a state of utter despair4 ,most evidently it was not the right moment to incur the wrath of the ,gods by an inquiry into the scope of their supernatural powers4 ,protagoras was accused of atheism1 of 8godlessness10 and was told to submit his doctrines to the courts4 ,pericles1 who could have protected him1 was dead and ,protagoras1 although a scientist1 felt little taste for martyrdom4 ,he fled4 ,unfortunately1 on the way to ,sicily1 his ship was wrecked1 and it seems that he was drowned1 for we never hear of him again4 ,as for ,diagoras1 another victim of ,athenian malevolence1 he was really not a philosopher at all but a young writer who harbored a personal grudge against the ,gods because they had once failed to give him their support in a law-suit4 ,he brooded so long upon his supposed grievance that finally his mind became affected and he went about saying all sorts of blasphemous things about the ,holy ,mysteries which just then enjoyed great popularity among the people of northern ,hellas4 ,for this unseemly conduct he was condemned to death4 ,but ere the sentence was executed1 the poor devil was given the opportunity to escape4 ,he went to ,corinth1 continued to revile his ,olympian enemies1 and peacefully died of his own bad temper4 ,and this brings us at last to the most notorious and the most famous case of ,greek intolerance of which we possess any record1 the judicial murder of ,socrates4 ,when it is sometimes stated that the world has not changed at all and that the ,athenians were no more broadminded than the people of later times1 the name of ,socrates is dragged into the debate as a terrible example of ,greek bigotry4 ,but today1 after a very exhaustive study of the case1 we know better and the long and undisturbed career of this brilliant but exasperating soap-box orator is a direct tribute to the spirit of intellectual liberty which prevailed throughout ancient ,greece in the fifth century before our era4 ,for ,socrates1 at a time when the common people still firmly believed in a large number of divine beings1 made himself the prophet of an only ,god4 ,and although the ,athenians may not always have known what he meant when he spoke of his 8daemon0 7that inner voice of divine inspiration which told him what to do and say71 they were fully aware of his very unorthodox attitude towards those ideals which most of his neighbors continued to hold in holy veneration and his utter lack of respect for the established order of things4 ,in the end1 however1 politics killed the old man and theology 7although dragged in for the benefit of the crowd7 had really very little to do with the outcome of the trial4 ,socrates was the son of a stone-cutter who had many children and little money4 ,the boy therefore had never been able to pay for a regular college course1 for most of the philosophers were practical fellows and often charged as much as two thousand dollars for a single course of instruction4 ,besides1 the pursuit of pure knowledge and the study of useless scientific facts seemed to young ,socrates a mere waste of time and energy4 ,provided a person cultivated his conscience1 so he reasoned1 he could well do without geometry and a knowledge of the true nature of comets and planets was not necessary for the salvation of the soul4 ,all the same1 the homely little fellow with the broken nose and the shabby cloak1 who spent his days arguing with the loafers on the corner of the street and his nights listening to the harangues of his wife 7who was obliged to provide for a large family by taking in washing1 as her husband regarded the gaining of a livelihood as an entirely negligible detail of existence71 this honorable veteran of many wars and expeditions and ex-member of the ,athenian senate was chosen among all the many teachers of his day to suffer for his opinions4 ,in order to understand how this happened1 we must know something about the politics of ,athens in the days when ,socrates rendered his painful but highly useful service to the cause of human intelligence and progress4 ,all his life long 7and he was past seventy when he was executed7 ,socrates tried to show his neighbors that they were wasting their opportunities2 that they were living hollow and shallow lives2 that they devoted entirely too much time to empty pleasures and vain triumphs and almost invariably squandered the divine gifts with which a great and mysterious ,god had endowed them for the sake of a few hours of futile glory and self-satisfaction4 ,and so thoroughly convinced was he of man's high destiny that he broke through the bounds of all old philosophies and went even farther than ,protagoras4 ,for whereas the latter had taught that 8man is the measure of all things10 ,socrates preached that 8man's invisible conscience is 7or ought to be7 the ultimate measure of all things and that it is not the ,gods but we ourselves who shape our destiny40 ,the speech which ,socrates made before the judges who were to decide his fate 7there were five hundred of them to be precise and they had been so carefully chosen by his political enemies that some of them could actually read and write7 was one of the most delightful bits of commonsense ever addressed to any audience1 sympathetic or otherwise4 8,no person on earth10 so the philosopher argued1 8has the right to tell another man what he should believe or to deprive him of the right to think as he pleases10 and further1 8,provided that man remain on good terms with his own conscience1 he can well do without the approbation of his friends1 without money1 without a family or even a home4 ,but as no one can possibly reach the right conclusions without a thorough examination of all the pros and cons of every problem1 people must be given a chance to discuss all questions with complete freedom and without interference on the part of the authorities40 ,unfortunately for the accused1 this was exactly the wrong statement at the wrong moment4 ,ever since the ,peloponnesian war there had been a bitter struggle in ,athens between the rich and the poor1 between capital and labor4 ,socrates was a 8moderate0--a liberal who saw good and evil in both systems of government and who tried to find a compromise which should satisfy all reasonable people4 ,this1 of course1 had made him thoroughly unpopular with both sides but thus far they had been too evenly balanced to take action against him4 ,when at last in the year #djc ,b4,c4 the one-hundred-percent ,democrats gained complete control of the state and expelled the aristocrats1 ,socrates was a doomed man4 ,his friends knew this4 ,they suggested that he leave the city before it was too late and this would have been a very wise thing to do4 ,for ,socrates had quite as many enemies as friends4 ,during the greater part of a century he had been a sort of vocal 8columnist10 a terribly clever busy-body who had made it his hobby to expose the shams and the intellectual swindles of those who regarded themselves as the pillars of ,athenian society4 ,as a result1 every one had come to know him4 ,his name had become a household word throughout eastern ,greece4 ,when he said something funny in the morning1 by night the whole town had heard about it4 ,plays had been written about him and when he was finally arrested and taken to prison there was not a citizen in the whole of ,attica who was not thoroughly familiar with all the details of his career4 ,those who took the leading part in the actual trial 7like that honorable grain merchant who could neither read nor write but who knew all about the will of the ,gods and therefore was loudest in his accusations7 were undoubtedly convinced that they were rendering a great service to the community by ridding the city of a highly dangerous member of the so-called 8intelligentsia10 a man whose teaching could only lead to laziness and crime and discontent among the slaves4 ,it is rather amusing to remember that even under those circumstances1 ,socrates pleaded his case with such tremendous virtuosity that a majority of the jury was all for letting him go free and suggested that he might be pardoned if only he would give up this terrible habit of arguing1 of debating1 of wrangling and moralizing1 in short1 if only he would leave his neighbors and their pet prejudices in peace and not bother them with his eternal doubts4 ,but ,socrates would not hear of it4 8,by no means10 he exclaimed4 8,as long as my conscience1 as long as the still small voice within me1 bids me go forth and show men the true road to reason1 ,i shall continue to buttonhole whomsoever ,i happen to meet and ,i shall say what is on my mind1 regardless of consequences40 ,after that1 there was no other course but to condemn the prisoner to death4 ,socrates was given a respite of thirty days4 ,the holy ship which made an annual pilgrimage to ,delos had not yet returned from its voyage and until then1 the ,athenian law did not allow any executions4 ,the whole of this month the old man spent quietly in his cell1 trying to improve his system of logic4 ,although he was repeatedly given the opportunity to escape1 he refused to go4 ,he had lived his life and had done his duty4 ,he was tired and ready to depart4 ,until the hour of his execution he continued to talk with his friends1 trying to educate them in what he held to be right and true1 asking them to turn their minds upon the things of the spirit rather than those of the material world4 ,then he drank the beaker of hemlock1 laid himself upon his couch and settled all further argument by sleep everlasting4 ,for a short time1 his disciples1 rather terrified by this terrible outburst of popular wrath1 thought it wise to remove themselves from the scene of their former activities4 ,but when nothing happened1 they returned and resumed their former occupation as public teachers1 and within a dozen years after the death of the old philosopher1 his ideas were more popular than ever4 ,the city meanwhile had gone through a very difficult period4 ,it was five years since the struggle for the leadership of the ,greek peninsula had ended with the defeat of ,athens and the ultimate victory of the ,spartans4 ,this had been a complete triumph of brawn over brain4 ,needless to say that it did not last very long4 ,the ,spartans1 who never wrote a line worth remembering or contributed a single idea to the sum total of human knowledge 7with the exception of certain military tactics which survive in our modern game of football7 thought that they had accomplished their task when the walls of their rival had been pulled down and the ,athenian fleet had been reduced to a dozen ships4 ,but the ,athenian mind had lost none of its shrewd brilliancy4 ,a decade after the end of the ,peloponnesian war1 the old harbor of the ,piraeus was once more filled with ships from all parts of the world and ,athenian admirals were again fighting at the head of the allied ,greek navies4 ,furthermore1 the labor of ,pericles1 although not appreciated by his own contemporaries1 had made the city the intellectual capital of the world--the ,paris of the fourth century before the birth of ,christ4 ,whosoever in ,rome or ,spain or ,africa was rich enough to give his sons a fashionable education1 felt flattered if the boys were allowed to visit a school situated within the shadow of the ,acropolis4 ,for this ancient world1 which we modern people find so difficult to understand properly1 took the problem of existence seriously4 ,under the influence of the early ,christian enemies of pagan civilization1 the impression has gained ground that the average ,roman or ,greek was a highly immoral person who paid a shallow homage to certain nebulous ,gods and for the rest spent his waking hours eating enormous dinners1 drinking vast bumpers of ,salernian wine and listening to the pretty prattle of ,egyptian dancing girls1 unless for a change he went to war and slaughtered innocent ,germans and ,franks and ,dacians for the pure sport of shedding blood4 ,of course1 both in ,greece and even more so in ,rome1 there were a great many merchants and war contractors who had accumulated their millions without much regard for those ethical principles which ,socrates had so well defined before his judges4 ,because these people were very wealthy1 they had to be put up with4 ,this1 however1 did not mean that they enjoyed the respect of the community or were regarded as commendable representatives of the civilization of their day4 ,we dig up the villa of ,epaphroditus1 who amassed millions as one of the gang who helped ,nero plunder ,rome and her colonies4 ,we look at the ruins of the forty room palace which the old profiteer built out of his ill-gotten gains4 ,and we shake our heads and say1 8,what depravity60 ,then we sit down and read the works of ,epictetus1 who was one of the house slaves of the old scoundrel1 and we find ourselves in the company of a spirit as lofty and as exalted as ever lived4 ,i know that the making of generalizations about our neighbors and about other nations is one of the most popular of indoor sports1 but let us not forget that ,epictetus1 the philosopher1 was quite as truly a representative of the time in which he lived as ,epaphroditus1 the imperial flunkey1 and that the desire for holiness was as great twenty centuries ago as it is today4 ,undoubtedly it was a very different sort of holiness from that which is practiced today4 ,it was the product of an essentially ,european brain and had nothing to do with the ,orient4 ,but the 8barbarians0 who established it as their ideal of what they held to be most noble and desirable were our own ancestors1 and they were slowly developing a philosophy of life which was highly successful if we agree that a clear conscience and a simple1 straightforward life1 together with good health and a moderate but sufficient income1 are the best guarantee for general happiness and contentment4 ,the future of the soul did not interest these people overmuch4 ,they accepted the fact that they were a special sort of mammal which by reason of its intellectual application had risen high above the other creatures which crawled upon this earth4 ,if they frequently referred to the ,gods1 they used the word as we use 8atoms0 or 8electrons0 or 8aether40 ,the beginning of things has got to have a name1 but ,zeus in the mouth of ,epictetus was as problematical a value as x or y in the problems of ,euclid and meant just as much or as little4 ,life it was which interested those men and next to living1 art4 ,life1 therefore1 in all its endless varieties1 they studied and following the method of reasoning which ,socrates had originated and made popular1 they achieved some very remarkable results4 ,that sometimes in their zeal for a perfect spiritual world they went to absurd extremes was regrettable1 but no more than human4 ,but ,plato is the only one among all the teachers of antiquity who from sheer love for a perfect world ever came to preach a doctrine of intolerance4 ,this young ,athenian1 as is well known1 was the beloved disciple of ,socrates and became his literary executor4 ,in this capacity he immediately gathered all that ,socrates had ever said or thought into a series of dialogues which might be truthfully called the ,socratian ,gospels4 ,when this had been done1 he began to elaborate certain of the more obscure points in his master's doctrines and explained them in a series of brilliant essays4 ,and finally he conducted a number of lecture courses which spread the ,athenian ideas of justice and righteousness far beyond the confines of ,attica4 ,in all these activities he showed such whole-hearted and unselfish devotion that we might almost compare him to ,st4 ,paul4 ,but whereas ,st4 ,paul had led a most adventurous and dangerous existence1 ever traveling from north to south and from west to east that he might bring the ,good ,tidings to all parts of the ,mediterranean world1 ,plato never budged from his comfortable garden chair and allowed the world to come to him4 ,certain advantages of birth and the possession of independent wealth allowed him to do this4 ,in the first place he was an ,athenian citizen and through his mother could trace his descent to no one less than ,solon4 ,then as soon as he came of age he inherited a fortune more than sufficient for his simple needs4 ,and finally1 his eloquence was such that people willingly traveled to the ,aegean ,sea if only they were allowed to follow a few of the lectures in the ,platonic ,university4 ,for the rest1 ,plato was very much like the other young men of his time4 ,he served in the army1 but without any particular interest in military affairs4 ,he went in for outdoor sports1 became a good wrestler1 a fairly good runner1 but never achieved any particular fame in the stadium4 ,again1 like most young men of his time1 he spent a great deal of his time in foreign travel and crossed the ,aegean ,sea and paid a short visit to northern ,egypt1 as his famous grandfather ,solon had done before him4 ,after that1 however1 he returned home for good and during fifty consecutive years he quietly taught his doctrines in the shadowy corners of a pleasure garden which was situated on the banks of the river ,cephissus in the suburbs of ,athens and was called the ,academy4 ,he had begun his career as a mathematician1 but gradually he switched over to politics and in this field he laid the foundations for our modern school of government4 ,he was at heart a confirmed optimist and believed in a steady process of human evolution4 ,the life of man1 so he taught1 rises slowly from a lower plane to a higher one4 ,from beautiful bodies1 the world proceeds to beautiful institutions and from beautiful institutions to beautiful ideas4 ,this sounded well on parchment1 but when ,plato tried to lay down certain definite principles upon which his perfect state was to be founded1 his zeal for righteousness and his desire for justice were so great that they made him deaf and blind to all other considerations4 ,his ,republic1 which has ever since been regarded as the last word in human perfection by the manufacturers of paper ,utopias1 was a very strange commonwealth and reflected and continues to reflect with great nicety the prejudices of those retired colonels who have always enjoyed the comforts of a private income1 who like to move in polite circles and who have a profound distrust of the lower classes1 lest they forget 8their place0 and want to have a share of those special privileges which by right should go to the members of the 8upper class40 ,unfortunately the books of ,plato enjoyed great respect among the medieval scholars of western ,europe and in their hands the famous ,republic became a most formidable weapon in their warfare upon tolerance4 ,for these learned doctors were apt to forget that ,plato had reached his conclusions from very different premises than those which were popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries4 ,for instance1 ,plato had been anything but a pious man in the ,christian sense of the word4 ,the ,gods of his ancestors he had always regarded with deep contempt as ill-mannered rustics from distant ,macedonia4 ,he had been deeply mortified by their scandalous behavior as related in the chronicles of the ,trojan ,war4 ,but as he grew older and sat and sat and sat in his little olive grove and became more and more exasperated by the foolish quarrels of the little city-states of his native land1 and witnessed the utter failure of the old democratic ideal1 he grew convinced that some sort of religion was necessary for the average citizen1 or his imaginary ,republic would at once degenerate into a state of rampant anarchy4 ,he therefore insisted that the legislative body of his model community should establish a definite rule of conduct for all citizens and should force both freemen and slaves to obey these regulations on pain of death or exile or imprisonment4 ,this sounded like an absolute negation of that broad spirit of tolerance and of that liberty of conscience for which ,socrates had so valiantly fought only a short time before1 and that is exactly what it was meant to be4 ,the reason for this change in attitude is not hard to find4 ,whereas ,socrates had been a man among men1 ,plato was afraid of life and escaped from an unpleasant and ugly world into the realm of his own day dreams4 ,he knew of course that there was not the slightest chance of his ideas ever being realized4 ,the day of the little independent city-states1 whether imaginary or real1 was over4 ,the era of centralization had begun and soon the entire ,greek peninsula was to be incorporated into that vast ,macedonian ,empire which stretched from the shores of the ,maritsa to the banks of the ,indus ,river4 ,but ere the heavy hand of the conqueror descended upon the unruly democracies of the old peninsula1 the country had produced the greatest of those many benefactors who have put the rest of the world under eternal obligation to the now defunct race of the ,greeks4 ,i refer of course to ,aristotle1 the wonder-child from ,stagira1 the man who in his day and age knew everything that was to be known and added so much to the sum total of human knowledge that his books became an intellectual quarry from which fifty successive generations of ,europeans and ,asiatics were able to steal to their hearts' content without exhausting that rich vein of pure learning4 ,at the age of eighteen1 ,aristotle had left his native village in ,macedonia to go to ,athens and follow the lectures in ,plato's university4 ,after his graduation he lectured in a number of places until the year #ccf when he returned to ,athens and opened a school of his own in a garden near the temple of ,apollo ,lyceus1 which became known as the ,lyceum and soon attracted pupils from all over the world4 ,strangely enough1 the ,athenians were not at all in favor of increasing the number of academies within their walls4 ,the town was at last beginning to lose its old commercial importance and all of her more energetic citizens were moving to ,alexandria and to ,marseilles and other cities of the south and the west4 ,those who remained behind were either too poor or too indolent to escape4 ,they were the hide-bound remnant of those old1 turbulent masses of free citizens1 who had been at once the glory and the ruin of the long-suffering ,republic4 ,they had regarded the 8goings on0 in ,plato's orchard with small favor4 ,when a dozen years after his death1 his most notorious pupil came back and openly taught still more outrageous doctrines about the beginning of the world and the limited ability of the ,gods1 the old fogies shook their solemn heads and mumbled dark threats against the man who was making their city a by-word for free thinking and unbelief4 ,if they had had their own way1 they would have forced him to leave their country4 ,but they wisely kept these opinions to themselves4 ,for this short-sighted1 stoutish gentleman1 famous for his good taste in books and in clothes1 was no negligible quantity in the political life of that day1 no obscure little professor who could be driven out of town by a couple of hired toughs4 ,he was no one less than the son of a ,macedonian court-physician and he had been brought up with the royal princes4 ,and furthermore1 as soon as he had finished his studies1 he had been appointed tutor to the crown prince and for eight years he had been the daily companion of young ,alexander4 ,hence he enjoyed the friendship and the protection of the most powerful ruler the world had ever seen and the regent who administered the ,greek provinces during the monarch's absence on the ,indian front watched carefully lest harm should befall one who had been the boon companion of his imperial master4 ,no sooner1 however1 had news of ,alexander's death reached ,athens than ,aristotle's life was in peril4 ,he remembered what had happened to ,socrates and felt no desire to suffer a similar fate4 ,like ,plato1 he had carefully avoided mixing philosophy with practical politics4 ,but his distaste for the democratic form of government and his lack of belief in the sovereign abilities of the common people were known to all4 ,and when the ,athenians1 in a sudden outburst of fury1 expelled the ,macedonian garrison1 ,aristotle moved across the ,euboean ,sound and went to live in ,calchis1 where he died a few months before ,athens was reconquered by the ,macedonians and was duly punished for her disobedience4 ,at this far distance it is not easy to discover upon what positive grounds ,aristotle was accused of impiety4 ,but as usual in that nation of amateur orators1 his case was inextricably mixed up with politics and his unpopularity was due to his disregard of the prejudices of a few local ward-bosses1 rather than to the expression of any startlingly new heresies1 which might have exposed ,athens to the vengeance of ,zeus4 ,nor does it matter very much4 ,the days of the small independent republics were numbered4 ,soon afterwards1 the ,romans fell heir to the ,european heritage of ,alexander and ,greece became one of their many provinces4 ,then there was an end to all further bickering1 for the ,romans in most matters were even more tolerant than the ,greeks of the ,golden ,age had been and they permitted their subjects to think as they pleased1 provided they did not question certain principles of political expediency upon which the peace and prosperity of the ,roman state had1 since time immemorial1 been safely builded4 ,all the same there existed a subtle difference between the ideals which animated the contemporaries of ,cicero and those which had been held sacred by the followers of such a man as ,pericles4 ,the old leaders of ,greek thought had based their tolerance upon certain definite conclusions which they had reached after centuries of careful experiment and meditation4 ,the ,romans felt that they could do without the preliminary study4 ,they were merely indifferent1 and were proud of the fact4 ,they were interested in practical things4 ,they were men of action and had a deep-seated contempt for words4 ,if other people wished to spend their afternoons underneath an old olive tree1 discussing the theoretical aspects of government or the influence of the moon upon the tides1 they were more than welcome to do so4 ,if furthermore their knowledge could be turned to some practical use1 then it was worthy of further attention4 ,otherwise1 together with singing and dancing and cooking1 sculpture and science1 this business of philosophizing had better be left to the ,greeks and to the other foreigners whom ,jupiter in his mercy had created to provide the world with those things which were unworthy of a true ,roman's attention4 ,meanwhile they themselves would devote their attention to the administration of their ever increasing domains2 they would drill the necessary companies of foreign infantry and cavalry to protect their outlying provinces2 they would survey the roads that were to connect ,spain with ,bulgaria2 and generally they would devote their energies to the keeping of the peace between half a thousand different tribes and nations4 ,let us give honor where honor is due4 ,the ,romans did their job so thoroughly that they erected a structure which under one form or another has survived until our own time1 and that in itself is no mean accomplishment4 ,as long as the necessary taxes were paid and a certain outward homage was paid to the few rules of conduct laid down by their ,roman masters1 the subject-tribes enjoyed a very large degree of liberty4 ,they could believe or disbelieve whatever they pleased4 ,they could worship one ,god or a dozen ,gods or whole temples full of ,gods4 ,it made no difference4 ,but whatever religion they chose to profess1 these strangely assorted members of a world-encircling empire were forever reminded that the 8pax ,romana0 depended for its success upon a liberal application of the principle of 8live and let live40 ,they must under no condition interfere either with their own neighbors or with the strangers within their gates4 ,and if perchance they thought that their ,gods had been insulted1 they must not rush to the magistrate for relief4 8,for10 as the ,emperor ,tiberius remarked upon one memorable occasion1 8if the ,gods think that they have just claims for grievance1 they can surely take care of themselves40 ,and with such scant words of consolation1 all similar cases were instantly dismissed and people were requested to keep their private opinions out of the courts4 ,if a number of ,cappadocian traders decided to settle down among the ,colossians1 they had a right to bring their own ,gods with them and erect a temple of their own in the town of ,colossae4 ,but if the ,colossians should for similar reasons move into the land of the ,cappadocians1 they must be granted the same privileges and must be given an equal freedom of worship4 ,it has often been argued that the ,romans could permit themselves the luxury of such a superior and tolerant attitude because they felt an equal contempt for both the ,colossians and the ,cappadocians and all the other savage tribes who dwelled outside of ,latium4 ,that may have been true4 ,i don't know4 ,but the fact remains that for half a thousand years1 a form of almost complete religious tolerance was strictly maintained within the greater part of civilized and semi-civilized ,europe1 ,asia and ,africa and that the ,romans developed a technique of statecraft which produced a maximum of practical results together with a minimum of friction4 ,to many people it seemed that the millennium had been achieved and that this condition of mutual forbearance would last forever4 ,but nothing lasts forever4 ,least of all1 an empire built upon force4 ,rome had conquered the world1 but in the effort she had destroyed herself4 ,the bones of her young soldiers lay bleaching on a thousand battlefields4 ,for almost five centuries the brains of her most intelligent citizens had wasted themselves upon the gigantic task of administering a colonial empire that stretched from the ,irish ,sea to the ,caspian4 ,at last the reaction set in4 ,both the body and the mind of ,rome had been exhausted by the impossible task of a single city ruling an entire world4 ,and then a terrible thing happened4 ,a whole people grew tired of life and lost the zest for living4 ,they had come to own all the country-houses1 all the town-houses1 all the yachts and all the stage-coaches they could ever hope to use4 ,they found themselves possessed of all the slaves in the world4 ,they had eaten everything1 they had seen everything1 they had heard everything4 ,they had tried the taste of every drink1 they had been everywhere1 they had made love to all the women from ,barcelona to ,thebes4 ,all the books that had ever been written were in their libraries4 ,the best pictures that had ever been painted hung on their walls4 ,the cleverest musicians of the entire world had entertained them at their meals4 ,and1 as children1 they had been instructed by the best professors and pedagogues who had taught them everything there was to be taught4 ,as a result1 all food and drink had lost its taste1 all books had grown dull1 all women had become uninteresting1 and existence itself had developed into a burden which a good many people were willing to drop at the first respectable opportunity4 ,there remained only one consolation1 the contemplation of the ,unknown and the ,invisible4 ,the old ,gods1 however1 had died years before4 ,no intelligent ,roman any longer took stock in the silly nursery rhymes about ,jupiter and ,minerva4 ,there were the philosophic systems of the ,epicureans and the ,stoics and the ,cynics1 all of whom preached charity and self-denial and the virtues of an unselfish and useful life4 ,but they were so empty4 ,they sounded well enough in the books of ,zeno and ,epicurus and ,epictetus and ,plutarch1 which were to be found in every cornerstore library4 ,but in the long run1 this diet of pure reason was found to lack the necessary nourishing qualities4 ,the ,romans began to clamor for a certain amount of 8emotion0 with their spiritual meals4 ,hence the purely philosophical 8religions0 7for such they really were1 if we associate the idea of religion with a desire to lead useful and noble lives7 could only appeal to a very small number of people1 and almost all of those belonged to the upper classes who had enjoyed the advantages of private instruction at the hands of competent ,greek teachers4 ,to the mass of the people1 these finely-spun philosophies meant less than nothing at all4 ,they too had reached a point of development at which a good deal of the ancient mythology seemed the childish invention of rude and credulous ancestors4 ,but they could not possibly go as far as their so-called intellectual superiors and deny the existence of any and all personal ,gods4 ,wherefore they did what all half-educated people do under such circumstances4 ,they paid a formal and outward tribute of respect to the official ,gods of the ,republic and then betook themselves for real comfort and happiness to one of the many mystery religions which during the last two centuries had found a most cordial welcome in the ancient city on the banks of the ,tiber4 ,the word 8mystery0 which ,i have used before was of ,greek origin4 ,it originally meant a gathering of 8initiated people0--of men and women whose 8mouth had been shut0 against the betrayal of those most holy secrets which only the true members of the mystery were supposed to know and which bound them together like the hocus pocus of a college fraternity or the cabalistic incantations of the ,independent ,order of ,sea-,mice4 ,during the first century of our era1 however1 a mystery was nothing more nor less than a special form of worship1 a denomination1 a church4 ,if a ,greek or a ,roman 7if you will pardon a little juggling with time7 had left the ,presbyterian church for the ,christian ,science church1 he would have told his neighbors that he had gone to 8another mystery40 ,for the word 8church10 the 8kirk10 the 8house of the ,lord10 is of comparatively recent origin and was not known in those days4 ,if you happen to be especially interested in the subject and wish to understand what was happening in ,rome1 buy a ,new ,york paper next ,saturday4 ,almost any paper will do4 ,therein you will find four or five columns of announcements about new creeds1 about new mysteries1 imported from ,india and ,persia and ,sweden and ,china and a dozen other countries and all of them offering special promises of health and riches and salvation everlasting4 ,rome1 which so closely resembled our own metropolis1 was just as full of imported and domestic religions4 ,the international nature of the city had made this unavoidable4 ,from the vine-covered mountain slopes of northern ,asia ,minor had come the cult of ,cybele1 whom the ,phrygians revered as the mother of the ,gods and whose worship was connected with such unseemly outbreaks of emotional hilarity that the ,roman police had repeatedly been forced to close the ,cybelian temples and had at last passed very drastic laws against the further propaganda of a faith which encouraged public drunkenness and many other things that were even worse4 ,egypt1 the old land of paradox and secrecy1 had contributed half a dozen strange divinities and the names of ,osiris1 ,serapis and ,isis had become as familiar to ,roman ears as those of ,apollo1 ,demeter and ,hermes4 ,as for the ,greeks1 who centuries before had given unto the world a primary system of abstract truth and a practical code of conduct1 based upon virtue1 they now supplied the people of foreign lands who insisted upon images and incense with the far-famed 8mysteries0 of ,attis and ,dionysus and ,orpheus and ,adonis1 none of them entirely above suspicion as far as public morals were concerned1 but nevertheless enjoying immense popularity4 ,the ,phoenician traders1 who for a thousand years had frequented the shores of ,italy1 had made the ,romans familiar with their great ,god ,baal 7the arch-enemy of ,jehovah7 and with ,astarte his wife1 that strange creature to whom ,solomon in his old age and to the great horror of all his faithful subjects had built a 8high place0 in the very heart of ,jerusalem2 the terrible ,goddess who had been recognized as the official protector of the city of ,carthage during her long struggle for the supremacy of the ,mediterranean and who finally after the destruction of all her temples in ,asia and ,africa was to return to ,europe in the shape of a most respectable and demure ,christian saint4 ,but the most important of all1 because highly popular among the soldiers of the army1 was a deity whose broken images can still be found underneath every rubbish pile that marks the ,roman frontier from the mouth of the ,rhine to the source of the ,tigris4 ,this was the great ,god ,mithras4 ,mithras1 as far as we know1 was the old ,asiatic ,god of ,light and ,air and ,truth1 and he had been worshiped in the plains of the ,caspian lowlands when our first ancestors took possession of those wonderful grazing fields and made ready to settle those valleys and hills which afterwards became known as ,europe4 ,to them he had been the giver of all good things and they believed that the rulers of this earth exercised their power only by the grace of his mighty will4 ,hence1 as a token of his divine favor1 he sometimes bestowed upon those called to high offices a bit of that celestial fire by which he himself was forever surrounded1 and although he is gone and his name has been forgotten1 the kindly saints of the ,middle ,ages1 with their halo of light1 remind us of an ancient tradition which was started thousands of years before the ,church was ever dreamed of4 ,but although he was held in great reverence for an incredibly long time1 it has been very difficult to reconstruct his life with any degree of accuracy4 ,there was a good reason for this4 ,the early ,christian missionaries abhorred the ,mithras myth with a hatred infinitely more bitter than that reserved for the common1 every day mysteries4 ,in their heart of hearts they knew that the ,indian ,god was their most serious rival4 ,hence they tried as hard as possible to remove everything that might possibly remind people of his existence4 ,in this task they succeeded so well that all ,mithras temples have disappeared and that not a scrap of written evidence remains about a religion which for more than half a thousand years was as popular in ,rome as ,methodism or ,presbyterianism is in the ,united ,states of today4 ,however with the help of a few ,asiatic sources and by a careful perusal of certain ruins which could not be entirely destroyed in the days before the invention of dynamite1 we have been able to overcome this initial handicap and now possess a fairly accurate idea about this interesting ,god and the things for which he stood4 ,ages and ages ago1 so the story ran1 ,mithras was mysteriously born of a rock4 ,as soon as he lay in his cradle1 several nearby shepherds came to worship him and make him happy with their gifts4 ,as a boy1 ,mithras had met with all sorts of strange adventures4 ,many of these remind us closely of the deeds which had made ,hercules such a popular hero with the children of the ,greeks4 ,but whereas ,hercules was often very cruel1 ,mithras was forever doing good4 ,once he had engaged in a wrestling match with the sun and had beaten him4 ,but he was so generous in his victory1 that the sun and he had become like brothers1 and were often mistaken for each other4 ,when the ,god of all evil had sent a drought which threatened to kill the race of man1 ,mithras had struck a rock with his arrow1 and behold6 plentiful water had gushed forth upon the parched fields4 ,when ,ahriman 7for that was the name of the arch-enemy7 had thereupon tried to achieve his wicked purpose by a terrible flood1 ,mithras had heard of it1 had warned one man1 had told him to build a big boat and load it with his relatives and his flocks and in this way had saved the human race from destruction4 ,until finally1 having done all he could to save the world from the consequences of its own follies1 he had been taken to ,heaven to rule the just and righteous for all time4 ,those who wished to join the ,mithras cult were obliged to go through an elaborate form of initiation and were forced to eat a ceremonious meal of bread and wine in memory of the famous supper eaten by ,mithras and his friend the ,sun4 ,furthermore1 they were obliged to accept baptism in a font of water and do many other things which have no special interest to us1 as that form of religion was completely exterminated more than fifteen hundred years ago4 ,once inside the fold1 the faithful were all treated upon a footing of absolute equality4 ,together they prayed before the same candle-lit altars4 ,together they chanted the same holy hymns and together they took part in the festivities which were held each year on the twenty-fifth of ,december to celebrate the birth of ,mithras4 ,furthermore they abstained from all work on the first day of the week1 which even today is called ,sun-day in honor of the great ,god4 ,and finally when they died1 they were laid away in patient rows to await the day of resurrection when the good should enter into their just reward and the wicked should be cast into the fire everlasting4 ,the success of these different mysteries1 the widespread influence of ,mithraism among the ,roman soldiers1 points to a condition far removed from religious indifference4 ,indeed the early centuries of the empire were a period of restless search after something that should satisfy the emotional needs of the masses4 ,but early in the year #dg of our own era something happened4 ,a small vessel left ,phoenicia for the city of ,perga1 the starting point for the overland route to ,europe4 ,among the passengers were two men not overburdened with luggage4 ,their names were ,paul and ,barnabas4 ,they were ,jews1 but one of them carried a ,roman passport and was well versed in the wisdom of the ,gentile world4 ,it was the beginning of a memorable voyage4 ,christianity had set out to conquer the world4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,beginning ,,of ,,restraint ,the rapid conquest of the western world by the ,church is sometimes used as proof definite that the ,christian ideas must have been of divine origin4 ,it is not my business to debate this point1 but ,i would suggest that the villainous conditions under which the majority of the ,romans were forced to live had as much to do with the success of the earliest missionaries as the sound common sense of their message4 ,thus far ,i have shown you one side of the ,roman picture--the world of the soldiers and statesmen and rich manufacturers and scientists1 fortunate folks who lived in delightful and enlightened ease on the slopes of the ,lateran ,hill or among the valleys and hills of the ,campania or somewhere along the bay of ,naples4 ,but they were only part of the story4 ,amidst the teeming slums of the suburbs there was little enough evidence of that plentiful prosperity which made the poets rave about the ,millennium and inspired orators to compare ,octavian to ,jupiter4 ,there1 in the endless and dreary rows of overcrowded and reeking tenement houses lived those vast multitudes to whom life was merely an uninterrupted sensation of hunger1 sweat and pain4 ,to those men and women1 the wonderful tale of a simple carpenter in a little village beyond the sea1 who had gained his daily bread by the labor of his own hands1 who had loved the poor and downtrodden and who therefore had been killed by his cruel and rapacious enemies1 meant something very real and tangible4 ,yes1 they had all of them heard of ,mithras and ,isis and ,astarte4 ,but these ,gods were dead1 and they had died hundreds and thousands of years ago and what people knew about them they only knew by hearsay from other people who had also died hundreds and thousands of years ago4 ,joshua of ,nazareth1 on the other hand1 the ,christ1 the anointed1 as the ,greek missionaries called him1 had been on this earth only a short time ago4 ,many a man then alive might have known him1 might have listened to him1 if by chance he had visited southern ,syria during the reign of the ,emperor ,tiberius4 ,and there were others1 the baker on the corner1 the fruit peddler from the next street1 who in a little dark garden on the ,appian ,way had spoken with a certain ,peter1 a fisherman from the village of ,capernaum1 who had actually been near the mountain of ,golgotha on that terrible afternoon when the ,prophet had been nailed to the cross by the soldiers of the ,roman governor4 ,we should remember this when we try to understand the sudden popular appeal of this new faith4 ,it was that personal touch1 that direct and personal feeling of intimacy and near-by-ness which gave ,christianity such a tremendous advantage over all other creeds4 ,that and the love which ,jesus had so incessantly expressed for the submerged and disinherited among all nations and which radiated from everything he had said4 ,whether he had put it into the exact terms used by his followers was of very slight importance4 ,the slaves had ears to hear and they understood4 ,and trembling before the high promise of a glorious future1 they for the first time in their lives beheld the rays of a new hope4 ,at last the words had been spoken that were to set them free4 ,no longer were they poor and despised1 an evil thing in the sight of the great of this world4 ,on the contrary1 they were the predilected children of a loving ,father4 ,they were to inherit the earth and the fullness thereof4 ,they were to partake of joys withheld from many of those proud masters who even then dwelled behind the high walls of their ,samnian villas4 ,for that constituted the strength of the new faith4 ,christianity was the first concrete religious system which gave the average man a chance4 ,of course ,i am now talking of ,christianity as an experience of the soul--as a mode of living and thinking--and ,i have tried to explain how1 in a world full of the dry-rot of slavery1 the good tidings must spread with the speed and fury of an emotional prairie fire4 ,but history1 except upon rare occasions1 does not concern itself with the spiritual adventures of private citizens1 be they free or in bondage4 ,when these humble creatures have been neatly organized into nations1 guilds1 churches1 armies1 brotherhoods and federations2 when they have begun to obey a single directing head2 when they have accumulated sufficient wealth to pay taxes and can be forced into armies for the purpose of national conquest1 then at last they begin to attract the attention of our chroniclers and are given serious attention4 ,hence we know a great deal about the early ,church1 but exceedingly little about the people who were the true founders of that institution4 ,that is rather a pity1 for the early development of ,christianity is one of the most interesting episodes in all history4 ,the ,church which finally was built upon the ruins of the ancient empire was really a combination of two conflicting interests4 ,on the one side it stood forth as the champion of those all-embracing ideals of love and charity which the ,master himself had taught4 ,but on the other side it found itself ineradicably bound up with that arid spirit of provincialism which since the beginning of time had set the compatriots of ,jesus apart from the rest of the world4 ,in plain language1 it combined ,roman efficiency with ,judaean intolerance and as a result it established a reign of terror over the minds of men which was as efficient as it was illogical4 ,to understand how this could have happened1 we must go back once more to the days of ,paul and to the first fifty years after the death of ,christ1 and we must firmly grasp the fact that ,christianity had begun as a reform movement within the bosom of the ,jewish church and had been a purely nationalistic movement which in the beginning had threatened the rulers of the ,jewish state and no one else4 ,the ,pharisees who had happened to be in power when ,jesus lived had understood this only too clearly4 ,quite naturally they had feared the ultimate consequences of an agitation which boldly threatened to question a spiritual monopoly which was based upon nothing more substantial than brute force4 ,to save themselves from being wiped out they had been forced to act in a spirit of panic and had sent their enemy to the gallows before the ,roman authorities had had time to intervene and deprive them of their victim4 ,what ,jesus would have done had he lived it is impossible to say4 ,he was killed long before he was able to organize his disciples into a special sect nor did he leave a single word of writing from which his followers could conclude what he wanted them to do4 ,in the end1 however1 this had proved to be a blessing in disguise4 ,the absence of a written set of rules1 of a definite collection of ordinances and regulations1 had left the disciples free to follow the spirit of their master's words rather than the letter of his law4 ,had they been bound by a book1 they would very likely have devoted all their energies to a theological discussion upon the ever enticing subject of commas and semi-colons4 ,in that case1 of course1 no one outside of a few professional scholars could have possibly shown the slightest interest in the new faith and ,christianity would have gone the way of so many other sects which begin with elaborate written programs and end when the police are called upon to throw the haggling theologians into the street4 ,at the distance of almost twenty centuries1 when we realize what tremendous damage ,christianity did to the ,roman ,empire1 it is a matter of surprise that the authorities took practically no steps to quell a movement which was fully as dangerous to the safety of the state as an invasion by ,huns or ,goths4 ,they knew of course that the fate of this eastern prophet had caused great excitement among their house slaves1 that the women were forever telling each other about the imminent reappearance of the ,king of ,heaven1 and that quite a number of old men had solemnly predicted the impending destruction of this world by a ball of fire4 ,but it was not the first time that the poorer classes had gone into hysterics about some new religious hero4 ,most likely it would not be the last time1 either4 ,meanwhile the police would see to it that these poor1 frenzied fanatics did not disturb the peace of the realm4 ,and that was that4 ,the police did watch out1 but found little occasion to act4 ,the followers of the new mystery went about their business in a most exemplary fashion4 ,they did not try to overthrow the government4 ,at first1 several slaves had expected that the common fatherhood of ,god and the common brotherhood of man would imply a cessation of the old relation between master and servant4 ,the apostle ,paul1 however1 had hastened to explain that the ,kingdom of which he spoke was an invisible and intangible kingdom of the soul and that people on this earth had better take things as they found them1 in expectation of the final reward which awaited them in ,heaven4 ,similarly1 a good many wives1 chafing at the bondage of matrimony as established by the harsh laws of ,rome1 had rushed to the conclusion that ,christianity was synonymous with emancipation and full equality of rights between men and women4 ,but again ,paul had stepped forward and in a number of tactful letters had implored his beloved sisters to refrain from all those extremes which would make their church suspect in the eyes of the more conservative pagans and had persuaded them to continue in that state of semi-slavery which had been woman's share ever since ,adam and ,eve had been driven out of ,paradise4 ,all this showed a most commendable respect for the law and as far as the authorities were concerned1 the ,christian missionaries could therefore come and go at will and preach as best suited their own individual tastes and preferences4 ,but as has happened so often in history1 the masses had shown themselves less tolerant than their rulers4 ,just because people are poor it does not necessarily follow that they are high-minded citizens who could be prosperous and happy if their conscience would only permit them to make those compromises which are held to be necessary for the accumulation of wealth4 ,and the ,roman proletariat1 since centuries debauched by free meals and free prize-fights1 was no exception to this rule4 ,at first it derived a great deal of rough pleasure from those sober-faced groups of men and women who with rapt attention listened to the weird stories about a ,god who had ignominiously died on a cross1 like any other common criminal1 and who made it their business to utter loud prayers for the hoodlums who pelted their gatherings with stones and dirt4 ,the ,roman priests1 however1 were not able to take such a detached view of this new development4 ,the religion of the empire was a state religion4 ,it consisted of certain solemn sacrifices made upon certain specified occasions and paid for in cash4 ,this money went toward the support of the church officers4 ,when thousands of people began to desert the old shrines and went to another church which did not charge them anything at all1 the priests were faced by a very serious reduction in their salary4 ,this of course did not please them at all1 and soon they were loud in their abuse of the godless heretics who turned their backs upon the ,gods of their fathers and burned incense to the memory of a foreign prophet4 ,but there was another class of people in the city who had even better reason to hate the ,christians4 ,those were the fakirs1 who as ,indian ,yogis and ,pooughies and hierophants of the great and only mysteries of ,isis and ,ishtar and ,baal and ,cybele and ,attis had for years made a fat and easy living at the expense of the credulous ,roman middle classes4 ,if the ,christians had set up a rival establishment and had charged a handsome price for their own particular revelations1 the guild of spook-doctors and palmists and necromancers would have had no reason for complaint4 ,business was business and the soothsaying fraternity did not mind if a bit of their trade went elsewhere4 ,but these ,christians--a plague upon their silly notions6--refused to take any reward4 ,yea1 they even gave away what they had1 fed the hungry and shared their own roof with the homeless4 ,and all that for nothing6 ,surely that was going too far and they never could have done this unless they were possessed of certain hidden sources of revenue1 the origin of which no one thus far had been able to discover4 ,rome by this time was no longer a city of free-born burghers4 ,it was the temporary dwelling place of hundreds of thousands of disinherited peasants from all parts of the empire4 ,such a mob1 obeying the mysterious laws that rule the behavior of crowds1 is always ready to hate those who behave differently from themselves and to suspect those who for no apparent reason prefer to live a life of decency and restraint4 ,the hail-fellow-well-met who will take a drink and 7occasionally7 will pay for one is a fine neighbor and a good fellow4 ,but the man who holds himself aloof and refuses to go to the wild-animal show in the ,coliseum1 who does not cheer when batches of prisoners of war are being dragged through the streets of the ,capitoline ,hill1 is a spoil-sport and an enemy of the community at large4 ,when in the year #fd a great conflagration destroyed that part of ,rome inhabited by the poorer classes1 the scene was set for the first organized attacks upon the ,christians4 ,at first it was rumored that the ,emperor ,nero1 in a fit of drunken conceit1 had ordered his capital to be set on fire that he might get rid of the slums and rebuild the city according to his own plans4 ,the crowd1 however1 knew better4 ,it was the fault of those ,jews and ,christians who were forever telling each other about the happy day when large balls of fire would descend from ,heaven and the homes of the wicked would go up in flames4 ,once this story had been successfully started1 others followed in rapid succession4 ,one old woman had heard the ,christians talk with the dead4 ,another knew that they stole little children and cut their throats and smeared their blood upon the altar of their outlandish ,god4 ,of course1 no one had ever been able to detect them at any of these scandalous practices1 but that was only because they were so terribly clever and had bribed the police4 ,but now at last they had been caught red-handed and they would be made to suffer for their vile deeds4 ,of the number of faithful who were lynched upon this occasion1 we know nothing4 ,paul and ,peter1 so it seems1 were among the victims for thereafter their names are never heard again4 ,that this terrible outbreak of popular folly accomplished nothing1 it is needless to state4 ,the noble dignity with which the martyrs accepted their fate was the best possible propaganda for the new ideas and for every ,christian who perished1 there were a dozen pagans1 ready and eager to take his place4 ,as soon as ,nero had committed the only decent act of his short and useless life 7he killed himself in the year #fh71 the ,christians returned to their old haunts and everything was as it had been before4 ,by this time the ,roman authorities were making a great discovery4 ,they began to suspect that a ,christian was not exactly the same thing as a ,jew4 ,we can hardly blame them for having committed this error4 ,the historical researches of the last hundred years have made it increasingly clear that the ,synagogue was the clearing-house through which the new faith was passed on to the rest of the world4 ,remember that ,jesus himself was a ,jew and that he had always been most careful in observing the ancient laws of his fathers and that he had addressed himself almost exclusively to ,jewish audiences4 ,once1 and then only for a short time1 had he left his native country1 but the task which he had set himself he had accomplished with and by and for his fellow-,jews4 ,nor was there anything in what he had ever said which could have given the average ,roman the impression that there was a deliberate difference between ,christianity and ,judaism4 ,what ,jesus had actually tried to do was this4 ,he had clearly seen the terrible abuses which had entered the church of his fathers4 ,he had loudly and sometimes successfully protested against them4 ,but he had fought his battles for reform from within4 ,never apparently had it dawned upon him that he might be the founder of a new religion4 ,if some one had mentioned the possibility of such a thing to him1 he would have rejected the idea as preposterous4 ,but like many a reformer before his day and after1 he had gradually been forced into a position where compromise was no longer possible4 ,his untimely death alone had saved him from a fate like that of ,luther and so many other advocates of reform1 who were deeply perplexed when they suddenly found themselves at the head of a brand new party 8outside0 the organization to which they belonged1 whereas they were merely trying to do some good from the 8inside40 ,for many years after the death of ,jesus1 ,christianity 7to use the name long before it had been coined7 was the religion of a small ,jewish sect which had a few adherents in ,jerusalem and in the villages of ,judaea and ,galilee and which had never been heard of outside of the province of ,syria4 ,it was ,gaius ,julius ,paulus1 a full-fledged ,roman citizen of ,jewish descent1 who had first recognized the possibilities of the new doctrine as a religion for all the world4 ,the story of his suffering tells us how bitterly the ,jewish ,christians had been opposed to the idea of a universal religion instead of a purely national denomination1 membership to which should only be open to people of their own race4 ,they had hated the man who dared preach salvation to ,jews and ,gentiles alike so bitterly that on his last visit to ,jerusalem ,paul would undoubtedly have suffered the fate of ,jesus if his ,roman passport had not saved him from the fury of his enraged compatriots4 ,but it had been necessary for half a battalion of ,roman soldiers to protect him and conduct him safely to the coastal town from where he could be shipped to ,rome for that famous trial which never took place4 ,a few years after his death1 that which he had so often feared during his lifetime and which he had repeatedly foretold actually occurred4 ,jerusalem was destroyed by the ,romans4 ,on the place of the temple of ,jehovah a new temple was erected in honor of ,jupiter4 ,the name of the city was changed to ,aelia ,capitolina and ,judaea itself had become part of the ,roman province of ,syria ,palaestina4 ,as for the inhabitants1 they were either killed or driven into exile and no one was allowed to live within several miles of the ruins on pain of death4 ,it was the final destruction of their holy city which had been so disastrous to the ,jewish-,christians4 ,during several centuries afterwards1 in the little villages of the ,judaean hinterland colonies might have been found of strange people who called themselves 8poor men0 and who waited with great patience and amidst everlasting prayers for the end of the world which was at hand4 ,they were the remnants of the old ,jewish-,christian community in ,jerusalem4 ,from time to time we hear them mentioned in books written during the fifth and sixth centuries4 ,far away from civilization1 they developed certain strange doctrines of their own in which hatred for the apostle ,paul took a prominent place4 ,after the seventh century however we no longer find any trace of these so-called ,nazarenes and ,ebionites4 ,the victorious ,mohammedans had killed them all4 ,and1 anyway1 if they had managed to exist a few hundred years longer1 they would not have been able to avert the inevitable4 ,rome1 by bringing east and west and north and south into one large political union1 had made the world ready for the idea of a universal religion4 ,christianity1 because it was both simple and practical and full of a direct appeal1 was predestined to succeed where ,judaism and ,mithraism and all of the other competing creeds were predestined to fail4 ,but1 unfortunately1 the new faith never quite rid itself of certain rather unpleasant characteristics which only too clearly betrayed its origin4 ,the little ship which had brought ,paul and ,barnabas from ,asia to ,europe had carried a message of hope and mercy4 ,but a third passenger had smuggled himself on board4 ,he wore a mask of holiness and virtue4 ,but the face beneath bore the stamp of cruelty and hatred4 ,and his name was ,religious ,intolerance4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,the ,,twilight ,,of ,,the ,,gods ,the early church was a very simple organization4 ,as soon as it became apparent that the end of the world was not at hand1 that the death of ,jesus was not to be followed immediately by the last judgment and that the ,christians might expect to dwell in this vale of tears for a good long time1 the need was felt for a more or less definite form of government4 ,originally the ,christians 7since all of them were ,jews7 had come together in the synagogue4 ,when the rift had occurred between the ,jews and the ,gentiles1 the latter had betaken themselves to a room in some one's house and if none could be found big enough to hold all the faithful 7and the curious7 they had met out in the open or in a deserted stone quarry4 ,at first these gatherings had taken place on the ,sabbath1 but when bad feeling between the ,jewish ,christians and the ,gentile ,christians increased1 the latter began to drop the habit of keeping the ,sabbath-day and preferred to meet on ,sunday1 the day on which the resurrection had taken place4 ,these solemn celebrations1 however1 had borne witness to the popular as well as to the emotional character of the entire movement4 ,there were no set speeches or sermons4 ,there were no preachers4 ,both men and women1 whenever they felt themselves inspired by the ,holy ,fire1 had risen up in meeting to give evidence of the faith that was in them4 ,sometimes1 if we are to trust the letters of ,paul1 these devout brethren1 8speaking with tongues10 had filled the heart of the great apostle with apprehension for the future4 ,for most of them were simple folk without much education4 ,no one doubted the sincerity of their impromptu exhortations but very often they got so excited that they raved like maniacs and while a church may survive persecution1 it is helpless against ridicule4 ,hence the efforts of ,paul and ,peter and their successors to bring some semblance of order into this chaos of spiritual divulgation and divine enthusiasm4 ,at first these efforts met with little success4 ,a regular program seemed in direct contradiction to the democratic nature of the ,christian faith4 ,in the end1 however1 practical considerations supervened and the meetings became subject to a definite ritual4 ,they began with the reading of one of the ,psalms 7to placate the ,jewish ,christians who might be present74 ,then the congregation united in a song of praise of more recent composition for the benefit of the ,roman and the ,greek worshipers4 ,the only prescribed form of oration was the famous prayer in which ,jesus had summed up his entire philosophy of life4 ,the preaching1 however1 for several centuries remained entirely spontaneous and the sermons were delivered only by those who felt that they had something to say4 ,but when the number of those gatherings increased1 when the police1 forever on the guard against secret societies1 began to make inquiries1 it was necessary that certain men be elected to represent the ,christians in their dealings with the rest of the world4 ,already ,paul had spoken highly of the gift of leadership4 ,he had compared the little communities which he visited in ,asia and ,greece to so many tiny vessels which were tossed upon a turbulent sea and were very much in need of a clever pilot if they were to survive the fury of the angry ocean4 ,and so the faithful came together once more and elected deacons and deaconesses1 pious men and women who were the 8servants0 of the community1 who took care of the sick and the poor 7an object of great concern to the early ,christians7 and who looked after the property of the community and took care of all the small daily chores4 ,still later when the church continued to grow in membership and the business of administration had become too intricate for mere amateurs1 it was entrusted to a small group of 8elders40 ,these were known by their ,greek name of ,presbyters and hence our word 8priest40 ,after a number of years1 when every village or city possessed a ,christian church of its own1 the need was felt for a common policy4 ,then an 8overseer0 7an ,episkopos or ,bishop7 was elected to superintend an entire district and direct its dealings with the ,roman government4 ,soon there were bishops in all the principal towns of the empire1 and those in ,antioch and ,constantinople and ,jerusalem and ,carthage and ,rome and ,alexandria and ,athens were reputed to be very powerful gentlemen who were almost as important as the civil and military governors of their provinces4 ,in the beginning of course the bishop who presided over that part of the world where ,jesus had lived and suffered and died enjoyed the greatest respect4 ,but after ,jerusalem had been destroyed and the generation which had expected the end of the world and the triumph of ,zion had disappeared from the face of the earth1 the poor old bishop in his ruined palace saw himself deprived of his former prestige4 ,and quite naturally his place as leader of the faithful was taken by the 8overseer0 who lived in the capital of the civilized world and who guarded the sites where ,peter and ,paul1 the great apostles of the west1 had suffered their martyrdom--the ,bishop of ,rome4 ,this bishop1 like all others1 was known as ,father or ,papa1 the common expression of love and respect bestowed upon members of the clergy4 ,in the course of centuries1 the title of ,papa however became almost exclusively associated in people's minds with the particular 8,father0 who was the head of the metropolitan diocese4 ,when they spoke of the ,papa or ,pope they meant just one ,father1 the ,bishop of ,rome1 and not by any chance the ,bishop of ,constantinople or the ,bishop of ,carthage4 ,this was an entirely normal development4 ,when we read in our newspaper about 8the ,president0 it is not necessary to add 8of the ,united ,states40 ,we know that the head of our government is meant and not the ,president of the ,pennsylvania ,railroad or the ,president of ,harvard ,university or the ,president of the ,league of ,nations4 ,the first time the name occurred officially in a document was in the year #beh4 ,at that time ,rome was still the capital of a highly successful empire and the power of the bishops was entirely overshadowed by that of the emperors4 ,but during the next three hundred years1 under the constant menace of both foreign and domestic invasions1 the successors of ,caesar began to look for a new home that would offer them greater safety4 ,this they found in a city in a different part of their domains4 ,it was called ,byzantium1 after a mythical hero by the name of ,byzas who was said to have landed there shortly after the ,trojan war4 ,situated on the straits which separated ,europe from ,asia and dominating the trade route between the ,black ,sea and the ,mediterranean1 it controlled several important monopolies and was of such great commercial importance that already ,sparta and ,athens had fought for the possession of this rich fortress4 ,byzantium1 however1 had held its own until the days of ,alexander and after having been for a short while part of ,macedonia it had finally been incorporated into the ,roman ,empire4 ,and now1 after ten centuries of increasing prosperity1 its ,golden ,horn filled with the ships from a hundred nations1 it was chosen to become the center of the empire4 ,the people of ,rome1 left to the mercy of ,visigoths and ,vandals and ,heaven knows what other sort of barbarians1 felt that the end of the world had come when the imperial palaces stood empty for years at a time2 when one department of state after another was removed to the shores of the ,bosphorus and when the inhabitants of the capital were asked to obey laws made a thousand miles away4 ,but in the realm of history1 it is an ill wind that does not blow some one good4 ,with the emperors gone1 the bishops remained behind as the most important dignitaries of the town1 the only visible and tangible successors to the glory of the imperial throne4 ,and what excellent use they made of their new independence6 ,they were shrewd politicians1 for the prestige and the influence of their office had attracted the best brains of all ,italy4 ,they felt themselves to be the representatives of certain eternal ideas4 ,hence they were never in a hurry1 but proceeded with the deliberate slowness of a glacier and dared to take chances where others1 acting under the pressure of immediate necessity1 made rapid decisions1 blundered and failed4 ,but most important of all1 they were men of a single purpose1 who moved consistently and persistently towards one goal4 ,in all they did and said and thought they were guided by the desire to increase the glory of ,god and the strength and power of the organization which represented the divine will on earth4 ,how well they wrought1 the history of the next ten centuries was to show4 ,while everything else perished in the deluge of savage tribes which hurled itself across the ,european continent1 while the walls of the empire1 one after the other1 came crumbling down1 while a thousand institutions as old as the plains of ,babylon were swept away like so much useless rubbish1 the ,church stood strong and erect1 the rock of ages1 but more particularly the rock of the ,middle ,ages4 ,the victory1 however1 which was finally won1 was bought at a terrible cost4 ,for ,christianity which had begun in a stable was allowed to end in a palace4 ,it had been started as a protest against a form of government in which the priest as the self-appointed intermediary between the deity and mankind had insisted upon the unquestioning obedience of all ordinary human beings4 ,this revolutionary body grew and in less than a hundred years it developed into a new supertheocracy1 compared to which the old ,jewish state had been a mild and liberal commonwealth of happy and carefree citizens4 ,and yet all this was perfectly logical and quite unavoidable1 as ,i shall now try to show you4 ,most of the people who visit ,rome make a pilgrimage to the ,coliseum and within those wind-swept walls they are shown the hallowed ground where thousands of ,christian martyrs fell as victims of ,roman intolerance4 ,but while it is true that upon several occasions there were persecutions of the adherents of the new faith1 these had very little to do with religious intolerance4 ,they were purely political4 ,the ,christian1 as a member of a religious sect1 enjoyed the greatest possible freedom4 ,but the ,christian who openly proclaimed himself a conscientious objector1 who bragged of his pacifism even when the country was threatened with foreign invasion and openly defied the laws of the land upon every suitable and unsuitable occasion1 such a ,christian was considered an enemy of the state and was treated as such4 ,that he acted according to his most sacred convictions did not make the slightest impression upon the mind of the average police judge4 ,and when he tried to explain the exact nature of his scruples1 that dignitary looked puzzled and was entirely unable to follow him4 ,a ,roman police judge after all was only human4 ,when he suddenly found himself called upon to try people who made an issue of what seemed to him a very trivial matter1 he simply did not know what to do4 ,long experience had taught him to keep clear of all theological controversies4 ,besides he remembered many imperial edicts1 admonishing public servants to use 8tact0 in their dealings with the new sect4 ,hence he used tact and argued4 ,but as the whole dispute boiled down to a question of principles1 very little was ever accomplished by an appeal to logic4 ,in the end1 the magistrate was placed before the choice of surrendering the dignity of the law or insisting upon a complete and unqualified vindication of the supreme power of the state4 ,but prison and torture meant nothing to people who firmly believed that life did not begin until after death and who shouted with joy at the idea of being allowed to leave this wicked world for the joys of ,heaven4 ,the guerilla warfare therefore which finally broke out between the authorities and their ,christian subjects was long and painful4 ,we possess very few authentic figures upon the total number of victims4 ,according to ,origen1 the famous church father of the third century1 several of whose own relatives had been killed in ,alexandria during one of the persecutions1 8the number of true ,christians who died for their convictions could easily be enumerated40 ,on the other hand1 when we peruse the lives of the early saints we find ourselves faced by such incessant tales of bloodshed that we begin to wonder how a religion exposed to these constant and murderous persecutions could ever have survived at all4 ,no matter what figures ,i shall give1 some one is sure to call me a prejudiced liar4 ,i will therefore keep my opinion to myself and let my readers draw their own conclusions4 ,by studying the lives of the ,emperors ,decius 7#bdi-bea7 and ,valerian 7#bec-bfj7 they will be able to form a fairly accurate opinion as to the true character of ,roman intolerance during the worst era of persecution4 ,furthermore if they will remember that as wise and liberal minded a ruler as ,marcus ,aurelius confessed himself unable to handle the problem of his ,christian subjects successfully1 they will derive some idea about the difficulties which beset obscure little officials in remote corners of the empire1 who tried to do their duty and must either be unfaithful to their oath of office or execute those of their relatives and neighbors who could not or would not obey those few and very simple ordinances upon which the imperial government insisted as a matter of self-preservation4 ,meanwhile the ,christians1 not hindered by false sentimentality towards their pagan fellow-citizens1 were steadily extending the sphere of their influence4 ,late in the fourth century1 the ,emperor ,gratian at the request of the ,christian members of the ,roman senate who complained that it hurt their feelings to gather in the shadow of a heathenish idol1 ordered the removal of the statue of ,victory which for more than four hundred years had stood in the hall built by ,julius ,caesar4 ,several senators protested4 ,this did very little good and only caused a number of them to be sent into exile4 ,it was then that ,quintus ,aurelius ,symmachus1 a devoted patriot of great personal distinction1 wrote his famous letter in which he tried to suggest a compromise4 8,why10 so he asked1 8should we ,pagans and our ,christian neighbors not live in peace and harmony8 ,we look up to the same stars1 we are fellow-passengers on the same planet and dwell beneath the same sky4 ,what matters it along which road each individual endeavors to find the ultimate truth8 ,the riddle of existence is too great that there should be only one path leading to an answer40 ,he was not the only man who felt that way and saw the danger which threatened the old ,roman tradition of a broadminded religious policy4 ,simultaneously with the removal of the statue of ,victory in ,rome a violent quarrel had broken out between two contending factions of the ,christians who had found a refuge in ,byzantium4 ,this dispute gave rise to one of the most intelligent discussions of tolerance to which the world had ever listened4 ,themistius the philosopher1 who was the author1 had remained faithful to the ,gods of his fathers4 ,but when the ,emperor ,valens took sides in the fight between his orthodox and his non-orthodox ,christian subjects1 ,themistius felt obliged to remind him of his true duty4 8,there is10 so he said1 8a domain over which no ruler can hope to exercise any authority4 ,that is the domain of the virtues and especially that of the religious beliefs of individuals4 ,compulsion within that field causes hypocrisy and conversions that are based upon fraud4 ,hence it is much better for a ruler to tolerate all beliefs1 since it is only by toleration that civic strife can be averted4 ,moreover1 tolerance is a divine law4 ,god himself has most clearly demonstrated his desire for a number of different religions4 ,and ,god alone can judge the methods by which humanity aspires to come to an understanding of the ,divine ,mystery4 ,god delights in the variety of homage which is rendered to him4 ,he likes the ,christians to use certain rites1 the ,greeks others1 the ,egyptians again others40 ,fine words1 indeed1 but spoken in vain4 ,the ancient world together with its ideas and ideals was dead and all efforts to set back the clock of history were doomed beforehand4 ,life means progress1 and progress means suffering4 ,the old order of society was rapidly disintegrating4 ,the army was a mutinous mob of foreign mercenaries4 ,the frontier was in open revolt4 ,england and the other outlying districts had long since been surrendered to the barbarians4 ,when the final catastrophe took place1 those brilliant young men who in centuries past had entered the service of the state found themselves deprived of all but one chance for advancement4 ,that was a career in the ,church4 ,as ,christian archbishop of ,spain1 they could hope to exercise the power formerly held by the proconsul4 ,as ,christian authors1 they could be certain of a fairly large public if they were willing to devote themselves exclusively to theological subjects4 ,as ,christian diplomats1 they could be sure of rapid promotion if they were willing to represent the bishop of ,rome at the imperial court of ,constantinople or undertake the hazardous job of gaining the good will of some barbarous chieftain in the heart of ,gaul or ,scandinavia4 ,and finally1 as ,christian financiers1 they could hope to make fortunes administering those rapidly increasing estates which had made the occupants of the ,lateran ,palace the largest landowners of ,italy and the richest men of their time4 ,we have seen something of the same nature during the last five years4 ,up to the year #aiad the young men of ,europe who were ambitious and did not depend upon manual labor for their support almost invariably entered the service of the state4 ,they became officers of the different imperial and royal armies and navies4 ,they filled the higher judicial positions1 administered the finances or spent years in the colonies as governors or military commanders4 ,they did not expect to grow very rich1 but the social prestige of the offices which they held was very great and by the application of a certain amount of intelligence1 industry and honesty1 they could look forward to a pleasant life and an honorable old age4 ,then came the war and swept aside these last remnants of the old feudal fabric of society4 ,the lower classes took hold of the government4 ,some few among the former officials were too old to change the habits of a lifetime4 ,they pawned their orders and died4 ,the vast majority1 however1 surrendered to the inevitable4 ,from childhood on they had been educated to regard business as a low profession1 not worthy of their attention4 ,perhaps business was a low profession1 but they had to choose between an office and the poor house4 ,the number of people who will go hungry for the sake of their convictions is always relatively small4 ,and so within a few years after the great upheaval1 we find most of the former officers and state officials doing the sort of work which they would not have touched ten years ago and doing it not unwillingly4 ,besides1 as most of them belonged to families which for generations had been trained in executive work and were thoroughly accustomed to handle men1 they have found it comparatively easy to push ahead in their new careers and are today a great deal happier and decidedly more prosperous than they had ever expected to be4 ,what business is today1 the ,church was sixteen centuries ago4 ,it may not always have been easy for young men who traced their ancestry back to ,hercules or to ,romulus or to the heroes of the ,trojan war to take orders from a simple cleric who was the son of a slave1 but the simple cleric who was the son of a slave had something to give which the young men who traced their ancestry back to ,hercules and ,romulus and the heroes of the ,trojan war wanted and wanted badly4 ,and therefore if they were both bright fellows 7as they well may have been7 they soon learned to appreciate the other fellow's good qualities and got along beautifully4 ,for it is one of the other strange laws of history that the more things appear to be changing1 the more they remain the same4 ,since the beginning of time it has seemed inevitable that there shall be one small group of clever men and women who do the ruling and a much larger group of not-quite-so-bright men and women who shall do the obeying4 ,the stakes for which these two groups play are at different periods known by different names4 ,invariably they represent ,strength and ,leadership on the one hand and ,weakness and ,compliance on the other4 ,they have been called ,empire and ,church and ,knighthood and ,monarchy and ,democracy and ,slavery and ,serfdom and ,proletariat4 ,but the mysterious law which governs human development works the same in ,moscow as it does in ,london or ,madrid or ,washington1 for it is bound to neither time nor place4 ,it has often manifested itself under strange forms and disguises4 ,more than once it has worn a lowly garb and has loudly proclaimed its love for humanity1 its devotion to ,god1 its humble desire to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number4 ,but underneath such pleasant exteriors it has always hidden and continues to hide the grim truth of that primeval law which insists that the first duty of man is to keep alive4 ,people who resent the fact that they were born in a world of mammals are apt to get angry at such statements4 ,they call us 8materialistics0 and 8,cynics0 and what not4 ,because they have always regarded history as a pleasant fairy tale1 they are shocked to discover that it is a science which obeys the same iron rules which govern the rest of the universe4 ,they might as well fight against the habits of parallel lines or the results of the tables of multiplication4 ,personally ,i would advise them to accept the inevitable4 ,for then and only then can history some day be turned into something that shall have a practical value to the human race and cease to be the ally and confederate of those who profit by racial prejudice1 tribal intolerance and the ignorance of the vast majority of their fellow citizens4 ,and if any one doubts the truth of this statement1 let him look for the proof in the chronicles of those centuries of which ,i was writing a few pages back4 ,let him study the lives of the great leaders of the ,church during the first four centuries4 ,almost without exception he will find that they came from the ranks of the old ,pagan society1 that they had been trained in the schools of the ,greek philosophers and had only drifted into the ,church afterwards1 when they had been obliged to choose a career4 ,several of them of course were attracted by the new ideas and accepted the words of ,christ with heart and soul4 ,but the great majority changed its allegiance from a worldly master to a ,heavenly ruler because the chances for advancement with the latter were infinitely greater4 ,the ,church from her side1 always very wise and very understanding1 did not look too closely into the motives which had impelled many of her new disciples to take this sudden step4 ,and most carefully she endeavored to be all things to all men4 ,those who felt inclined towards a practical and worldly existence were given a chance to make good in the field of politics and economics4 ,while those of a different temperament1 who took their faith more emotionally1 were offered every possible opportunity to escape from the crowded cities that they might cogitate in silence upon the evils of existence and so might acquire that degree of personal holiness which they deemed necessary for the eternal happiness of their souls4 ,in the beginning it had been quite easy to lead such a life of devotion and contemplation4 ,the ,church during the first centuries of her existence had been merely a loose spiritual bond between humble folks who dwelled far away from the mansions of the mighty4 ,but when the ,church succeeded the empire as ruler of the world1 and became a strong political organization with vast real-estate holdings in ,italy and ,france and ,africa1 there were less opportunities for a life of solitude4 ,many pious men and women began to harken back to the 8good old days0 when all true ,christians had spent their waking hours in works of charity and in prayer4 ,that they might again be happy1 they now artificially re-created what once had been a natural development of the times4 ,this movement for a monastic form of life which was to exercise such an enormous influence upon the political and economic development of the next thousand years and which was to give the ,church a devoted group of very useful shock-troops in her warfare upon heathen and heretics was of ,oriental origin4 ,this need not surprise us4 ,in the countries bordering upon the eastern shores of the ,mediterranean1 civilization was very1 very old and the human race was tired to the point of exhaustion4 ,in ,egypt alone1 ten different and separate cycles of culture had succeeded each other since the first settlers had occupied the valley of the ,nile4 ,the same was true of the fertile plain between the ,tigris and the ,euphrates4 ,the vanity of life1 the utter futility of all human effort1 lay visible in the ruins of thousands of bygone temples and palaces4 ,the younger races of ,europe might accept ,christianity as an eager promise of life1 a constant appeal to their newly regained energy and enthusiasm4 ,but ,egyptians and ,syrians took their religious experiences in a different mood4 ,to them it meant the welcome prospect of relief from the curse of being alive4 ,and in anticipation of the joyful hour of death1 they escaped from the charnel-house of their own memories and they fled into the desert that they might be alone with their grief and their ,god and nevermore look upon the reality of existence4 ,for some curious reason the business of reform always seems to have had a particular appeal to soldiers4 ,they1 more than all other people1 have come into direct contact with the cruelty and the horrors of civilization4 ,furthermore they have learned that nothing can be accomplished without discipline4 ,the greatest of all modern warriors to fight the battles of the ,church was a former captain in the army of the ,emperor ,charles ,v4 ,and the man who first gathered the spiritual stragglers into a single organization had been a private in the army of the ,emperor ,constantine4 ,his name was ,pachomius and he was an ,egyptian4 ,when he got through with his military service1 he joined a small group of hermits who under the leadership of a certain ,anthony1 who hailed from his own country1 had left the cities and were living peacefully among the jackals of the desert4 ,but as the solitary life seemed to lead to all sorts of strange afflictions of the mind and caused certain very regrettable excesses of devotion which made people spend their days on the top of an old pillar or at the bottom of a deserted grave 7thereby giving cause for great mirth to the pagans and serious reason for grief to the true believers7 ,pachomius decided to put the whole movement upon a more practical basis and in this way he became the founder of the first religious order4 ,from that day on 7the middle of the fourth century7 hermits living together in small groups obeyed one single commander who was known as the 8superior general0 and who in turn appointed the abbots who were responsible for the different monasteries which they held as so many fortresses of the ,lord4 ,before ,pachomius died in #cdf his monastic idea had been carried from ,egypt to ,rome by the ,alexandrian bishop ,athanasius and thousands of people had availed themselves of this opportunity to flee the world1 its wickedness and its too insistent creditors4 ,the climate of ,europe1 however1 and the nature of the people made it necessary that the original plans of the founder be slightly changed4 ,hunger and cold were not quite so easy to bear under a wintry sky as in the valley of the ,nile4 ,besides1 the more practical western mind was disgusted rather than edified by that display of dirt and squalor which seemed to be an integral part of the ,oriental ideal of holiness4 8,what10 so the ,italians and the ,frenchmen asked themselves1 8is to become of those good works upon which the early ,church has laid so much stress8 ,are the widows and the orphans and the sick really very much benefited by the self-mortification of small groups of emaciated zealots who live in the damp caverns of a mountain a million miles away from everywhere80 ,the western mind therefore insisted upon a modification of the monastic institution along more reasonable lines1 and credit for this innovation goes to a native of the town of ,nursia in the ,apennine mountains4 ,his name was ,benedict and he is invariably spoken of as ,saint ,benedict4 ,his parents had sent him to ,rome to be educated1 but the city had filled his ,christian soul with horror and he had fled to the village of ,subiaco in the ,abruzzi mountains to the deserted ruins of an old country palace that once upon a time had belonged to the ,emperor ,nero4 ,there he had lived for three years in complete solitude4 ,then the fame of his great virtue began to spread throughout the countryside and the number of those who wished to be near him was soon so great that he had enough recruits for a dozen full-fledged monasteries4 ,he therefore retired from his dungeon and became the lawgiver of ,european monasticism4 ,first of all he drew up a constitution4 ,in every detail it showed the influence of ,benedict's ,roman origin4 ,the monks who swore to obey his rules could not look forward to a life of idleness4 ,those hours which they did not devote to prayer and meditation were to be filled with work in the fields4 ,if they were too old for farm work1 they were expected to teach the young how to become good ,christians and useful citizens and so well did they acquit themselves of this task that the ,benedictine monasteries for almost a thousand years had a monopoly of education and were allowed to train most of the young men of exceptional ability during the greater part of the ,middle ,ages4 ,in return for their labors1 the monks were decently clothed1 received a sufficient amount of eatable food and were given a bed upon which they could sleep the two or three hours of each day that were not devoted to work or to prayer4 ,but most important1 from an historical point of view1 was the fact that the monks ceased to be laymen who had merely run away from this world and their obligations to prepare their souls for the hereafter4 ,they became the servants of ,god4 ,they were obliged to qualify for their new dignity by a long and most painful period of probation and furthermore they were expected to take a direct and active part in spreading the power and the glory of the kingdom of ,god4 ,the first elementary missionary work among the heathen of ,europe had already been done4 ,but lest the good accomplished by the apostles come to naught1 the labors of the individual preachers must be followed up by the organized effort of permanent settlers and administrators4 ,the monks now carried their spade and their ax and their prayer-book into the wilderness of ,germany and ,scandinavia and ,russia and far-away ,iceland4 ,they plowed and they harvested and they preached and they taught school and brought unto those distant lands the first rudimentary elements of a civilization which most people only knew by hearsay4 ,in this way did the ,papacy1 the executive head of the entire ,church1 make use of all the manifold forces of the human spirit4 ,the practical man of affairs was given quite as much of an opportunity to distinguish himself as the dreamer who found happiness in the silence of the woods4 ,there was no lost motion4 ,nothing was allowed to go to waste4 ,and the result was such an increase of power that soon neither emperor nor king could afford to rule his realm without paying humble attention to the wishes of those of his subjects who confessed themselves the followers of the ,christ4 ,the way in which the final victory was gained is not without interest4 ,for it shows that the triumph of ,christianity was due to practical causes and was not 7as is sometimes believed7 the result of a sudden and overwhelming outburst of religious ardor4 ,the last great persecution of the ,christians took place under the ,emperor ,diocletian4 ,curiously enough1 ,diocletian was by no means one of the worst among those many potentates who ruled ,europe by the grace of their body-guards4 ,but he suffered from a complaint which alas6 is quite common among those who are called upon to govern the human race4 ,he was densely ignorant upon the subject of elementary economics4 ,he found himself possessed of an empire that was rapidly going to pieces4 ,having spent all his life in the army1 he believed the weak point lay in the organization of the ,roman military system1 which entrusted the defenses of the outlying districts to colonies of soldiers who had gradually lost the habit of fighting and had become peaceful rustics1 selling cabbages and carrots to the very barbarians whom they were supposed to keep at a safe distance from the frontiers4 ,it was impossible for ,diocletian to change this venerable system4 ,he therefore tried to solve the difficulty by creating a new field army1 composed of young and agile men who at a few weeks' notice could be marched to any particular part of the empire that was threatened with an invasion4 ,this was a brilliant idea1 but like all brilliant ideas of a military nature1 it cost an awful lot of money4 ,this money had to be produced in the form of taxes by the people in the interior of the country4 ,as was to be expected1 they raised a great hue and cry and claimed that they could not pay another denarius without going stone broke4 ,the emperor answered that they were mistaken and bestowed upon his tax-gatherers certain powers thus far only possessed by the hangman4 ,but all to no avail4 ,for the subjects1 rather than work at a regular trade which assured them a deficit at the end of a year's hard work1 deserted house and home and family and herds and flocked to the cities or became hobos4 ,his ,majesty1 however1 did not believe in half-way measures and he solved the difficulty by a decree which shows how completely the old ,roman ,republic had degenerated into an ,oriental despotism4 ,by a stroke of his pen he made all government offices and all forms of handicraft and commerce hereditary professions4 ,that is to say1 the sons of officers were supposed to become officers1 whether they liked it or not4 ,the sons of bakers must themselves become bakers1 although they might have greater aptitude for music or pawn-broking4 ,the sons of sailors were foredoomed to a life on shipboard1 even if they were sea-sick when they rowed across the ,tiber4 ,and finally1 the day laborers1 although technically they continued to be freemen1 were constrained to live and die on the same piece of soil on which they had been born and were henceforth nothing but a very ordinary variety of slaves4 ,to expect that a ruler who had such supreme confidence in his own ability either could or would tolerate the continued existence of a relatively small number of people who only obeyed such parts of his regulations and edicts as pleased them would be absurd4 ,but in judging ,diocletian for his harshness in dealing with the ,christians1 we must remember that he was fighting with his back against the wall and that he had good cause to suspect the loyalty of several million of his subjects who profited by the measures he had taken for their protection but refused to carry their share of the common burden4 ,you will remember that the earliest ,christians had not taken the trouble to write anything down4 ,they expected the world to come to an end at almost any moment4 ,therefore why waste time and money upon literary efforts which in less than ten years would be consumed by the fire from ,heaven8 ,but when the ,new ,zion failed to materialize and when the story of ,christ 7after a hundred years of patient waiting7 was beginning to be repeated with such strange additions and variations that a true disciple hardly knew what to believe and what not1 the need was felt for some authentic book upon the subject and a number of short biographies of ,jesus and such of the original letters of the apostles as had been preserved were combined into one large volume which was called the ,new ,testament4 ,this book contained among others a chapter called the ,book of ,revelations and therein were to be found certain references and certain prophecies about and anent a city built on 8seven mountains40 ,that ,rome was built on seven hills had been a commonly known fact ever since the days of ,romulus4 ,it is true that the anonymous author of this curious chapter carefully called the city of his abomination ,babylon4 ,but it took no great degree of perspicacity on the part of the imperial magistrate to understand what was meant when he read these pleasant references to the 8,mother of ,harlots0 and the 8,abomination of the ,earth10 the town that was drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs1 foredoomed to become the habitation of all devils1 the home of every foul spirit1 the cage of every unclean and hateful bird1 and more expressions of a similar and slightly uncomplimentary nature4 ,such sentences might have been explained away as the ravings of a poor fanatic1 blinded by pity and rage as he thought of his many friends who had been killed during the last fifty years4 ,but they were part of the solemn services of the ,church4 ,week after week they were repeated in those places where the ,christians came together and it was no more than natural that outsiders should think that they represented the true sentiments of all ,christians towards the mighty city on the ,tiber4 ,i do not mean to imply that the ,christians may not have had excellent reason to feel the way they did1 but we can hardly blame ,diocletian because he failed to share their enthusiasm4 ,but that was not all4 ,the ,romans were becoming increasingly familiar with an expression which the world thus far had never heard4 ,that was the word 8heretics40 ,originally the name 8heretic0 was given only to those people who had 8chosen0 to believe certain doctrines1 or1 as we would say1 a 8sect40 ,but gradually the meaning had narrowed down to those who had chosen to believe certain doctrines which were not held 8correct0 or 8sound0 or 8true0 or 8orthodox0 by the duly established authorities of the ,church and which therefore1 to use the language of the ,apostles1 were 8heretical1 unsound1 false and eternally wrong40 ,the few ,romans who still clung to the ancient faith were technically free from the charge of heresy because they had remained outside of the fold of the ,church and therefore could not1 strictly speaking1 be held to account for their private opinions4 ,all the same1 it did not flatter the imperial pride to read in certain parts of the ,new ,testament that 8heresy was as terrible an evil as adultery1 uncleanness1 lasciviousness1 idolatry1 witchcraft1 wrath1 strife1 murder1 sedition and drunkenness0 and a few other things which common decency prevents me from repeating on this page4 ,all this led to friction and misunderstanding and friction and misunderstanding led to persecution and once more ,roman jails were filled with ,christian prisoners and ,roman executioners added to the number of ,christian martyrs and a great deal of blood was shed and nothing was accomplished and finally ,diocletian1 in utter despair1 went back to his home town of ,salonae on the ,dalmatian coast1 retired from the business of ruling and devoted himself exclusively to the even more exciting pastime of raising great big cabbages in his back yard4 ,his successor did not continue the policy of repression4 ,on the contrary1 since he could not hope to eradicate the ,christian evil by force1 he decided to make the best of a bad bargain and gain the good will of his enemies by offering them some special favors4 ,this happened in the year #cac and the honor of having been the first to 8recognize0 the ,christian church officially belongs to a man by the name of ,constantine4 ,some day we shall possess an ,international ,board of ,revisioning ,historians before whom all emperors1 kings1 pontiffs1 presidents and mayors who now enjoy the title of the 8great0 shall have to submit their claims for this specific qualification4 ,one of the candidates who will have to be watched very carefully when he appears before this tribunal is the aforementioned ,emperor ,constantine4 ,this wild ,serbian who had wielded a spear on every battle field of ,europe1 from ,york in ,england to ,byzantium on the shores of the ,bosphorus1 was among other things the murderer of his wife1 the murderer of his brother-in-law1 the murderer of his nephew 7a boy of seven7 and the executioner of several other relatives of minor degree and importance4 ,nevertheless and notwithstanding1 because in a moment of panic just before he marched against his most dangerous rival1 ,maxentius1 he had made a bold bid for ,christian support1 he gained great fame as the 8second ,moses0 and was ultimately elevated to sainthood both by the ,armenian and by the ,russian churches4 ,that he lived and died a barbarian who had outwardly accepted ,christianity1 yet until the end of his days tried to read the riddle of the future from the steaming entrails of sacrificial sheep1 all this was most considerately overlooked in view of the famous ,edict of ,tolerance by which the ,emperor guaranteed unto his beloved ,christian subjects the right to 8freely profess their private opinions and to assemble in their meeting place without fear of molestation40 ,for the leaders of the ,church in the first half of the fourth century1 as ,i have repeatedly stated before1 were practical politicians and when they had finally forced the ,emperor to sign this ever memorable decree1 they elevated ,christianity from the rank of a minor sect to the dignity of the official church of the state4 ,but they knew how and in what manner this had been accomplished and the successors of ,constantine knew it1 and although they tried to cover it up by a display of oratorical fireworks the arrangement never quite lost its original character4 99 99 99 99 99 8,deliver me1 oh mighty ruler10 exclaimed ,nestor the ,patriarch unto ,theodosius the ,emperor1 8deliver me of all the enemies of my church and in return ,i will give thee ,heaven4 ,stand by me in putting down those who disagree with our doctrines and we in turn will stand by thee in putting down thine enemies40 ,there have been other bargains during the history of the last twenty centuries4 ,but few have been so brazen as the compromise by which ,christianity came to power4 ,,chapter ,v ,,imprisonment ,just before the curtain rings down for the last time upon the ancient world1 a figure crosses the stage which had deserved a better fate than an untimely death and the unflattering appellation of 8the ,apostate40 ,the ,emperor ,julian1 to whom ,i refer1 was a nephew of ,constantine the ,great and was born in the new capital of the empire in the year #cca4 ,in #ccg his famous uncle died4 ,at once his three sons fell upon their common heritage and upon each other with the fury of famished wolves4 ,to rid themselves of all those who might possibly lay claim to part of the spoils1 they ordered that those of their relatives who lived in or near the city be murdered4 ,julian's father was one of the victims4 ,his mother had died a few years after his birth4 ,in this way1 at the age of six1 the boy was left an orphan4 ,an older half-brother1 an invalid1 shared his loneliness and his lessons4 ,these consisted mostly of lectures upon the advantages of the ,christian faith1 given by a kindly but uninspired old bishop by the name of ,eusebius4 ,but when the children grew older1 it was thought wiser to send them a little further away where they would be less conspicuous and might possibly escape the usual fate of junior ,byzantine princes4 ,they were removed to a little village in the heart of ,asia ,minor4 ,it was a dull life1 but it gave ,julian a chance to learn many useful things4 ,for his neighbors1 the ,cappadocian mountaineers1 were a simple people and still believed in the gods of their ancestors4 ,there was not the slightest chance that the boy would ever hold a responsible position and when he asked permission to devote himself to a life of study1 he was told to go ahead4 ,first of all he went to ,nicomedia1 one of the few places where the old ,greek philosophy continued to be taught4 ,there he crammed his head so full of literature and science that there was no space left for the things he had learned from ,eusebius4 ,next he obtained leave to go to ,athens1 that he might study on the very spot hallowed by the recollections of ,socrates and ,plato and ,aristotle4 ,meanwhile1 his half-brother too had been assassinated and ,constantius1 his cousin and the one and only remaining son of ,constantine1 remembering that he and his cousin1 the boy philosopher1 were by this time the only two surviving male members of the imperial family1 sent for ,julian1 received him kindly1 married him1 still in the kindest of spirits1 to his own sister1 ,helena1 and ordered him to proceed to ,gaul and defend that province against the barbarians4 ,it seems that ,julian had learned something more practical from his ,greek teachers than an ability to argue4 ,when in the year #ceg the ,alamanni threatened ,france1 he destroyed their army near ,strassburg1 and for good measure added all the country between the ,meuse and the ,rhine to his own province and went to live in ,paris1 filled his library with a fresh supply of books by his favorite authors and was as happy as his serious nature allowed him to be4 ,when news of these victories reached the ears of the ,emperor1 little ,greek fire was wasted in celebration of the event4 ,on the contrary1 elaborate plans were laid to get rid of a competitor who might be just a trifle too successful4 ,but ,julian was very popular with his soldiers4 ,when they heard that their commander-in-chief had been ordered to return home 7a polite invitation to come and have one's head cut off71 they invaded his palace and then and there proclaimed him emperor4 ,at the same time they let it be known that they would kill him if he should refuse to accept4 ,julian1 like a sensible fellow1 accepted4 ,even at that late date1 the ,roman roads must have been in a remarkably good state of preservation4 ,julian was able to break all records by the speed with which he marched his troops from the heart of ,france to the shores of the ,bosphorus4 ,but ere he reached the capital1 he heard that his cousin ,constantius had died4 ,and in this way1 a pagan once more became ruler of the western world4 ,of course the thing which ,julian had undertaken to do was impossible4 ,it is a strange thing indeed that so intelligent a man should have been under the impression that the dead past could ever be brought back to life by the use of force2 that the age of ,pericles could be revived by reconstructing an exact replica of the ,acropolis and populating the deserted groves of the ,academy with professors dressed up in togas of a bygone age and talking to each other in a tongue that had disappeared from the face of the earth more than five centuries before4 ,and yet that is exactly what ,julian tried to do4 ,all his efforts during the two short years of his reign were directed towards the restablishment of that ancient science which was now held in profound contempt by the majority of his people2 towards the rekindling of a spirit of research in a world ruled by illiterate monks who felt certain that everything worth knowing was contained in a single book and that independent study and investigation could only lead to unbelief and hell fire2 towards the requickening of the joy-of-living among those who had the vitality and the enthusiasm of ghosts4 ,many a man of greater tenacity than ,julian would have been driven to madness and despair by the spirit of opposition which met him on all sides4 ,as for ,julian1 he simply went to pieces under it4 ,temporarily at least he clung to the enlightened principles of his great ancestors4 ,the ,christian rabble of ,antioch might pelt him with stones and mud1 yet he refused to punish the city4 ,dull-witted monks might try to provoke him into another era of persecution1 yet the ,emperor persistently continued to instruct his officials 8not to make any martyrs40 ,in the year #cfc a merciful ,persian arrow made an end to this strange career4 ,it was the best thing that could have happened to this1 the last and greatest of the ,pagan rulers4 ,had he lived any longer1 his sense of tolerance and his hatred of stupidity would have turned him into the most intolerant man of his age4 ,now1 from his cot in the hospital1 he could reflect that during his rule1 not a single person had suffered death for his private opinions4 ,for this mercy1 his ,christian subjects rewarded him with their undying hatred4 ,they boasted that an arrow from one of his own soldiers 7a ,christian legionary7 had killed the ,emperor and with rare delicacy they composed eulogies in praise of the murderer4 ,they told how1 just before he collapsed1 ,julian had confessed the errors of his ways and had acknowledged the power of ,christ4 ,and they emptied the arsenal of foul epithets with which the vocabulary of the fourth century was so richly stocked to disgrace the fame of an honest man who had lived a life of ascetic simplicity and had devoted all his energies to the happiness of the people who had been entrusted to his care4 ,when he had been carried to his grave the ,christian bishops could at last consider themselves the veritable rulers of the ,empire and immediately began the task of destroying whatever opposition to their domination might remain in isolated corners of ,europe1 ,asia and ,africa4 ,under ,valentinian and ,valens1 two brothers who ruled from #cfd to #cgh1 an edict was passed forbidding all ,romans to sacrifice animals to the old ,gods4 ,the pagan priests were thereby deprived of their revenue and forced to look for other employment4 ,but the regulations were mild compared to the law by which ,theodosius ordered all his subjects not only to accept the ,christian doctrines1 but to accept them only in the form laid down by the 8universal0 or 8,catholic0 church of which he had made himself the protector and which was to have a monopoly in all matters spiritual4 ,all those who after the promulgation of this ordinance stuck to their 8erroneous opinions0--who persisted in their 8insane heresies0--who remained faithful to their 8scandalous doctrines0--were to suffer the consequences of their willful disobedience and were to be exiled or put to death4 ,from then on the old world marched rapidly to its final doom4 ,in ,italy and ,gaul and ,spain and ,england hardly a pagan temple remained4 ,they were either wrecked by the contractors who needed stones for new bridges and streets and city-walls and water-works1 or they were remodeled to serve as meeting places for the ,christians4 ,the thousands of golden and silver images which had been accumulated since the beginning of the ,republic were publicly confiscated and privately stolen and such statues as remained were made into mortar4 ,the ,serapeum of ,alexandria1 a temple which ,greeks and ,romans and ,egyptians alike had held in the greatest veneration for more than six centuries1 was razed to the ground4 ,there remained the university1 famous all over the world ever since it had been founded by ,alexander the ,great4 ,it had continued to teach and explain the old philosophies and as a result attracted a large number of students from all parts of the ,mediterranean4 ,when it was not closed at the behest of the ,bishop of ,alexandria1 the monks of his diocese took the matter into their own hands4 ,they broke into the lecture rooms1 lynched ,hypatia1 the last of the great ,platonic teachers1 and threw her mutilated body into the streets where it was left to the mercy of the dogs4 ,in ,rome things went no better4 ,the temple of ,jupiter was closed1 the ,sibylline books1 the very basis of the old ,roman faith1 were burned4 ,the capital was left a ruin4 ,in ,gaul1 under the leadership of the famous bishop of ,tours1 the old ,gods were declared to be the predecessors of the ,christian devils and their temples were therefore ordered to be wiped off the face of the earth4 ,if1 as sometimes happened in remote country districts1 the peasants rushed forth to the defense of their beloved shrines1 the soldiers were called out and by means of the ax and the gallows made an end to such 8insurrections of ,satan40 ,in ,greece1 the work of destruction proceeded more slowly4 ,but finally in the year #cid1 the ,olympic games were abolished4 ,as soon as this center of ,greek national life 7after an uninterrupted existence of eleven hundred and seventy years7 had come to an end1 the rest was comparatively easy4 ,one after the other1 the philosophers were expelled from the country4 ,finally1 by order of the ,emperor ,justinian1 the ,university of ,athens was closed4 ,the funds established for its maintenance were confiscated4 ,the last seven professors1 deprived of their livelihood1 fled to ,persia where ,king ,chosroes received them hospitably and allowed them to spend the rest of their days peacefully playing the new and mysterious ,indian game called 8chess40 ,in the first half of the fifth century1 archbishop ,chrysostomus could truthfully state that the works of the old authors and philosophers had disappeared from the face of the earth4 ,cicero and ,socrates and ,virgil and ,homer 7not to mention the mathematicians and the astronomers and the physicians who were an object of special abomination to all good ,christians7 lay forgotten in a thousand attics and cellars4 ,six hundred years were to go by before they were called back to life1 and in the meantime the world would be obliged to subsist on such literary fare as it pleased the theologians to place before it4 ,a strange diet1 and not exactly 7in the jargon of the medical faculty7 a balanced one4 ,for the ,church1 although triumphant over its pagan enemies1 was beset by many and serious tribulations4 ,the poor peasant in ,gaul and ,lusitania1 clamoring to burn incense in honor of his ancient ,gods1 could be silenced easily enough4 ,he was a heathen and the law was on the side of the ,christian4 ,but the ,ostrogoth or the ,alaman or the ,longobard who declared that ,arius1 the priest of ,alexandria1 was right in his opinion upon the true nature of ,christ and that ,athanasius1 the bishop of that same city and ,arius' bitter enemy1 was wrong 7or vice versa7--the ,longobard or ,frank who stoutly maintained that ,christ was not 8of the same nature0 but of a 8like nature only0 with ,god 7or vice versa7--the ,vandal or the ,saxon who insisted that ,nestor spoke the truth when he called the ,virgin ,mary the 8mother of ,christ0 and not the 8mother of ,god0 7or vice versa7--the ,burgundian or ,frisian who denied that ,jesus was possessed of two natures1 one human and one divine 7or vice versa7--all these simple-minded but strong-armed barbarians who had accepted ,christianity and were1 outside of their unfortunate errors of opinion1 staunch friends and supporters of the ,church--these indeed could not be punished with a general anathema and a threat of perpetual hell fire4 ,they must be persuaded gently that they were wrong and must be brought within the fold with charitable expressions of love and devotion4 ,but before all else they must be given a definite creed that they might know for once and for all what they must hold to be true and what they must reject as false4 ,it was that desire for unity of some sort in all matters pertaining to the faith which finally caused those famous gatherings which have become known as ,oecumenical or ,universal ,councils1 and which since the middle of the fourth century have been called together at irregular intervals to decide what doctrine is right and what doctrine contains the germ of heresy and should therefore be adjudged erroneous1 unsound1 fallacious and heretical4 ,the first of those ,oecumenical councils was held in the town of ,nicaea1 not far from the ruins of ,troy1 in the year #cbe4 ,the second one1 fifty-six years later1 was held in ,constantinople4 ,the third one in the year #dca in ,ephesus4 ,thereafter they followed each other in rapid succession in ,chalcedon1 twice again in ,constantinople1 once more in ,nicaea and finally once again in ,constantinople in the year #hfi4 ,after that1 however1 they were held in ,rome or in some particular town of western ,europe designated by the ,pope4 ,for it was generally accepted from the fourth century on that although the emperor had the technical right to call together such meetings 7a privilege which incidentally obliged him to pay the traveling expenses of his faithful bishops7 that very serious attention should be paid to the suggestions made by the powerful ,bishop of ,rome4 ,and although we do not know with any degree of certainty who occupied the chair in ,nicaea1 all later councils were dominated by the ,popes and the decisions of these holy gatherings were not regarded as binding unless they had obtained the official approval of the supreme pontiff himself or one of his delegates4 ,hence we can now say farewell to ,constantinople and travel to the more congenial regions of the west4 ,the field of ,tolerance and ,intolerance has been fought over so repeatedly by those who hold tolerance the greatest of all human virtues and those who denounce it as an evidence of moral weakness1 that ,i shall pay very little attention to the purely theoretical aspects of the case4 ,nevertheless it must be confessed that the champions of the ,church follow a plausible line of reasoning when they try to explain away the terrible punishments which were inflicted upon all heretics4 8,a church10 so they argue1 8is like any other organization4 ,it is almost like a village or a tribe or a fortress4 ,there must be a commander-in-chief and there must be a definite set of laws and by-laws1 which all members are forced to obey4 ,it follows that those who swear allegiance to the ,church make a tacit vow both to respect the commander-in-chief and to obey the law4 ,and if they find it impossible to do this1 they must suffer the consequences of their own decisions and get out40 ,all of which1 so far1 is perfectly true and reasonable4 ,if today a minister feels that he can no longer believe in the articles of faith of the ,baptist ,church1 he can turn ,methodist1 and if for some reason he ceases to believe in the creed as laid down by the ,methodist ,church1 he can become a ,unitarian or a ,catholic or a ,jew1 or for that matter1 a ,hindoo or a ,turk4 ,the world is wide4 ,the door is open4 ,there is no one outside his own hungry family to say him nay4 ,but this is an age of steamships and railroad trains and unlimited economic opportunities4 ,the world of the fifth century was not quite so simple4 ,it was far from easy to discover a region where the influence of the ,bishop of ,rome did not make itself felt4 ,one could of course go to ,persia or to ,india1 as a good many heretics did1 but the voyage was long and the chances of survival were small4 ,and this meant perpetual banishment for one's self and one's children4 ,and finally1 why should a man surrender his good right to believe what he pleased if he felt sincerely that his conception of the idea of ,christ was the right one and that it was only a question of time for him to convince the ,church that its doctrines needed a slight modification8 ,for that was the crux of the whole matter4 ,the early ,christians1 both the faithful and the heretics1 dealt with ideas which had a relative and not a positive value4 ,a group of mathematicians1 sending each other to the gallows because they cannot agree upon the absolute value of x would be no more absurd than a council of learned theologians trying to define the undefinable and endeavoring to reduce the substance of ,god to a formula4 ,but so thoroughly had the spirit of self-righteousness and intolerance got hold of the world that until very recently all those who advocated tolerance upon the basis that 8we cannot ever possibly know who is right and who is wrong0 did so at the risk of their lives and usually couched their warnings in such careful ,latin sentences that not more than one or two of their most intelligent readers ever knew what they meant4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,pure ,,of ,,life ,here is a little problem in mathematics which is not out of place in a book of history4 ,take a piece of string and make it into a circle1 like this3 ,illustration3 ,i ,in this circle all diameters will of course be equal4 ,,ab ,,cd ,,ef ,,gh and so on1 ad infinitum4 ,but turn the circle into an ellipse by slightly pulling two sides4 ,then the perfect balance is at once disturbed4 ,the diameters are thrown out of gear4 ,a few like ,,ab and ,,ef have been greatly shortened4 ,others1 and especially ,,cd1 have been lengthened4 ,illustration3 ,,ii ,now transfer the problem from mathematics to history4 ,let us for the sake of argument suppose that ,,ab represents politics ,,cd 0 trade ,,ef 0 art ,,gh 0 militarism ,in the figure ,i the perfectly balanced state1 all lines are equally long and quite as much attention is paid to politics as to trade and art and militarism4 ,but in figure ,,ii 7which is no longer a perfect circle7 trade has got an undue advantage at the expense of politics and art has almost entirely disappeared1 while militarism shows a gain4 ,or make ,,gh 7militarism7 the longest diameter1 and the others will tend to disappear altogether4 ,illustration3 ,,iii ,you will find this a handy key to a great many historical problems4 ,try it on the ,greeks4 ,for a short time the ,greeks had been able to maintain a perfect circle of all-around accomplishments4 ,but the foolish quarrels between the different political parties soon grew to such proportions that all the surplus energy of the nation was being absorbed by the incessant civil wars4 ,the soldiers were no longer used for the purpose of defending the country against foreign aggression4 ,they were turned loose upon their own neighbors1 who had voted for a different candidate1 or who believed in a slightly modified form of taxation4 ,trade1 that most important diameter of all such circles1 at first became difficult1 then became entirely impossible and fled to other parts of the world1 where business enjoyed a greater degree of stability4 ,the moment poverty entered through the front gate of the city1 the arts escaped by way of the back door1 never to be seen again4 ,capital sailed away on the fastest ship it could find within a hundred miles1 and since intellectualism is a very expensive luxury1 it was henceforth impossible to maintain good schools4 ,the best teachers hastened to ,rome and to ,alexandria4 ,what remained was a group of second-rate citizens who subsisted upon tradition and routine4 ,and all this happened because the line of politics had grown out of all proportion1 because the perfect circle had been destroyed1 and the other lines1 art1 science1 philosophy1 etc41 etc41 had been reduced to nothing4 ,if you apply the circular problem to ,rome1 you will find that there the particular line called 8political power0 grew and grew and grew until there was nothing left of any of the others4 ,the circle which had spelled the glory of the ,republic disappeared4 ,all that remained was a straight1 narrow line1 the shortest distance between success and failure4 ,and if1 to give you still another example1 you reduce the history of the medieval ,church to this sort of mathematics1 this is what you will find4 ,the earliest ,christians had tried very hard to maintain a circle of conduct that should be perfect4 ,perhaps they had rather neglected the diameter of science1 but since they were not interested in the life of the world1 they could not very well be expected to pay much attention to medicine or physics or astronomy1 useful subjects1 no doubt1 but of small appeal to men and women who were making ready for the last judgment and who regarded this world merely as the ante-room to ,heaven4 ,but for the rest1 these sincere followers of ,christ endeavored 7however imperfectly7 to lead the good life and to be as industrious as they were charitable and as kindly as they were honest4 ,as soon1 however1 as their little communities had been united into a single powerful organization1 the perfect balance of the old spiritual circle was rudely upset by the obligations and duties of the new international responsibilities4 ,it was easy enough for small groups of half-starved carpenters and quarry workers to follow those principles of poverty and unselfishness upon which their faith was founded4 ,but the heir to the imperial throne of ,rome1 the ,pontifex ,maximus of the western world1 the richest landowner of the entire continent1 could not live as simply as if he were a sub-deacon in a provincial town somewhere in ,pomerania or ,spain4 ,or1 to use the circular language of this chapter1 the diameter representing 8worldliness0 and the diameter representing 8foreign policy0 were lengthened to such an extent that the diameters representing 8humility0 and 8poverty0 and 8self-negation0 and the other elementary ,christian virtues were being reduced to the point of extinction4 ,it is a pleasant habit of our time to speak patronizingly of the benighted people of the ,middle ,ages1 who1 as we all know1 lived in utter darkness4 ,it is true they burned wax tapers in their churches and went to bed by the uncertain light of a sconce1 they possessed few books1 they were ignorant of many things which are now being taught in our grammar schools and in our better grade lunatic asylums4 ,but knowledge and intelligence are two very different things and of the latter1 these excellent burghers1 who constructed the political and social structure in which we ourselves continue to live1 had their full share4 ,if a good deal of the time they seemed to stand apparently helpless before the many and terrible abuses in their ,church1 let us judge them mercifully4 ,they had at least the courage of their convictions and they fought whatever they considered wrong with such sublime disregard for personal happiness and comfort that they frequently ended their lives on the scaffold4 ,more than that we can ask of no one4 ,it is true that during the first thousand years of our era1 comparatively few people fell as victims to their ideas4 ,not1 however1 because the ,church felt less strongly about heresy than she did at a later date1 but because she was too much occupied with more important questions to have any time to waste upon comparatively harmless dissenters4 ,in the first place1 there remained many parts of ,europe where ,odin and the other heathen gods still ruled supreme4 ,and in the second place1 something very unpleasant had happened1 which had wellnigh threatened the whole of ,europe with destruction4 ,this 8something unpleasant0 was the sudden appearance of a brand-new prophet by the name of ,mahomet1 and the conquest of western ,asia and northern ,africa by the followers of a new ,god who was called ,allah4 ,the literature which we absorb in our childhood full of 8infidel dogs0 and ,turkish atrocities is apt to leave us under the impression that ,jesus and ,mahomet represented ideals which were as mutually antagonistic as fire and water4 ,but as a matter of fact1 the two men belonged to the same race1 they spoke dialects which belonged to the same linguistic group1 they both claimed ,abraham as their great-great-grandfather and they both looked back upon a common ancestral home1 which a thousand years before had stood on the shores of the ,persian ,gulf4 ,and yet1 the followers of those two great teachers who were such close relatives have always regarded each other with bitter scorn and have fought a war which has lasted more than twelve centuries and which has not yet come to an end4 ,at this late day and age it is useless to speculate upon what might have happened1 but there was a time when ,mecca1 the arch-enemy of ,rome1 might have easily been gained for the ,christian faith4 ,the ,arabs1 like all desert people1 spent a great deal of their time tending their flocks and therefore were much given to meditation4 ,people in cities can drug their souls with the pleasures of a perennial county-fair4 ,but shepherds and fisher folk and farmers lead solitary lives and want something a little more substantial than noise and excitement4 ,in his quest for salvation1 the ,arab had tried several religions1 but had shown a distinct preference for ,judaism4 ,this is easily explained1 as ,arabia was full of ,jews4 ,in the tenth century ,b4,c41 a great many of ,king ,solomon's subjects1 exasperated by the high taxes and the despotism of their ruler1 had fled into ,arabia and again1 five hundred years later in #ehf ,b4,c41 when ,nebuchadnezzar conquered ,judah1 there had been a second wholesale exodus of ,jews towards the desert lands of the south4 ,judaism1 therefore1 was well known and furthermore the quest of the ,jews after the one and only true ,god was entirely in line with the aspirations and ideals of the ,arabian tribes4 ,any one in the least familiar with the work of ,mahomet will know how much the ,medinite had borrowed from the wisdom contained in some of the books of the ,old ,testament4 ,nor were the descendants of ,ishmael 7who together with his mother ,hagar lay buried in the ,holy of ,holies in the heart of ,arabia7 hostile to the ideas expressed by the young reformer from ,nazareth4 ,on the contrary1 they followed ,jesus eagerly when he spoke of that one ,god who was a loving father to all men4 ,they were not inclined to accept those miracles of which the followers of the ,nazarene carpenter made so much4 ,and as for the resurrection1 they flatly refused to believe in it4 ,but generally speaking1 they felt very kindly disposed towards the new faith and were willing to give it a chance4 ,but ,mahomet suffered considerable annoyance at the hands of certain ,christian zealots who with their usual lack of discretion had denounced him as a liar and a false prophet before he had fairly opened his mouth4 ,that and the impression which was rapidly gaining ground that the ,christians were idol worshipers who believed in three ,gods instead of one1 made the people of the desert finally turn their backs upon ,christianity and declare themselves in favor of the ,medinese camel driver who spoke to them of one and only one ,god and did not confuse them with references to three deities that were 8one0 and yet were not one1 but were one or three as it might please the convenience of the moment and the interests of the officiating priest4 ,thus the western world found itself possessed of two religions1 each of which proclaimed its own ,god to be the ,one ,true ,god and each of which insisted that all other ,gods were impostors4 ,such conflicts of opinion are apt to lead to warfare4 ,mahomet died in #fcb4 ,within less than a dozen years1 ,palestine1 ,syria1 ,persia and ,egypt had been conquered and ,damascus had become the capital of a great ,arab empire4 ,before the end of #fef the entire coast of northern ,africa had accepted ,allah as its divine ruler and in less than a century after the flight of ,mahomet from ,mecca to ,medina1 the ,mediterranean had been turned into a ,moslem lake1 all communications between ,europe and ,asia had been cut off and the ,european continent was placed in a state of siege which lasted until the end of the seventeenth century4 ,under those circumstances it had been impossible for the ,church to carry her doctrines eastward4 ,all she could hope to do was to hold on to what she already possessed4 ,germany and the ,balkans and ,russia and ,denmark and ,sweden and ,norway and ,bohemia and ,hungary had been chosen as a profitable field for intensive spiritual cultivation and on the whole1 the work was done with great success4 ,occasionally a hardy ,christian of the variety of ,charlemagne1 well-intentioned but not yet entirely civilized1 might revert to strong-arm methods and might butcher those of his subjects who preferred their own ,gods to those of the foreigner4 ,by and large1 however1 the ,christian missionaries were well received1 for they were honest men who told a simple and straightforward story which all the people could understand and because they introduced certain elements of order and neatness and mercy into a world full of bloodshed and strife and highway robbery4 ,but while this was happening along the frontier1 things had not gone so well in the heart of the pontifical empire4 ,incessantly 7to revert to the mathematics explained in the first pages of this chapter7 the line of worldliness had been lengthened until at last the spiritual element in the ,church had been made entirely subservient to considerations of a purely political and economic nature and although ,rome was to grow in power and exercise a tremendous influence upon the development of the next twelve centuries1 certain elements of disintegration had already made their appearance and were being recognized as such by the more intelligent among the laity and the clergy4 ,we modern people of the ,protestant north think of a 8church0 as a building which stands empty six days out of every seven and a place where people go on a ,sunday to hear a sermon and sing a few hymns4 ,we know that some of our churches have bishops and occasionally these bishops hold a convention in our town and then we find ourselves surrounded by a number of kindly old gentlemen with their collars turned backwards and we read in the papers that they have declared themselves in favor of dancing or against divorce1 and then they go home again and nothing has happened to disturb the peace and happiness of our community4 ,we rarely associate this church 7even if it happens to be our own7 with the sum total of all our experiences1 both in life and in death4 ,the ,state1 of course1 is something very different4 ,the ,state may take our money and may kill us if it feels that such a course is desirable for the public good4 ,the ,state is our owner1 our master1 but what is now generally called 8the ,church0 is either our good and trusted friend or1 if we happen to quarrel with her1 a fairly indifferent enemy4 ,but in the ,middle ,ages this was altogether different4 ,then1 the ,church was something visible and tangible1 a highly active organization which breathed and existed1 which shaped man's destiny in many more ways than the ,state would ever dream of doing4 ,very likely those first ,popes who accepted pieces of land from grateful princes and renounced the ancient ideal of poverty did not foresee the consequences to which such a policy was bound to lead4 ,in the beginning it had seemed harmless enough and quite appropriate that faithful followers of ,christ should bestow upon the successor of the apostle ,peter a share of their own worldly goods4 ,besides1 there was the overhead of a complicated administration which reached all the way from ,john o',groat's to ,trebizond and from ,carthage to ,upsala4 ,think of all the thousands of secretaries and clerks and scribes1 not to mention the hundreds of heads of the different departments1 that had to be housed and clothed and fed4 ,think of the amount spent upon a courier service across an entire continent2 the traveling expenses of diplomatic agents now going to ,london1 then returning from ,novgorod2 the sums necessary to keep the papal courtiers in the style that was expected of people who foregathered with worldly princes on a footing of complete equality4 ,all the same1 looking back upon what the ,church came to stand for and contemplating what it might have been under slightly more favorable circumstances1 this development seems a great pity4 ,for ,rome rapidly grew into a gigantic super-state with a slight religious tinge and the pope became an international autocrat who held all the nations of western ,europe in a bondage compared to which the rule of the old emperors had been mild and generous4 ,and then1 when complete success seemed within certain reach1 something happened which proved fatal to the ambition for world dominion4 ,the true spirit of the ,master once more began to stir among the masses and that is one of the most uncomfortable things that can happen to any religious organization4 ,heretics were nothing new4 ,there had been dissenters as soon as there had been a single rule of faith from which people could possibly dissent and disputes1 which had divided ,europe and ,africa and western ,asia into hostile camps for centuries at a time1 were almost as old as the ,church herself4 ,but these sanguinary quarrels between ,donatists and ,sabellianists and ,monophysites and ,manichaeans and ,nestorians hardly come within the scope of this book4 ,as a rule1 one party was quite as narrow-minded as the other and there was little to choose between the intolerance of a follower of ,arius and the intolerance of a follower of ,athanasius4 ,besides1 these quarrels were invariably based upon certain obscure points of theology which are gradually beginning to be forgotten4 ,heaven forbid that ,i should drag them out of their parchment graves4 ,i am not wasting my time upon the fabrication of this volume to cause a fresh outbreak of theological fury4 ,rather1 ,i am writing these pages to tell our children of certain ideals of intellectual liberty for which some of their ancestors fought at the risk of their lives and to warn them against that attitude of doctrinary arrogance and cock-sureness which has caused such a terrible lot of suffering during the last two thousand years4 ,but when ,i reach the thirteenth century1 it is a very different story4 ,then a heretic ceases to be a mere dissenter1 a disputatious fellow with a pet hobby of his own based upon the wrong translation of an obscure sentence in the ,apocalypse or the mis-spelling of a holy word in the gospel of ,st4 ,john4 ,instead he becomes the champion of those ideas for which during the reign of ,tiberius a certain carpenter from the village of ,nazareth went to his death1 and behold6 he stands revealed as the only true ,christian6 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,inquisition ,in the year #aaih a certain ,lotario1 ,count of ,segni1 succeeded to the high honors which his uncle ,paolo had held only a few years before and as ,innocent ,,iii took possession of the papal chair4 ,he was one of the most remarkable men who ever resided in the ,lateran ,palace4 ,thirty-seven years old at the time of his ascension4 ,an honor-student in the universities of ,paris and ,boulogne4 ,rich1 clever1 full of energy and high ambition1 he used his office so well that he could rightly claim to exercise the 8government not of the ,church alone but of the entire world40 ,he set ,italy free from ,german interference by driving the imperial governor of ,rome from that city2 by reconquering those parts of the peninsula which were held by imperial troops2 and finally by excommunicating the candidate to the imperial throne until that poor prince found himself beset by so many difficulties that he withdrew entirely from his domains on the other side of the ,alps4 ,he organized the famous fourth ,crusade which never even came within sight of the ,holy ,land but sailed for ,constantinople1 murdered a goodly number of the inhabitants of that town1 stole whatever could be carried away and generally behaved in such a way that thereafter no crusader could show himself in a ,greek port without running the chance of being hanged as an outlaw4 ,it is true that ,innocent expressed his disapproval of these proceedings which shrieked to high ,heaven and filled the respectable minority of ,christendom with disgust and despair4 ,but ,innocent was a practical man of affairs4 ,he soon accepted the inevitable and appointed a ,venetian to the vacant post of ,patriarch of ,constantinople4 ,by this clever stroke he brought the eastern ,church once more under ,roman jurisdiction and at the same time gained the good will of the ,venetian ,republic which henceforth regarded the ,byzantine domains as part of her eastern colonies and treated them accordingly4 ,in spiritual matters too ,his ,holiness showed himself a most accomplished and tactful person4 ,the ,church1 after almost a thousand years of hesitation1 had at last begun to insist that marriage was not merely a civil contract between a man and a woman but a most holy sacrament which needed the public blessing of a priest to be truly valid4 ,when ,philip ,august of ,france and ,alphonso ,,ix of ,leon undertook to regulate their domestic affairs according to their own particular preferences1 they were speedily reminded of their duties and being men of great prudence they hastened to comply with the papal wishes4 ,even in the high north1 gained only recently for ,christianity1 people were shown in unmistakable manner who was their master4 ,king ,haakon ,,iv 7known familiarly among his fellow pirates as ,old ,haakon7 who had just conquered a neat little empire including besides his own ,norway1 part of ,scotland and all of ,iceland1 ,greenland1 the ,orkneys and the ,hebrides1 was obliged to submit the somewhat tangled problem of his birth to a ,roman tribunal before he could get himself crowned in his old cathedral of ,trondhjem4 ,and so it went4 ,the king of ,bulgaria1 who invariably murdered his ,greek prisoners of war1 and was not above torturing an occasional ,byzantine emperor1 who therefore was not the sort of person one might expect to take a deep interest in religious matters1 traveled all the way to ,rome and humbly asked that he be recognized as vassal of ,his ,holiness4 ,while in ,england1 certain barons who had undertaken to discipline their sovereign master were rudely informed that their charter was null and void because 8it had been obtained by force0 and next found themselves excommunicated for having given unto this world the famous document known as ,magna ,charta4 ,from all this it will appear that ,innocent ,,iii was not the sort of person who would deal lightly with the pretensions of a few simple linen-weavers and illiterate shepherds who undertook to question the laws of his ,church4 ,and yet1 some there were found who had the courage to do this very thing as we shall now see4 ,the subject of all heresies is extremely difficult4 ,heretics1 almost invariably1 are poor people who have small gift for publicity4 ,the occasional clumsy little pamphlets they write to explain their ideas and to defend themselves against their enemies fall an easy prey to the ever watchful detectives of whatever inquisition happens to be in force at that particular moment and are promptly destroyed4 ,hence we depend for our knowledge of most heresies upon such information as we are able to glean from the records of their trials and upon such articles as have been written by the enemies of the false doctrines for the express purpose of exposing the new 8conspiracy of ,satan0 to the truly faithful that all the world may be duly scandalized and warned against doing likewise4 ,as a result we usually get a composite picture of a long-haired individual in a dirty shirt1 who lives in an empty cellar somewhere in the lowest part of the slums1 who refuses to touch decent ,christian food but subsists entirely upon vegetables1 who drinks naught but water1 who keeps away from the company of women and mumbles strange prophecies about the second coming of the ,messiah1 who reproves the clergy for their worldliness and wickedness and generally disgusts his more respectable neighbors by his ill-guided attacks upon the established order of things4 ,undoubtedly a great many heretics have succeeded in making a nuisance of themselves1 for that seems to be the fate of people who take themselves too seriously4 ,undoubtedly a great many of them1 driven by their almost unholy zeal for a holy life1 were dirty1 looked like the devil and did not smell pleasantly and generally upset the quiet routine of their home town by their strange ideas anent a truly ,christian existence4 ,but let us give them credit for their courage and their honesty4 ,they had mighty little to gain and everything to lose4 ,as a rule1 they lost it4 ,of course1 everything in this world tends to become organized4 ,eventually even those who believe in no organization at all must form a ,society for the ,promotion of ,disorganization1 if they wish to accomplish anything4 ,and the medieval heretics1 who loved the mysterious and wallowed in emotions1 were no exception to this rule4 ,their instinct of self-preservation made them flock together and their feeling of insecurity forced them to surround their sacred doctrines by a double barrier of mystic rites and esoteric ceremonials4 ,but of course the masses of the people1 who remained faithful to the ,church1 were unable to make any distinction between these different groups and sects4 ,and they bunched them all together and called them dirty ,manichaeans or some other unflattering name and felt that that solved the problem4 ,in this way did the ,manichaeans become the ,bolshevists of the ,middle ,ages4 ,of course ,i do not use the latter name as indicating membership in a certain well-defined political party which a few years ago established itself as the dominant factor in the old ,russian ,empire4 ,i refer to a vague and ill-defined term of abuse which people nowadays bestow upon all their personal enemies from the landlord who comes to collect the rent down to the elevator boy who neglects to stop at the right floor4 ,a ,manichaean1 to a medieval super-,christian1 was a most objectionable person4 ,but as he could not very well try him upon any positive charges1 he condemned him upon hearsay1 a method which has certain unmistakable advantages over the less spectacular and infinitely slower procedure followed by the regular courts of law but which sometimes suffers from a lack of accuracy and is responsible for a great many judicial murders4 ,what made this all the more reprehensible in the case of the poor ,manichaeans was the fact that the founder of the original sect1 a ,persian by the name of ,mani1 had been the very incarnation of benevolence and charity4 ,he was an historical figure and was born during the first quarter of the third century in the town of ,ecbatana where his father1 ,patak1 was a man of considerable wealth and influence4 ,he was educated in ,ctesiphon1 on the river ,tigris1 and spent the years of his youth in a community as international1 as polyglot1 as pious1 as godless1 as material and as idealistically-spiritual as the ,new ,york of our own day4 ,every heresy1 every religion1 every schism1 every sect of east and west and south and north had its followers among the crowds that visited the great commercial centers of ,mesopotamia4 ,mani listened to all the different preachers and prophets and then distilled a philosophy of his own which was a mixtum-compositum of ,buddhism1 ,christianity1 ,mithraism and ,judaism1 with a slight sprinkling of half a dozen old ,babylonian superstitions4 ,making due allowance for certain extremes to which his followers sometimes carried his doctrines1 it can be stated that ,mani merely revived the old ,persian myth of the ,good ,god and the ,evil ,god who are eternally fighting for the soul of man and that he associated the ancient ,god of ,evil with the ,jehovah of the ,old ,testament 7who thus became his ,devil7 and the ,god of ,all ,good ,things with that ,heavenly ,father whom we find revealed within the pages of the ,four ,gospels4 ,furthermore 7and that is where ,buddhistic influence made itself felt7 ,mani believed that the body of man was by nature a vile and despicable thing2 that all people should try to rid themselves of their worldly ambitions by the constant mortification of the flesh and should obey the strictest rules of diet and behavior lest they fall into the clutches of the ,evil ,god 7the ,devil7 and burn in ,hell4 ,as a result he revived a large number of taboos about things that must not be eaten or drunk and prescribed for his followers a menu composed exclusively of cold water1 dried vegetables and dead fish4 ,this latter ordinance may surprise us1 but the inhabitants of the sea1 being cold-blooded animals1 have always been regarded as less harmful to man's immortal soul than their warm-blooded brethren of the dry land1 and the self-same people who would rather suffer death than eat a veal chop cheerfully consume quantities of fish and never feel a qualm of conscience4 ,mani showed himself a true ,oriental in his contempt for women4 ,he forbade his disciples to marry and advocated the slow extinction of the human race4 ,as for baptism and the other ceremonies instituted originally by the ,jewish sect of which ,john the ,baptist had been the exponent1 ,mani regarded them all with horror and instead of being submerged in water1 his candidates for holy orders were initiated by the laying on of hands4 ,at the age of twenty-five1 this strange man undertook to explain his ideas unto all mankind4 ,first he visited ,india and ,china where he was fairly successful4 ,then he turned homeward to bring the blessings of his creed to his own neighbors4 ,but the ,persian priests who began to find themselves deprived of much secret revenue by the success of these unworldly doctrines turned against him and asked that he be killed4 ,in the beginning1 ,mani enjoyed the protection of the king1 but when this sovereign died and was succeeded by some one else who had no interest whatsoever in religious questions1 ,mani was surrendered to the priestly class4 ,they took him to the walls of the town and crucified him and flayed his corpse and publicly exposed his skin before the city gate as an example to all those who might feel inclined to take an interest in the heresies of the ,ecbatanian prophet4 ,by this violent conflict with the authorities1 the ,manichaean church itself was broken up4 ,but little bits of the prophet's ideas1 like so many spiritual meteors1 were showered far and wide upon the landscape of ,europe and ,asia and for centuries afterwards continued to cause havoc among the simple and the poor who inadvertently had picked them up1 had examined them and had found them singularly to their taste4 ,exactly how and when ,manichaeism entered ,europe1 ,i do not know4 ,most likely it came by way of ,asia ,minor1 the ,black ,sea and the ,danube4 ,then it crossed the ,alps and soon enjoyed immense popularity in ,germany and ,france4 ,there the followers of the new creed called themselves by the ,oriental name of the ,cathari1 or 8the people who lead a pure life10 and so widespread was the affliction that all over western ,europe the word 8,ketzer0 or 8,ketter0 came to mean the same as 8heretic40 ,but please don't think of the ,cathari as members of a definite religious denomination4 ,no effort was made to establish a new sect4 ,the ,manichaean ideas exercised great influence upon a large number of people who would have stoutly denied that they were anything but most devout sons of the ,church4 ,and that made this particular form of heresy so dangerous and so difficult of detection4 ,it is comparatively easy for the average doctor to diagnose a disease caused by microbes of such gigantic structure that their presence can be detected by the microscope of a provincial board-of-health4 ,but ,heaven protect us against the little creatures who can maintain their incognito in the midst of an ultra-violet illumination1 for they shall inherit the earth4 ,manichaeism1 from the point of view of the ,church1 was therefore the most dangerous expression of all social epidemics and it filled the higher authorities of that organization with a terror not felt before the more common varieties of spiritual afflictions4 ,it was rarely mentioned above a whisper1 but some of the staunchest supporters of the early ,christian faith had shown unmistakable symptoms of the disease4 ,yea1 great ,saint ,augustine1 that most brilliant and indefatigable warrior of the ,cross1 who had done more than any one else to destroy the last stronghold of heathenism1 was said to have been at heart considerable of a ,manichaean4 ,priscillian1 the ,spanish bishop who was burned at the stake in the year #che and who gained the distinction of being the first victim of the law against heretics1 was accused of ,manichaean tendencies4 ,even the heads of the ,church seemed gradually to have fallen under the spell of the abominable ,persian doctrines4 ,they were beginning to discourage laymen from reading the ,old ,testament and finally1 during the twelfth century1 promulgated that famous order by which all clergymen were henceforth condemned to a state of celibacy4 ,not to forget the deep impression which these ,persian ideals of abstinence were soon to make upon one of the greatest leaders of spiritual reform1 causing that most lovable of men1 good ,francis of ,assisi1 to establish a new monastic order of such strict ,manichaean purity that it rightly earned him the title of the ,buddha of the ,west4 ,but when these high and noble ideals of voluntary poverty and humility of soul began to filter down to the common people1 at the very moment when the world was filled with the din of yet another war between emperor and pope1 when foreign mercenaries1 bearing the banners of the cross and the eagle1 were fighting each other for the most valuable bits of territory along the ,mediterranean shores1 when hordes of ,crusaders were rushing home with the ill-gotten plunder they had taken from friend and enemy alike1 when abbots lived in luxurious palaces and maintained a staff of courtiers1 when priests galloped through the morning's mass that they might hurry to the hunting breakfast1 then indeed something very unpleasant was bound to happen1 and it did4 ,little wonder that the first symptoms of open discontent with the state of the ,church made themselves felt in that part of ,france where the old ,roman tradition of culture had survived longest and where civilization had never been quite absorbed by barbarism4 ,you will find it on the map4 ,it is called the ,provence and consists of a small triangle situated between the ,mediterranean1 the ,rhone and the ,alps4 ,marseilles1 a former colony of the ,phoenicians1 was and still is its most important harbor and it possessed no mean number of rich towns and villages4 ,it had always been a very fertile land and it enjoyed an abundance of sunshine and rain4 ,while the rest of medieval ,europe still listened to the barbaric deeds of hairy ,teuton heroes1 the troubadours1 the poets of the ,provence1 had already invented that new form of literature which in time was to give birth to our modern novel4 ,furthermore1 the close commercial relations of these ,provenals with their neighbors1 the ,mohammedans of ,spain and ,sicily1 were making the people familiar with the latest publications in the field of science at a time when the number of such books in the northern part of ,europe could be counted on the fingers of two hands4 ,in this country1 the back-to-early-,christianity movement had begun to make itself manifest as early as the first decade of the eleventh century4 ,but there had not been anything which1 however remotely1 could be construed into open rebellion4 ,here and there in certain small villages certain people were beginning to hint that their priests might live as simply and as unostentatiously as their parishioners2 who refused 7oh1 memory of the ancient martyrs67 to fight when their lords went forth to war2 who tried to learn a little ,latin that they might read and study the ,gospels for themselves2 who let it be known that they did not approve of capital punishment2 who denied the existence of that ,purgatory which six centuries after the death of ,christ had been officially proclaimed as part of the ,christian ,heaven2 and who 7a most important detail7 refused to surrender a tenth of their income to the ,church4 ,whenever possible the ring leaders of such rebellions against clerical authority were sought out and sometimes1 if they were deaf to persuasion1 they were discreetly put out of the way4 ,but the evil continued to spread and finally it was deemed necessary to call together a meeting of all the bishops of the ,provence to discuss what measures should be taken to put a stop to this very dangerous and highly seditious agitation4 ,they duly convened and continued their debates until the year #ajef4 ,by that time it had been plainly shown that the ordinary forms of punishment and excommunication did not produce any noticeable results4 ,the simple country folk who desired to lead a 8pure life0 were delighted whenever they were given a chance to demonstrate their principles of ,christian charity and forgiveness behind the locked doors of a jail and if perchance they were condemned to death1 they marched to the stake with the meekness of a lamb4 ,furthermore1 as always happens in such cases1 the place left vacant by a single martyr was immediately occupied by a dozen fresh candidates for holiness4 ,almost an entire century was spent in the quarrels between the papal delegates who insisted upon more severe persecutions and the local nobility and clergy who 7knowing the true nature of their subjects7 refused to comply with the orders from ,rome and protested that violence only encouraged the heretics to harden their souls against the voice of reason and therefore was a waste both of time and energy4 ,and then1 late in the twelfth century1 the movement received a fresh impetus from the north4 ,in the town of ,lyons1 connected with the ,provence by way of the ,rhone1 there lived a merchant by the name of ,peter ,waldo4 ,a very serious man1 a good man1 a most generous man1 almost fanatically obsessed by his eagerness to follow the example of his ,saviour4 ,jesus had taught that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich young man to enter the kingdom of ,heaven4 ,thirty generations of ,christians had tried to explain just what ,jesus had actually meant when he uttered these words4 ,not so ,peter ,waldo4 ,he read and he believed4 ,he divided whatever he had among the poor1 retired from business and refused to accumulate fresh wealth4 ,john had written1 8,search ye the scriptures40 ,twenty popes had commented upon this sentence and had carefully stipulated under what conditions it might perhaps be desirable for the laity to study the holy books directly and without the assistance of a priest4 ,peter ,waldo did not see it that way4 ,john had said1 8,search ye the scriptures40 ,very well4 ,then ,peter ,waldo would search4 ,and when he discovered that the things he found did not tally with the conclusions of ,saint ,jerome1 he translated the ,new ,testament into his own language and spread copies of his manuscript throughout the good land of ,provence4 ,at first his activities did not attract much attention4 ,his enthusiasm for poverty did not seem dangerous4 ,most likely he could be persuaded to found some new and very ascetic monastic order for the benefit of those who wished to lead a life of real hardships and who complained that the existing monasteries were a bit too luxurious and too comfortable4 ,rome had always been very clever at finding fitting outlets for those people whose excess of faith might make them troublesome4 ,but all things must be done according to rule and precedent4 ,and in that respect the 8pure men0 of the ,provence and the 8poor men0 of ,lyons were terrible failures4 ,not only did they neglect to inform their bishops of what they were doing1 they even went further and boldly proclaimed the startling doctrine that one could be a perfectly good ,christian without the assistance of a professional member of the priesthood and that the ,bishop of ,rome had no more right to tell people outside of his jurisdiction what to do and what to believe than the ,grand ,duke of ,tartary or the ,caliph of ,bagdad4 ,the ,church was placed before a terrible dilemma and truth compels me to state that she waited a long time before she finally decided to exterminate this heresy by force4 ,but an organization based upon the principle that there is only one right way of thinking and living and that all other ways are infamous and damnable is bound to take drastic measures whenever its authority is being openly questioned4 ,if it failed to do so it could not possibly hope to survive and this consideration at last compelled ,rome to take definite action and devise a series of punishments that should put terror into the hearts of all future dissenters4 ,the ,albigenses 7the heretics were called after the city of ,albi which was a hotbed of the new doctrine7 and the ,waldenses 7who bore the name of their founder1 ,peter ,waldo7 living in countries without great political value and therefore not well able to defend themselves1 were selected as the first of her victims4 ,the murder of a papal delegate who for several years had ruled the ,provence as if it were so much conquered territory1 gave ,innocent ,,iii an excuse to interfere4 ,he preached a formal crusade against both the ,albigenses and the ,waldenses4 ,those who for forty consecutive days would join the expedition against the heretics would be excused from paying interest on their debts2 they would be absolved from all past and future sins and for the time being they would be exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts of law4 ,this was a fair offer and it greatly appealed to the people of northern ,europe4 ,why should they bother about going all the way to ,palestine when a campaign against the rich cities of the ,provence offered the same spiritual and economic rewards as a trip to the ,orient and when a man could gain an equal amount of glory in exchange for a much shorter term of service8 ,for the time being the ,holy ,land was forgotten and the worst elements among the nobility and gentry of northern ,france and southern ,england1 of ,austria1 ,saxony and ,poland came rushing southward to escape the local sheriff and incidentally replenish its depleted coffers at the expense of the prosperous ,provenals4 ,the number of men1 women and children hanged1 burned1 drowned1 decapitated and quartered by these gallant crusaders is variously given4 ,i have not any idea how many thousands perished4 ,here and there1 whenever a formal execution took place1 we are provided with a few concrete figures1 and these vary between two thousand and twenty thousand1 according to the size of each town4 ,after the city of ,bziers had been captured1 the soldiers were in a quandary how to know who were heretics and who were not4 ,they placed their problem before the papal delegate1 who followed the army as a sort of spiritual adviser4 8,my children10 the good man answered1 8go ahead and kill them all4 ,the ,lord will know his own people40 ,but it was an ,englishman by the name of ,simon de ,montfort1 a veteran of the real crusades1 who distinguished himself most of all by the novelty and the ingenuity of his cruelties4 ,in return for his valuable services1 he afterwards received large tracts of land in the country which he had just pillaged and his subordinates were rewarded in proportion4 ,as for the few ,waldenses who survived the massacre1 they fled to the more inaccessible valleys of ,piedmont and there maintained a church of their own until the days of the ,reformation4 ,the ,albigenses were less fortunate4 ,after a century of flogging and hanging1 their name disappears from the court reports of the ,inquisition4 ,but three centuries later1 in a slightly modified form1 their doctrines were to crop up again and propagated by a ,saxon priest called ,martin ,luther1 they were to cause that reform which was to break the monopoly which the papal super-state had enjoyed for almost fifteen hundred years4 ,all that1 of course1 was hidden to the shrewd eyes of ,innocent ,,iii4 ,as far as he was concerned1 the difficulty was at an end and the principle of absolute obedience had been triumphantly re-asserted4 ,the famous command in ,luke xiv3 #bc where ,christ tells how a certain man who wished to give a party1 finding that there still was room in his banqueting hall and that several of the guests had remained away1 had said unto his servant1 8,go out into the highways and compel them to come in10 had once more been fulfilled4 8,they10 the heretics1 had been compelled to come in4 ,the problem how to make them stay in still faced the ,church and this was not solved until many years later4 ,then1 after many unsuccessful experiments with local tribunals1 special courts of inquiry1 such as had been used for the first time during the ,albigensian uprising1 were instituted in the different capitals of ,europe4 ,they were given jurisdiction over all cases of heresy and they came to be known simply as the ,inquisition4 ,even today when the ,inquisition has long since ceased to function1 the mere name fills our hearts with a vague feeling of unrest4 ,we have visions of dark dungeons in ,havanna1 of torture chambers in ,lisbon1 of rusty cauldrons and branding irons in the museum of ,cracow1 of yellow hoods and black masks1 of a king with a heavy lower jaw leering at an endless row of old men and women1 slowly shuffling to the gibbet4 ,several popular novels written during the latter half of the nineteenth century have undoubtedly had something to do with this impression of sinister brutality4 ,let us therefore deduct twenty-five per cent for the phantasy of our romantic scribes and another twenty-five for ,protestant prejudice and we shall find that enough horror remains to justify those who claim that all secret tribunals are an insufferable evil and should never again be tolerated in a community of civilized people4 ,henry ,charles ,lea has treated the subject of the ,inquisition in eight ponderous volumes4 ,i shall have to reduce these to two or three pages1 and it will be quite impossible to give a concise account of one of the most complicated problems of medieval history within so short a space4 ,for there never was an ,inquisition as there is a ,supreme ,court or an ,international ,court of ,arbitration4 ,there were all sorts of ,inquisitions in all sorts of countries and created for all sorts of purposes4 ,the best known of these was the ,royal ,inquisition of ,spain and the ,holy ,inquisition of ,rome4 ,the former was a local affair which watched over the heretics in the ,iberian peninsula and in the ,american colonies4 ,the latter had its ramifications all over ,europe and burned ,joan of ,arc in the northern part of the continent as it burned ,giordano ,bruno in the southern4 ,it is true that the ,inquisition1 strictly speaking1 never killed any one4 ,after sentence had been pronounced by the clerical judges1 the convicted heretic was surrendered to the secular authorities4 ,these could then do with him what they thought fit4 ,but if they failed to pronounce the death penalty1 they exposed themselves to a great deal of inconvenience and might even find themselves excommunicated or deprived of their support at the papal court4 ,if1 as sometimes happened1 the prisoner escaped this fate and was not given over to the magistrates his sufferings only increased4 ,for he then ran the risk of solitary confinement for the rest of his natural life in one of the inquisitorial prisons4 ,as death at the stake was preferable to the slow terror of going insane in a dark hole in a rocky castle1 many prisoners confessed all sorts of crimes of which they were totally innocent that they might be found guilty of heresy and thus be put out of their misery4 ,it is not easy to write upon this subject without appearing to be hopelessly biased4 ,it seems incredible that for more than five centuries hundreds of thousands of harmless people in all parts of the world were overnight lifted from their beds at the mere whispered hearsay of some loquacious neighbors2 that they were held for months or for years in filthy cells awaiting an opportunity to appear before a judge whose name and qualifications were unknown to them2 that they were never informed of the nature of the accusation that was brought against them2 that they were not allowed to know the names of those who had acted as witnesses against them2 that they were not permitted to communicate with their relatives or consult a lawyer2 that if they continued to protest their innocence1 they could be tortured until all the limbs of their body were broken2 that other heretics could testify against them but were not listened to if they offered to tell something favorable of the accused2 and finally that they could be sent to their death without the haziest notion as to the cause of their terrible fate4 ,it seems even more incredible that men and women who had been buried for fifty or sixty years could be dug out of their graves1 could be found guilty 8in absentia0 and that the heirs of people who were condemned in this fashion could be deprived of their worldly possessions half a century after the death of the offending parties4 ,but such was the case and as the inquisitors depended for their maintenance upon a liberal share of all the goods that were confiscated1 absurdities of this sort were by no means an uncommon occurrence and frequently the grandchildren were driven to beggary on account of something which their grandfather was supposed to have done two generations before4 ,those of us who followed the newspapers twenty years ago when ,czarist ,russia was in the heyday of its power1 remember the agent provocateur4 ,as a rule the agent provocateur was a former burglar or a retired gambler with a winning personality and a 8grievance40 ,he let it be secretly known that his sorrow had made him join the revolution and in this way he often gained the confidence of those who were genuinely opposed to the imperial government4 ,but as soon as he had learned the secrets of his new friends1 he betrayed them to the police1 pocketed the reward and went to the next city1 there to repeat his vile practices4 ,during the thirteenth1 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries1 southern and western ,europe was overrun by this nefarious tribe of private spies4 ,they made a living denouncing those who were supposed to have criticized the ,church or who had expressed doubts upon certain points of doctrine4 ,if there were no heretics in the neighborhood1 it was the business of such an agent provocateur to manufacture them4 ,as he could rest assured that torture would make his victims confess1 no matter how innocent they might be1 he ran no risks and could continue his trade ad infinitum4 ,in many countries a veritable reign of terror was introduced by this system of allowing anonymous people to denounce those whom they suspected of spiritual deficiencies4 ,at last1 no one dared trust his nearest and dearest friends4 ,members of the same family were forced to be on their guard against each other4 ,the mendicant friars who handled a great deal of the inquisitorial work made excellent use of the panic which their methods created and for almost two centuries they lived on the fat of the land4 ,yes1 it is safe to say that one of the main underlying causes of the ,reformation was the disgust which a large number of people felt for those arrogant beggars who under a cloak of piety forced themselves into the homes of respectable citizens1 who slept in the most comfortable beds1 who partook of the best dishes1 who insisted that they be treated as honored guests and who were able to maintain themselves in comfort by the mere threat that they would denounce their benefactors to the ,inquisition if ever they were deprived of any of those luxuries which they had come to regard as their just due4 ,the ,church of course could answer to all this that the ,inquisition merely acted as a spiritual health officer whose sworn duty it was to prevent contagious errors from spreading among the masses4 ,it could point to the leniency shown to all heathen who acted in ignorance and therefore could not be held responsible for their opinions4 ,it could even claim that few people ever suffered the penalty of death unless they were apostates and were caught in a new offense after having forsworn their former errors4 ,but what of it8 ,the same trick by which an innocent man was changed into a desperate criminal could afterwards be used to place him in an apparent position of recantation4 ,the agent provocateur and the forger have ever been close friends4 ,and what are a few faked documents between spies8 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,curious ,,ones ,modern intolerance1 like ancient ,gaul1 is divided into three parts2 the intolerance of laziness1 the intolerance of ignorance and the intolerance of self-interest4 ,the first of these is perhaps the most general4 ,it is to be met with in every country and among all classes of society4 ,it is most common in small villages and old-established towns1 and it is not restricted to human beings4 ,our old family horse1 having spent the first twenty-five years of his placid life in a warm stable in ,coley ,town1 resents the equally warm barn of ,westport for no other reason than that he has always lived in ,coley ,town1 is familiar with every stick and stone in ,coley ,town and knows that no new and unfamiliar sights will frighten him on his daily ambles through that pleasant part of the ,connecticut landscape4 ,our scientific world has thus far spent so much time learning the defunct dialects of ,polynesian islands that the language of dogs and cats and horses and donkeys has been sadly neglected4 ,but could we know what ,dude says to his former neighbors of ,coley ,town1 we would hear an outburst of the most ferocious equine intolerance4 ,for ,dude is no longer young and therefore is 8set0 in his ways4 ,his horsey habits were all formed years and years ago and therefore all the ,coley ,town manners1 customs and habits seem right to him and all the ,westport customs and manners and habits will be declared wrong until the end of his days4 ,it is this particular variety of intolerance which makes parents shake their heads over the foolish behavior of their children1 which has caused the absurd myth of 8the good old days02 which makes savages and civilized creatures wear uncomfortable clothes2 which fills the world with a great deal of superfluous nonsense and generally turns all people with a new idea into the supposed enemies of mankind4 ,otherwise1 however1 this sort of intolerance is comparatively harmless4 ,we are all of us bound to suffer from it sooner or later4 ,in ages past it has caused millions of people to leave home1 and in this way it has been responsible for the permanent settlement of vast tracts of uninhabited land which otherwise would still be a wilderness4 ,the second variety is much more serious4 ,an ignorant man is1 by the very fact of his ignorance1 a very dangerous person4 ,but when he tries to invent an excuse for his own lack of mental faculties1 he becomes a holy terror4 ,for then he erects within his soul a granite bulwark of self-righteousness and from the high pinnacle of this formidable fortress1 he defies all his enemies 7to wit1 those who do not share his own prejudices7 to show cause why they should be allowed to live4 ,people suffering from this particular affliction are both uncharitable and mean4 ,because they live constantly in a state of fear1 they easily turn to cruelty and love to torture those against whom they have a grievance4 ,it was among people of this ilk that the strange notion of a predilected group of a 8chosen people0 first took its origin4 ,furthermore1 the victims of this delusion are forever trying to bolster up their own courage by an imaginary relationship which exists between themselves and the invisible ,gods4 ,this1 of course1 in order to give a flavor of spiritual approbation to their intolerance4 ,for instance1 such citizens never say1 8,we are hanging ,danny ,deever because we consider him a menace to our own happiness1 because we hate him with a thousand hates and because we just love to hang him40 ,oh1 no6 ,they get together in solemn conclave and deliberate for hours and for days and for weeks upon the fate of said ,danny ,deever4 ,when finally sentence is read1 poor ,danny1 who has perhaps committed some petty sort of larceny1 stands solemnly convicted as a most terrible person who has dared to offend the ,divine ,will 7as privately communicated to the elect who alone can interpret such messages7 and whose execution therefore becomes a sacred duty1 bringing great credit upon the judges who have the courage to convict such an ally of ,satan4 ,that good-natured and otherwise kind-hearted people are quite as apt to fall under the spell of this most fatal delusion as their more brutal and blood-thirsty neighbors is a commonplace both of history and psychology4 ,the crowds that gaped delightedly at the sad plight of a thousand poor martyrs were most assuredly not composed of criminals4 ,they were decent1 pious folk and they felt sure that they were doing something very creditable and pleasing in the sight of their own particular ,divinity4 ,had one spoken to them of tolerance1 they would have rejected the idea as an ignoble confession of ,moral weakness4 ,perhaps they were intolerant1 but in that case they were proud of the fact and with good right4 ,for there1 out in the cold dampness of early morning1 stood ,danny ,deever1 clad in a saffron colored shirt and in a pair of pantaloons adorned with little devils1 and he was going1 going slowly but surely1 to be hanged in the ,market ,place4 ,while they themselves1 as soon as the show was over1 would return to a comfortable home and a plentiful meal of bacon and beans4 ,was not that in itself proof enough that they were acting and thinking correctly8 ,otherwise would they be among the spectators8 ,would not the rles be reversed8 ,a feeble argument1 ,i confess1 but a very common one and hard to answer when people feel sincerely convinced that their own ideas are the ideas of ,god and are unable to understand how they could possibly be mistaken4 ,there remains as a third category the intolerance caused by self-interest4 ,this1 of course1 is really a variety of jealousy and as common as the measles4 ,when ,jesus came to ,jerusalem1 there to teach that the favor of ,almighty ,god could not be bought by the killing of a dozen oxen or goats1 all those who made a living from the ceremonial sacrifices in the temple decried him as a dangerous revolutionist and caused him to be executed before he could do any lasting damage to their main source of income4 ,when ,saint ,paul1 a few years later1 came to ,ephesus and there preached a new creed which threatened to interfere with the prosperity of the jewelers who derived great profit from the sale of little images of the local ,goddess ,diana1 the ,guild of the ,goldsmiths almost lynched the unwelcome intruder4 ,and ever since there has been open warfare between those who depend for their livelihood upon some established form of worship and those whose ideas threaten to take the crowd away from one temple in favor of another4 ,when we attempt to discuss the intolerance of the ,middle ,ages1 we must constantly remember that we have to deal with a very complicated problem4 ,only upon very rare occasions do we find ourselves confronted with only one manifestation of these three separate forms of intolerance4 ,most frequently we can discover traces of all three varieties in the cases of persecution which are brought to our attention4 ,that an organization1 enjoying great wealth1 administering thousands of square miles of land and owning hundreds of thousands of serfs1 should have turned the full vigor of its anger against a group of peasants who had undertaken to restablish a simple and unpretentious ,kingdom-of-,heaven-on-,earth was entirely natural4 ,and in that case1 the extermination of heretics became a matter of economic necessity and belonged to class ,c1 the intolerance of self-interest4 ,but when we begin to consider another group of men who were to feel the heavy hand of official disapprobation1 the scientists1 the problem becomes infinitely more complicated4 ,and in order to understand the perverse attitude of the ,church authorities towards those who tried to reveal the secrets of nature1 we must go back a good many centuries and study what had actually happened in ,europe during the first six centuries of our era4 ,the invasion of the ,barbarians had swept across the continent with the ruthless thoroughness of a flood4 ,here and there a few pieces of the old ,roman fabric of state had remained standing erect amidst the wastes of the turbulent waters4 ,but the society that had once dwelled within these walls had perished4 ,their books had been carried away by the waves4 ,their art lay forgotten in the deep mud of a new ignorance4 ,their collections1 their museums1 their laboratories1 their slowly accumulated mass of scientific facts1 all these had been used to stoke the camp-fires of uncouth savages from the heart of ,asia4 ,we possess several catalogues of libraries of the tenth century4 ,of ,greek books 7outside of the city of ,constantinople1 then almost as far removed from central ,europe as the ,melbourne of today7 the people of the west possessed hardly any4 ,it seems incredible1 but they had completely disappeared4 ,a few translations 7badly done7 of a few chapters from the works of ,aristotle and ,plato were all the scholar of that time could find when he wanted to familiarize himself with the thoughts of the ancients4 ,if he desired to learn their language1 there was no one to teach it to him1 unless a theological dispute in ,byzantium had driven a handful of ,greek monks from their customary habitats and had forced them to find a temporary asylum in ,france or ,italy4 ,latin books there were in great quantity1 but most of those dated from the fourth and fifth centuries4 ,the few manuscripts of the classics that survived had been copied so often and so indifferently that their contents were no longer understandable to any one who had not made a life study of paleography4 ,as for books of science1 with the possible exception of some of the simplest problems of ,euclid1 they were no longer to be found in any of the available libraries and what was much more regrettable1 they were no longer wanted4 ,for the people who now ruled the world regarded science with a hostile eye and discouraged all independent labor in the field of mathematics1 biology and zoology1 not to mention medicine and astronomy1 which had descended to such a low state of neglect that they were no longer of the slightest practical value4 ,it is exceedingly difficult for a modern mind to understand such a state of affairs4 ,we men and women of the twentieth century1 whether rightly or wrongly1 profoundly believe in the idea of progress4 ,whether we ever shall be able to make this world perfect1 we do not know4 ,in the meantime we feel it to be our most sacred duty to try4 ,yea1 sometimes this faith in the unavoidable destiny of progress seems to have become the national religion of our entire country4 ,but the people of the ,middle ,ages did not and could not share such a view4 ,the ,greek dream of a world filled with beautiful and interesting things had lasted such a lamentably short time6 ,it had been so rudely disturbed by the political cataclysm that had overtaken the unfortunate country that most ,greek writers of the later centuries had been confirmed pessimists who1 contemplating the ruins of their once happy fatherland1 had become abject believers in the doctrine of the ultimate futility of all worldly endeavor4 ,the ,roman authors1 on the other hand1 who could draw their conclusions from almost a thousand years of consecutive history1 had discovered a certain upward trend in the development of the human race and their philosophers1 notably the ,epicureans1 had cheerfully undertaken the task of educating the younger generation for a happier and better future4 ,then came ,christianity4 ,the center of interest was moved from this world to the other4 ,almost immediately people fell back into a deep and dark abyss of hopeless resignation4 ,man was evil4 ,he was evil by instinct and by preference4 ,he was conceived in sin1 born in sin1 he lived in sin and he died repenting of his sins4 ,but there was a difference between the old despair and the new4 ,the ,greeks were convinced 7and perhaps rightly so7 that they were more intelligent and better educated than their neighbors and they felt rather sorry for those unfortunate barbarians4 ,but they never quite reached the point at which they began to consider themselves as a race that had been set apart from all others because it was the chosen people of ,zeus4 ,christianity on the other hand was never able to escape from its own antecedents4 ,when the ,christians adopted the ,old ,testament as one of the ,holy ,books of their own faith1 they fell heir to the incredible ,jewish doctrine that their race was 8different0 from all others and that only those who professed a belief in certain officially established doctrines could hope to be saved while the rest were doomed to perdition4 ,this idea was1 of course1 of enormous direct benefit to those who were lacking sufficiently in humility of spirit to believe themselves predilected favorites among millions and millions of their fellow creatures4 ,during many highly critical years it had turned the ,christians into a closely-knit1 self-contained little community which floated unconcernedly upon a vast ocean of paganism4 ,what happened elsewhere on those waters that stretched far and wide towards the north and the south and the east and the west was a subject of the most profound indifference to ,tertullian or ,st4 ,augustine1 or any of those other early writers who were busily engaged in putting the ideas of their ,church into the concrete form of written books4 ,eventually they hoped to reach a safe shore and there to build their city of ,god4 ,meanwhile1 what those in other climes hoped to accomplish and to achieve was none of their concern4 ,hence they created for themselves entirely new conceptions about the origin of man and about the limits of time and space4 ,what the ,egyptians and ,babylonians and the ,greeks and the ,romans had discovered about these mysteries did not interest them in the least4 ,they were sincerely convinced that all the old values had been destroyed with the birth of ,christ4 ,there was for example the problem of our earth4 ,the ancient scientists held it to be one among a couple of billion of other stars4 ,the ,christians flatly rejected this idea4 ,to them1 the little round disk on which they lived was the heart and center of the universe4 ,it had been created for the special purpose of providing one particular group of people with a temporary home4 ,the way in which this had been brought about was very simple and was fully described in the first chapter of ,genesis4 ,when it became necessary to decide just how long this group of predilected people had been on this earth1 the problem became a little more complicated4 ,on all sides there were evidences of great antiquity1 of buried cities1 of extinct monsters and of fossilized plants4 ,but these could be reasoned away or overlooked or denied or shouted out of existence4 ,and after this had been done1 it was a very simple matter to establish a fixed date for the beginning of time4 ,in a universe like that1 a universe which was static1 which had begun at a certain hour of a certain day in a certain year1 and would end at another certain hour of a certain day in a certain year1 which existed for the exclusive benefit of one and only one denomination1 in such a universe there was no room for the prying curiosity of mathematicians and biologists and chemists and all sorts of other people who only cared for general principles and juggled with the idea of eternity and unlimitedness both in the field of time and in the realm of space4 ,true enough1 many of those scientific people protested that at heart they were devout sons of the ,church4 ,but the true ,christians knew better4 ,no man1 who was sincere in his protestations of love and devotion for the faith1 had any business to know so much or to possess so many books4 ,one book was enough4 ,that book was the ,bible1 and every letter in it1 every comma1 every semicolon and exclamation point had been written down by people who were divinely inspired4 ,a ,greek of the days of ,pericles would have been slightly amused if he had been told of a supposedly holy volume which contained scraps of ill-digested national history1 doubtful love poems1 the inarticulate visions of half-demented prophets and whole chapters devoted to the foulest denunciation of those who for some reason or another were supposed to have incurred the displeasure of one of ,asia's many tribal deities4 ,but the barbarian of the third century had a most humble respect for the 8written word0 which to him was one of the great mysteries of civilization1 and when this particular book1 by successive councils of his ,church1 was recommended to him as being without error1 flaw or slip1 he willingly enough accepted this extraordinary document as the sum total of everything that man had ever known1 or ever could hope to know1 and joined in the denunciation and persecution of those who defied ,heaven by extending their researches beyond the limits indicated by ,moses and ,isaiah4 ,the number of people willing to die for their principles has always been necessarily limited4 ,at the same time the thirst for knowledge on the part of certain people is so irrepressible that some outlet must be found for their pent up energy4 ,as a result of this conflict between curiosity and repression there grew up that stunted and sterile intellectual sapling which came to be known as ,scholasticism4 ,it dated back to the middle of the eighth century4 ,it was then that ,bertha1 wife to ,ppin the ,short1 king of the ,franks1 gave birth to a son who has better claims to be considered the patron saint of the ,french nation than that good ,king ,louis who cost his countrymen a ransom of eight hundred thousand ,turkish gold pieces and who rewarded his subjects' loyalty by giving them an inquisition of their own4 ,when the child was baptized it was given the name of ,carolus1 as you may see this very day at the bottom of many an ancient charter4 ,the signature is a little clumsy4 ,but ,charles was never much of a hand at spelling4 ,as a boy he learned to read ,frankish and ,latin1 but when he took up writing1 his fingers were so rheumatic from a life spent fighting the ,russians and the ,moors that he had to give up the attempt and hired the best scribes of his day to act as his secretaries and do his writing for him4 ,for this old frontiersman1 who prided himself upon the fact that only twice within fifty years had he worn 8city clothes0 7the toga of a ,roman nobleman71 had a most genuine appreciation of the value of learning1 and turned his court into a private university for the benefit of his own children and for the sons and daughters of his officials4 ,there1 surrounded by the most famous men of his time1 the new imperator of the west loved to spend his hours of leisure4 ,and so great was his respect for academic democracy that he dropped all etiquette and as simple ,brother ,david took an active share in the conversation and allowed himself to be contradicted by the humblest of his professors4 ,but when we come to examine the problems that interested this goodly company and the questions they discussed1 we are reminded of the list of subjects chosen by the debating teams of a rural high school in ,tennessee4 ,they were very nave1 to say the least4 ,and what was true in the year #hjj held equally good for #adjj4 ,this was not the fault of the medieval scholar1 whose brain was undoubtedly quite as good as that of his successors of the twentieth century4 ,but he found himself in the position of a modern chemist or doctor who is given complete liberty of investigation1 provided he does not say or do anything at variance with the chemical and medical information contained in the volumes of the first edition of the ,encyclopedia ,britannica of the year #agfh when chemistry was practically an unknown subject and surgery was closely akin to butchery4 ,as a result 7,i am mixing my metaphors anyway7 the medieval scientist with his tremendous brain capacity and his very limited field of experimentation reminds one somewhat of a ,rolls-,royce motor placed upon the chassis of a flivver4 ,whenever he stepped on the gas1 he met with a thousand accidents4 ,but when he played safe and drove his strange contraption according to the rules and regulations of the road he became slightly ridiculous and wasted a terrible lot of energy without getting anywhere in particular4 ,of course the best among these men were desperate at the rate of speed which they were forced to observe4 ,they tried in every possible way to escape from the everlasting observation of the clerical policemen4 ,they wrote ponderous volumes1 trying to prove the exact opposite of what they held to be true1 in order that they might give a hint of the things that were uppermost in their minds4 ,they surrounded themselves with all sorts of hocus pocus2 they wore strange garments2 they had stuffed crocodiles hanging from their ceilings2 they displayed shelves full of bottled monsters and threw evil smelling herbs in the furnace that they might frighten their neighbors away from their front door and at the same time establish a reputation of being the sort of harmless lunatics who could be allowed to say whatever they liked without being held too closely responsible for their ideas4 ,and gradually they developed such a thorough system of scientific camouflage that even today it is difficult for us to decide what they actually meant4 ,that the ,protestants a few centuries later showed themselves quite as intolerant towards science and literature as the ,church of the ,middle ,ages had done is quite true1 but it is beside the point4 ,the great reformers could fulminate and anathematize to their hearts' content1 but they were rarely able to turn their threats into positive acts of repression4 ,the ,roman ,church on the other hand not only possessed the power to crush its enemies but it made use of it1 whenever the occasion presented itself4 ,the difference may seem trivial to those of us who like to indulge in abstract cogitations upon the theoretical values of tolerance and intolerance4 ,but it was a very real issue to those poor devils1 who were placed before the choice of a public recantation or an equally public flogging4 ,and if they sometimes lacked the courage to say what they held to be true1 and preferred to waste their time on cross-word puzzles made up exclusively from the names of the animals mentioned in the ,book of ,revelations1 let us not be too hard on them4 ,i am quite certain that ,i never would have written the present volume1 six hundred years ago4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,the ,,war ,,upon ,,the ,,printed ,,word ,i find it increasingly difficult to write history4 ,i am rather like a man who has been trained to be a fiddler and then at the age of thirty-five is suddenly given a piano and ordered to make his living as a virtuoso of the ,klavier1 because that too 8is music40 ,i learned my trade in one sort of a world and ,i must practice it in an entirely different one4 ,i was taught to look upon all events of the past in the light of a definitely established order of things2 a universe more or less competently managed by emperors and kings and arch-dukes and presidents1 aided and abetted by congressmen and senators and secretaries of the treasury4 ,furthermore1 in the days of my youth1 the good ,lord was still tacitly recognized as the ex-officio head of everything1 and a personage who had to be treated with great respect and decorum4 ,then came the war4 ,the old order of things was completely upset1 emperors and kings were abolished1 responsible ministers were superseded by irresponsible secret committees1 and in many parts of the world1 ,heaven was formally closed by an order in council and a defunct economic hack-writer was officially proclaimed successor and heir to all the prophets of ancient times4 ,of course all this will not last4 ,but it will take civilization several centuries to catch up and by then ,i shall be dead4 ,meanwhile ,i have to make the best of things1 but it will not be easy4 ,take the question of ,russia4 ,when ,i spent some time in that ,holy ,land1 some twenty years ago1 fully one quarter of the pages of the foreign papers that reached us were covered with a smeary black substance1 known technically as 8caviar40 ,this stuff was rubbed upon those items which a careful government wished to hide from its loving subjects4 ,the world at large regarded this sort of supervision as an insufferable survival of the ,dark ,ages and we of the great republic of the west saved copies of the ,american comic papers1 duly 8caviared10 to show the folks at home what backward barbarians those far famed ,russians actually were4 ,then came the great ,russian revolution4 ,for the last seventy-five years the ,russian revolutionist had howled that he was a poor1 persecuted creature who enjoyed no 8liberty0 at all and as evidence thereof he had pointed to the strict supervision of all journals devoted to the cause of socialism4 ,but in the year #aiah1 the under-dog turned upper-dog4 ,and what happened8 ,did the victorious friends of freedom abolish censorship of the press8 ,by no means4 ,they padlocked all papers and magazines which did not comment favorably upon the acts of the new masters1 they sent many unfortunate editors to ,siberia or ,archangel 7not much to choose7 and in general showed themselves a hundred times more intolerant than the much maligned ministers and police sergeants of the ,little ,white ,father4 ,it happens that ,i was brought up in a fairly liberal community1 which heartily believed in the motto of ,milton that the 8liberty to know1 to utter and to argue freely according to our own conscience1 is the highest form of liberty40 8,came the war10 as the movies have it1 and ,i was to see the day when the ,sermon on the ,mount was declared to be a dangerous pro-,german document which must not be allowed to circulate freely among a hundred million sovereign citizens and the publication of which would expose the editors and the printers to fines and imprisonment4 ,in view of all this it would really seem much wiser to drop the further study of history and to take up short story writing or real estate4 ,but this would be a confession of defeat4 ,and so ,i shall stick to my job1 trying to remember that in a well regulated state1 every decent citizen is supposed to have the right to say and think and utter whatever he feels to be true1 provided he does not interfere with the happiness and comfort of his neighbors1 does not act against the good manners of polite society or break one of the rules of the local police4 ,this places me1 of course1 on record as an enemy of all official censorship4 ,as far as ,i can see1 the police ought to watch out for certain magazines and papers which are being printed for the purpose of turning pornography into private gain4 ,but for the rest1 ,i would let every one print whatever he liked4 ,i say this not as an idealist or a reformer1 but as a practical person who hates wasted efforts1 and is familiar with the history of the last five hundred years4 ,that period shows clearly that violent methods of suppression of the printed or spoken word have never yet done the slightest good4 ,nonsense1 like dynamite1 is only dangerous when it is contained in a small and hermetically closed space and subjected to a violent impact from without4 ,a poor devil1 full of half-baked economic notions1 when left to himself will attract no more than a dozen curious listeners and as a rule will be laughed at for his pains4 ,the same creature handcuffed to a crude and illiterate sheriff1 dragged to jail and condemned to thirty-five years of solitary confinement1 will become an object of great pity and in the end will be regarded and honored as a martyr4 ,but it will be well to remember one thing4 ,there have been quite as many martyrs for bad causes as martyrs for good causes4 ,they are tricky people and one never can tell what they will do next4 ,hence ,i would say1 let them talk and let them write4 ,if they have anything to say that is good1 we ought to know it1 and if not1 they will soon be forgotten4 ,the ,greeks seem to have felt that way1 and the ,romans did until the days of the ,empire4 ,but as soon as the commander-in-chief of the ,roman armies had become an imperial and semi-divine personage1 a second-cousin to ,jupiter and a thousand miles removed from all ordinary mortals1 this was changed4 ,the crime of 8laesa majestas10 the heinous offense of 8offering insult to his ,majesty10 was invented4 ,it was a purely political misdemeanor and from the time of ,augustus until the days of ,justinian1 many people were sent to prison because they had been a little too outspoken in their opinions about their rulers4 ,but if one let the person of the emperor alone1 there was practically no other subject of conversation which the ,roman must avoid4 ,this happy condition came to an end when the world was brought under the domination of the ,church4 ,the line between good and bad1 between orthodox and heretical1 was definitely drawn before ,jesus had been dead more than a few years4 ,during the second half of the first century1 the apostle ,paul spent quite a long time in the neighborhood of ,ephesus in ,asia ,minor1 a place famous for its amulets and charms4 ,he went about preaching and casting out devils1 and with such great success that he convinced many people of the error of their heathenish ways4 ,as a token of repentance they came together one fine day with all their books of magic and burned more than ten thousand dollars worth of secret formulae1 as you may read in the nineteenth chapter of the ,acts of the ,apostles4 ,this1 however1 was an entirely voluntary act on the part of a group of repentant sinners and it is not stated that ,paul made an attempt to forbid the other ,ephesians from reading or owning similar books4 ,such a step was not taken until a century later4 ,then1 by order of a number of bishops convened in this same city of ,ephesus1 a book containing the life of ,st4 ,paul was condemned and the faithful were admonished not to read it4 ,during the next two hundred years1 there was very little censorship4 ,there also were very few books4 ,but after the ,council of ,nicaea 7#cbe7 when the ,christian ,church had become the official church of the ,empire1 the supervision of the written word became part of the routine duty of the clergy4 ,some books were absolutely forbidden4 ,others were described as 8dangerous0 and the people were warned that they must read them at their own risk4 ,until authors found it more convenient to assure themselves of the approval of the authorities before they published their works and made it a rule to send their manuscripts to the local bishops for their approbation4 ,even then1 a writer could not always be sure that his works would be allowed to exist4 ,a book which one ,pope had pronounced harmless might be denounced as blasphemous and indecent by his successor4 ,on the whole1 however1 this method protected the scribes quite effectively against the risk of being burned together with their parchment offspring and the system worked well enough as long as books were copied by hand and it took five whole years to get out an edition of three volumes4 ,all this of course was changed by the famous invention of ,johann ,gutenberg1 alias ,john ,gooseflesh4 ,after the middle of the fifteenth century1 an enterprising publisher was able to produce as many as four or five hundred copies in less than two weeks' time and in the short period between #adec and #aejj the people of western and southern ,europe were presented with not less than forty thousand different editions of books that had thus far been obtainable only in some of the better stocked libraries4 ,the ,church regarded this unexpected increase in the number of available books with very serious misgivings4 ,it was difficult enough to catch a single heretic with a single home made copy of the ,gospels4 ,what then of twenty million heretics with twenty million copies of cleverly edited volumes8 ,they became a direct menace to all idea of authority and it was deemed necessary to appoint a special tribunal to inspect all forthcoming publications at their source and say which could be published and which must never see the light of day4 ,out of the different lists of books which from time to time were published by this committee as containing 8forbidden knowledge0 grew that famous ,index which came to enjoy almost as nefarious a reputation as the ,inquisition4 ,but it would be unfair to create the impression that such a supervision of the printing-press was something peculiar to the ,catholic ,church4 ,many states1 frightened by the sudden avalanche of printed material that threatened to upset the peace of the realm1 had already forced their local publishers to submit their wares to the public censor and had forbidden them to print anything that did not bear the official mark of approbation4 ,but nowhere1 except in ,rome1 has the practice been continued until today4 ,and even there it has been greatly modified since the middle of the sixteenth century4 ,it had to be4 ,the presses worked so fast and furiously that even that most industrious ,commission of ,cardinals1 the so-called ,congregation of the ,index1 which was supposed to inspect all printed works1 was soon years behind in its task4 ,not to mention the flood of rag-pulp and printers-ink which was poured upon the landscape in the form of newspapers and magazines and tracts and which no group of men1 however diligent1 could hope to read1 let alone inspect and classify1 in less than a couple of thousand years4 ,but rarely has it been shown in a more convincing fashion how terribly this sort of intolerance avenges itself upon the rulers who force it upon their unfortunate subjects4 ,already ,tacitus1 during the first century of the ,roman ,empire1 had declared himself against the persecution of authors as 8a foolish thing which tended to advertise books which otherwise would never attract any public attention40 ,the ,index proved the truth of this statement4 ,no sooner had the ,reformation been successful than the list of forbidden books was promoted to a sort of handy guide for those who wished to keep themselves thoroughly informed upon the subject of current literature4 ,more than that4 ,during the seventeenth century1 enterprising publishers in ,germany and in the ,low ,countries maintained special agents in ,rome whose business it was to get hold of advance copies of the ,index ,expurgatorius4 ,as soon as they had obtained these1 they entrusted them to special couriers who raced across the ,alps and down the valley of the ,rhine that the valuable information might be delivered to their patrons with the least possible loss of time4 ,then the ,german and the ,dutch printing shops would set to work and would get out hastily printed special editions which were sold at an exorbitant profit and were smuggled into the forbidden territory by an army of professional book-leggers4 ,but the number of copies that could be carried across the frontier remained necessarily very small and in such countries as ,italy and ,spain and ,portugal1 where the ,index was actually enforced until a short time ago1 the results of this policy of repression became very noticeable4 ,if such nations gradually dropped behind in the race for progress1 the reason was not difficult to find4 ,not only were the students in their universities deprived of all foreign text-books1 but they were forced to use a domestic product of very inferior quality4 ,and worst of all1 the ,index discouraged people from occupying themselves seriously with literature or science4 ,for no man in his senses would undertake to write a book when he ran the risk of seeing his work 8corrected0 to pieces by an incompetent censor or emendated beyond recognition by the inconsequential secretary of an ,inquisitorial ,board of ,investigators4 ,instead1 he went fishing or wasted his time playing dominoes in a wine-shop4 ,or he sat down and in sheer despair of himself and his people1 he wrote the story of ,don ,quixote4 ,,chapter ,x ,,concerning ,,the ,,writing ,,of ,,history ,,in ,,general ,,and ,,this ,,book ,,in ,,particular ,in the correspondence of ,erasmus1 which ,i recommend most eagerly to those who are tired of modern fiction1 there occurs a stereotype sort of warning in many of the letters sent unto the learned ,desiderius by his more timid friends4 8,i hear that you are thinking of a pamphlet upon the ,lutheran controversy10 writes ,magister ,x4 8,please be very careful how you handle it1 because you might easily offend the ,pope1 who wishes you well40 ,or again3 8,some one who has just returned from ,cambridge tells me that you are about to publish a book of short essays4 ,for ,heaven's sake1 do not incur the displeasure of the ,emperor1 who might be in a position to do you great harm40 ,now it is the ,bishop of ,louvain1 then the ,king of ,england or the faculty of the ,sorbonne or that terrible professor of theology in ,cambridge who must be treated with special consideration1 lest the author be deprived of his income or lose the necessary official protection or fall into the clutches of the ,inquisition or be broken on the wheel4 ,nowadays the wheel 7except for purposes of locomotion7 is relegated to the museum of antiquities4 ,the ,inquisition has closed its doors these hundred years1 protection is of little practical use in a career devoted to literature and the word 8income0 is hardly ever mentioned where historians come together4 ,but all the same1 as soon as it was whispered that ,i intended to write a 8,history of ,tolerance10 a different sort of letters of admonition and advice began to find their way to my cloistered cell4 8,harvard has refused to admit a negro to her dormitories10 writes the secretary of the ,s4,p4,c4,c4,p4 8,be sure that you mention this most regrettable fact in your forthcoming book40 ,or again3 8,the local ,k4,k4,k4 in ,framingham1 ,mass41 has started to boycott a grocer who is a professed ,roman ,catholic4 ,you will want to say something about this in your story of tolerance40 ,and so on4 ,no doubt all these occurrences are very stupid1 very silly and altogether reprehensible4 ,but they hardly seem to come within the jurisdiction of a volume on tolerance4 ,they are merely manifestations of bad manners and a lack of decent public spirit4 ,they are very different from that official form of intolerance which used to be incorporated into the laws of the ,church and the ,state and which made persecution a holy duty on the part of all good citizens4 ,history1 as ,bagehot has said1 ought to be like an etching by ,rembrandt4 ,it must cast a vivid light upon certain selected causes1 on those which are best and most important1 and leave all the rest in the shadow and unseen4 ,even in the midst of the most idiotic outbreaks of the modern spirit of intolerance which are so faithfully chronicled in our news sheets1 it is possible to discern signs of a more hopeful future4 ,for nowadays many things which previous generations would have accepted as self-evident and which would have been passed by with the remark that 8it has always been that way10 are cause for serious debate4 ,quite often our neighbors rush to the defense of ideas which would have been regarded as preposterously visionary and unpractical by our fathers and our grandfathers and not infrequently they are successful in their warfare upon some particularly obnoxious demonstration of the mob spirit4 ,this book must be kept very short4 ,i can't bother about the private snobbishness of successful pawn-brokers1 the somewhat frayed glory of ,nordic supremacy1 the dark ignorance of backwoods evangelists1 the bigotry of peasant priests or ,balkan rabbis4 ,these good people and their bad ideas have always been with us4 ,but as long as they do not enjoy the official support of the ,state1 they are comparatively harmless and in most civilized countries1 such a possibility is entirely precluded4 ,private intolerance is a nuisance which can cause more discomfort in any given community than the combined efforts of measles1 small-pox and a gossiping woman4 ,but private intolerance does not possess executioners of its own4 ,if1 as sometimes happens in this and other countries1 it assumes the rle of the hangman1 it places itself outside the law and becomes a proper subject for police supervision4 ,private intolerance does not dispose of jails and cannot prescribe to an entire nation what it shall think and say and eat and drink4 ,if it tries to do this1 it creates such a terrific resentment among all decent folk1 that the new ordinance becomes a dead letter and cannot be carried out even in the ,district of ,columbia4 ,in short1 private intolerance can go only as far as the indifference of the majority of the citizens of a free country will allow it to go1 and no further4 ,whereas official intolerance is practically almighty4 ,it recognizes no authority beyond its own power4 ,it provides no mode of redress for the innocent victims of its meddlesome fury4 ,it will listen to no argument4 ,and ever again it backs up its decisions by an appeal to the ,divine ,being and then undertakes to explain the will of ,heaven as if the key to the mysteries of existence were an exclusive possession of those who had been successful at the most recent elections4 ,if in this book the word intolerance is invariably used in the sense of official intolerance1 and if ,i pay little attention to the private variety1 have patience with me4 ,i can only do one thing at a time4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,renaissance ,there is a learned cartoonist in our land who takes pleasure in asking himself1 what do billiard-balls and cross-word puzzles and bull-fiddles and boiled shirts and door-mats think of this world8 ,but what ,i would like to know is the exact psychological reaction of the men who are ordered to handle the big modern siege guns4 ,during the war a great many people performed a great many strange tasks1 but was there ever a more absurd job than firing dicke ,berthas8 ,all other soldiers knew more or less what they were doing4 ,a flying man could judge by the rapidly spreading red glow whether he had hit the gas factory or not4 ,the submarine commander could return after a couple of hours to judge by the abundance of flotsam in how far he had been successful4 ,the poor devil in his dug-out had the satisfaction of realizing that by his mere continued presence in a particular trench he was at least holding his own4 ,even the artillerist1 working his field-piece upon an invisible object1 could take down the telephone and could ask his colleague1 hidden in a dead tree seven miles away1 whether the doomed church tower was showing signs of deterioration or whether he should try again at a different angle4 ,but the brotherhood of the big guns lived in a strange and unreal world of their own4 ,even with the assistance of a couple of full-fledged professors of ballistics1 they were unable to foretell what fate awaited those projectiles which they shot so blithely into space4 ,their shells might actually hit the object for which they were destined4 ,they might land in the midst of a powder factory or in the heart of a fortress4 ,but then again they might strike a church or an orphan asylum or they might bury themselves peacefully in a river or in a gravel pit without doing any harm whatsoever4 ,authors1 it seems to me1 have much in common with the siege-gunners4 ,they too handle a sort of heavy artillery4 ,their literary missiles may start a revolution or a conflagration in the most unlikely spots4 ,but more often they are just poor duds and lie harmless in a nearby field until they are used for scrap iron or converted into an umbrella-stand or a flower pot4 ,surely there never was a period in history when so much rag-pulp was consumed within so short a space as the era commonly known as the ,renaissance4 ,every ,tomasso1 ,ricardo and ,enrico of the ,italian peninsula1 every ,doctor ,thomasius1 ,professor ,ricardus and ,dominus ,heinrich of the great ,teuton plain rushed into print with at least a dozen duodecimos4 ,not to mention the ,tomassinos who wrote pretty little sonnets in imitation of the ,greeks1 the ,ricardinos who reeled off odes after the best pattern of their ,roman grandfathers1 and the countless lovers of coins1 statuary1 images1 pictures1 manuscripts and ancient armor who for almost three centuries kept themselves busy classifying1 ordering1 tabulating1 listing1 filing and codifying what they had just dug out of the ancestral ruins and who then published their collections in countless folios illuminated with the most beautiful of copper engravings and the most ponderous of wood-cuts4 ,this great intellectual curiosity was very lucrative for the ,frobens and the ,alduses and the ,etiennes and the other new firms of printers who were making a fortune out of the invention which had ruined ,gutenberg1 but otherwise the literary output of the ,renaissance did not very greatly affect the state of that world in which the authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries happened to find themselves4 ,the distinction of having contributed something new was restricted to only a very few heroes of the quill and they were like our friends of the big guns4 ,they rarely discovered during their own lifetime in how far they had been successful and how much damage their writings had actually done4 ,but first and last they managed to demolish a great many of the obstacles which stood in the way of progress4 ,and they deserve our everlasting gratitude for the thoroughness with which they cleaned up a lot of rubbish which otherwise would continue to clutter our intellectual front yard4 ,strictly speaking1 however1 the ,renaissance was not primarily a forward-looking movement4 ,it turned its back in disgust upon the recent past1 called the works of its immediate predecessors 8barbaric0 7or 8,gothic0 in the language of the country where the ,goths had enjoyed the same reputation as the ,huns71 and concentrated its main interest upon those arts which seem to be pervaded with that curious substance known as the 8classical spirit40 ,if nevertheless the ,renaissance struck a mighty blow for the liberty of conscience and for tolerance and for a better world in general1 it was done in spite of the men who were considered the leaders of the new movement4 ,long before the days of which we are now speaking1 there had been people who had questioned the rights of a ,roman bishop to dictate to ,bohemian peasants and to ,english yeomen in what language they should say their prayers1 in what spirit they should study the words of ,jesus1 how much they should pay for an indulgence1 what books they should read and how they should bring up their children4 ,and all of them had been crushed by the strength of that super-state1 the power of which they had undertaken to defy4 ,even when they had acted as champions and representatives of a national cause1 they had failed4 ,the smoldering ashes of great ,john ,huss1 thrown ignominiously into the river ,rhine1 were a warning to all the world that the ,papal ,monarchy still ruled supreme4 ,the corpse of ,wycliffe1 burned by the public executioner1 told the humble peasants of ,leicestershire that councils and ,popes could reach beyond the grave4 ,frontal attacks1 evidently1 were impossible4 ,the mighty fortress of tradition1 builded slowly and carefully during fifteen centuries of unlimited power1 could not be taken by assault4 ,the scandals which had taken place within these hallowed enclosures2 the wars between three rival ,popes1 each claiming to be the legitimate and exclusive heir to the chair of ,holy ,peter2 the utter corruption of the courts of ,rome and ,avignon1 where laws were made for the purpose of being broken by those who were willing to pay for such favors2 the utter demoralization of monastic life2 the venality of those who used the recently increased horrors of purgatory as an excuse to blackmail poor parents into paying large sums of money for the benefit of their dead children2 all these things1 although widely known1 never really threatened the safety of the ,church4 ,but the chance shots fired at random by certain men and women who were not at all interested in ecclesiastical matters1 who had no particular grievance against either pope or bishop1 these caused the damage which finally made the old edifice collapse4 ,what the 8thin1 pale man0 from ,prague had failed to accomplish with his high ideals of ,christian virtue was brought about by a motley crowd of private citizens who had no other ambition than to live and die 7preferably at a ripe old age7 as loyal patrons of all the good things of this world and faithful sons of the ,mother ,church4 ,they came from all the seven corners of ,europe4 ,they represented every sort of profession and they would have been very angry1 had an historian told them what they were doing4 ,for instance1 take the case of ,marco ,polo4 ,we know him as a mighty traveler1 a man who had seen such wondrous sights that his neighbors1 accustomed to the smaller scale of their western cities1 called him 8,million ,dollar ,marc0 and laughed uproariously when he told them of golden thrones as high as a tower and of granite walls that would stretch all the way from the ,baltic to the ,black ,sea4 ,all the same1 the shriveled little fellow played a most important rle in the history of progress4 ,he was not much of a writer4 ,he shared the prejudice of his class and his age against the literary profession4 ,a gentleman 7even a ,venetian gentleman who was supposed to be familiar with double-entry bookkeeping7 handled a sword and not a goose-quill4 ,hence the unwillingness of ,messire ,marco to turn author4 ,but the fortunes of war carried him into a ,genoese prison4 ,and there1 to while away the tedious hours of his confinement1 he told a poor scribbler1 who happened to share his cell1 the strange story of his life4 ,in this roundabout way the people of ,europe learned many things about this world which they had never known before4 ,for although ,polo was a simple-minded fellow who firmly believed that one of the mountains he had seen in ,asia ,minor had been moved a couple of miles by a pious saint who wanted to show the heathen 8what true faith could do10 and who swallowed all the stories about people without heads and chickens with three legs which were so popular in his day1 his report did more to upset the geographical theories of the ,church than anything that had appeared during the previous twelve hundred years4 ,polo1 of course1 lived and died a faithful son of the ,church4 ,he would have been terribly upset if any one had compared him with his near-contemporary1 the famous ,roger ,bacon1 who was an out and out scientist and paid for his intellectual curiosity with ten years of enforced literary idleness and fourteen years of prison4 ,and yet of the two he was by far the more dangerous4 ,for whereas only one person in a hundred thousand could follow ,bacon when he went chasing rainbows1 and spun those fine evolutionary theories which threatened to upset all the ideas held sacred in his own time1 every citizen who had been taught his ,a,b,cs could learn from ,polo that the world was full of a number of things the existence of which the authors of the ,old ,testament had never even suspected4 ,i do not mean to imply that the publication of a single book caused that rebellion against scriptural authority which was to occur before the world could gain a modicum of freedom4 ,popular enlightenment is ever the result of centuries of painstaking preparation4 ,but the plain and straightforward accounts of the explorers and the navigators and the travelers1 understandable to all the people1 did a great deal to bring about that spirit of scepticism which characterizes the latter half of the ,renaissance and which allowed people to say and write things which only a few years before would have brought them into contact with the agents of the ,inquisition4 ,take that strange story to which the friends of ,boccaccio listened on the first day of their agreeable exile from ,florence4 ,all religious systems1 so it told1 were probably equally true and equally false4 ,but if this were true1 and they were all equally true and false1 then how could people be condemned to the gallows for ideas which could neither be proven nor contradicted8 ,read the even stranger adventures of a famous scholar like ,lorenzo ,valla4 ,he died as a highly respectable member of the government of the ,roman ,church4 ,yet in the pursuit of his ,latin studies he had incontrovertibly proven that the famous donation of 8,rome and ,italy and all the provinces of the ,west10 which ,constantine the ,great was supposed to have made to ,pope ,sylvester 7and upon which the ,popes had ever since based their claims to be regarded as super-lords of all ,europe71 was nothing but a clumsy fraud1 perpetrated hundreds of years after the death of the ,emperor by an obscure official of the papal chancery4 ,or to return to more practical questions1 what were faithful ,christians1 carefully reared in the ideas of ,saint ,augustine who had taught that a belief in the presence of people on the other side of the earth was both blasphemous and heretical1 since such poor creatures would not be able to see the second coming of ,christ and therefore had no reason to exist1 what indeed were the good people of the year #adii to think of this doctrine when ,vasco da ,gama returned from his first voyage to the ,indies and described the populous kingdoms which he had found on the other side of this planet8 ,what were these same simple folk1 who had always been told that our world was a flat dial and that ,jerusalem was the center of the universe1 what were they to believe when the little 8,vittoria0 returned from her voyage around the globe and when the geography of the ,old ,testament was shown to contain some rather serious errors8 ,i repeat what ,i have said before4 ,the ,renaissance was not an era of conscious scientific endeavor4 ,in spiritual matters it often showed a most regrettable lack of real interest4 ,everything during these three hundred years was dominated by a desire for beauty and entertainment4 ,even the ,popes1 who fulminated loudest against the iniquitous doctrines of some of their subjects1 were only too happy to invite those self-same rebels for dinner if they happened to be good conversationalists and knew something about printing or architecture4 ,and eager zealots for virtue1 like ,savonarola1 ran quite as great a risk of losing their lives as the bright young agnostics who in poetry and prose attacked the fundaments of the ,christian faith with a great deal more violence than good taste4 ,but throughout all these manifestations of a new interest in the business of living1 there undoubtedly ran a severe undercurrent of discontent with the existing order of society and the restrictions put upon the development of human reason by the claims of an all-powerful ,church4 ,between the days of ,boccaccio and those of ,erasmus1 there is an interval of almost two centuries4 ,during these two centuries1 the copyist and the printer never enjoyed an idle moment4 ,and outside of the books published by the ,church herself1 it would be difficult to find an important piece of work which did not contain some indirect reference to the sad plight into which the world had fallen when the ancient civilizations of ,greece and ,rome had been superseded by the anarchy of the barbarian invaders and western society was placed under the tutelage of ignorant monks4 ,the contemporaries of ,machiavelli and ,lorenzo de' ,medici were not particularly interested in ethics4 ,they were practical men who made the best of a practical world4 ,outwardly they remained at peace with the ,church because it was a powerful and far-reaching organization which was capable of doing them great harm and they never consciously took part in any of the several attempts at reform or questioned the institutions under which they lived4 ,but their insatiable curiosity concerning old facts1 their continual search after new emotions1 the very instability of their restless minds1 caused a world which had been brought up in the conviction 8,we know0 to ask the question 8,do we really know80 ,and that is a greater claim to the gratitude of all future generations than the collected sonnets of ,petrarch or the assembled works of ,raffael4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,the ,,reformation ,modern psychology has taught us several useful things about ourselves4 ,one of them is the fact that we rarely do anything actuated by one single motive4 ,whether we give a million dollars for a new university or refuse a nickel to a hungry tramp2 whether we proclaim that the true life of intellectual freedom can only be lived abroad or vow that we will never again leave the shores of ,america2 whether we insist upon calling black white or white black1 there are always a number of divergent reasons which have caused us to make our decision1 and way down deep in our hearts we know this to be true4 ,but as we would cut a sorry figure with the world in general if we should ever dare to be quite honest with ourselves or our neighbors1 we instinctively choose the most respectable and deserving among our many motives1 brush it up a bit for public consumption and then expose it for all the world to behold as 8the reason why we did so and so40 ,but whereas it has been repeatedly demonstrated that it is quite possible to fool most of the people most of the time1 no one has as yet discovered a method by which the average individual can fool himself for more than a few minutes4 ,we are all of us familiar with this most embarrassing truth and therefore ever since the beginning of civilization people have tacitly agreed with each other that this should never under any circumstances be referred to in public4 ,what we think in private1 that is our own business4 ,as long as we maintain an outward air of respectability1 we are perfectly satisfied with ourselves and merrily act upon the principle 8,you believe my fibs and ,i will believe yours40 ,nature1 which has no manners1 is the one great exception to this generous rule of conduct4 ,as a result1 nature is rarely allowed to enter the sacred portals of civilized society4 ,and as history thus far has been a pastime of the few1 the poor muse known as ,clio has led a very dull life1 especially when we compare it to the career of many of her less respectable sisters who have been allowed to dance and sing and have been invited to every party ever since the beginning of time4 ,this of course has been a source of great annoyance to poor ,clio and repeatedly in her own subtle way she has managed to get her revenge4 ,a perfectly human trait1 this1 but a very dangerous one and ofttimes very expensive in the matter of human lives and property4 ,for whenever the old lady undertakes to show us that systematic lying1 continued during the course of centuries1 will eventually play hob with the peace and happiness of the entire world1 our planet is at once enveloped in the smoke of a thousand batteries4 ,regiments of cavalry begin to dash hither and yon and interminable rows of foot soldiers commence to crawl slowly across the landscape4 ,and ere all these people have been safely returned to their respective homes or cemeteries1 whole countries have been laid bare and innumerable exchequers have been drained down to the last kopek4 ,very slowly1 as ,i have said before1 it is beginning to dawn upon the members of our guild that history is a science as well as an art and is therefore subject to certain of the immutable laws of nature which thus far have only been respected in chemical laboratories and astronomical observatories4 ,and as a result we are now doing some very useful scientific house-cleaning which will be of inestimable benefit to all coming generations4 ,which brings me at last to the subject mentioned at the head of this chapter1 to wit3 the ,reformation4 ,until not so very long ago there were only two opinions regarding this great social and spiritual upheaval4 ,it was either wholly good or wholly bad4 ,according to the adherents of the former opinion it had been the result of a sudden outbreak of religious zeal on the part of a number of noble theologians who1 profoundly shocked by the wickedness and the venality of the papal super-state1 had established a separate church of their own where the true faith was to be henceforward taught to those who were seriously trying to be true ,christians4 ,those who had remained faithful to ,rome were less enthusiastic4 ,the ,reformation1 according to the scholars from beyond the ,alps1 was the result of a damnable and most reprehensible conspiracy on the part of a number of despicable princes who wanted to get unmarried and who besides hoped to acquire the possessions which had formerly belonged to their ,holy ,mother the ,church4 ,as usual1 both sides were right and both sides were wrong4 ,the ,reformation was the work of all sorts of people with all sorts of motives4 ,and it is only within very recent times that we have begun to realize how religious discontent played only a minor rle in this great upheaval and that it was really an unavoidable social and economic revolution with a slightly theological background4 ,of course it is much easier to teach our children that good ,prince ,philip was a very enlightened ruler who took a profound personal interest in the reformed doctrines1 than to explain to them the complicated machinations of an unscrupulous politician who willingly accepted the help of the infidel ,turks in his warfare upon other ,christians4 ,in consequence whereof we ,protestants have for hundreds of years made a magnanimous hero out of an ambitious young landgrave who hoped to see the house of ,hesse play the rle thus far played by the rival house of ,hapsburg4 ,on the other hand it is so much simpler to turn ,pope ,clement into a loving shepherd who wasted the last remnants of his declining strength trying to prevent his flocks from following false leaders1 than to depict him as a typical prince of the house of ,medici who regarded the ,reformation as an unseemly brawl of drunken ,german monks and used the power of the ,church to further the interests of his own ,italian fatherland1 that we need feel no surprise if such a fabulous figure smiles at us from the pages of most ,catholic text-books4 ,but while that sort of history may be necessary in ,europe1 we fortunate settlers in a new world are under no obligation to persist in the errors of our continental ancestors and are at liberty to draw a few conclusions of our own4 ,just because ,philip of ,hesse1 the great friend and supporter of ,luther1 was a man dominated by an enormous political ambition1 it does not necessarily follow that he was insincere in his religious convictions4 ,by no means4 ,when he put his name to the famous 8,protest0 of the year #aebi1 he knew as well as his fellow signers that they were about to 8expose themselves to the violence of a terrible storm10 and might end their lives on the scaffold4 ,if he had not been a man of extraordinary courage1 he would never have undertaken to play the rle he actually played4 ,but the point ,i am trying to make is this3 that it is exceedingly difficult1 yes1 almost impossible1 to judge an historical character 7or for that matter1 any of our immediate neighbors7 without a profound knowledge of all the many motives which have inspired him to do what he has done or forced him to omit doing what he has omitted to do4 ,the ,french have a proverb that 8to know everything is to forgive everything40 ,that seems too easy a solution4 ,i would like to offer an amendment and change it as follows3 8,to know everything is to understand everything40 ,we can leave the business of pardoning to the good ,lord who ages ago reserved that right to himself4 ,meanwhile we ourselves can humbly try to 8understand0 and that is more than enough for our limited human ability4 ,and now let me return to the ,reformation1 which started me upon this slight detour4 ,as far as ,i 8understand0 that movement1 it was primarily a manifestation of a new spirit which had been born as a result of the economic and political development of the last three centuries and which came to be known as 8nationalism0 and which therefore was the sworn enemy of that foreign super-state into which all ,european countries had been forced during the course of the last five centuries4 ,without the common denominator of some such grievance1 it would never have been possible to unite ,germans and ,finns and ,danes and ,swedes and ,frenchmen and ,englishmen and ,norsemen into a single cohesive party1 strong enough to batter down the walls of the prison in which they had been held for such a long time4 ,if all these heterogeneous and mutually envious elements had not been temporarily bound together by one great ideal1 far surpassing their own private grudges and aspirations1 the ,reformation could never have succeeded4 ,it would have degenerated into a series of small local uprisings1 easily suppressed by a regiment of mercenaries and half a dozen energetic inquisitors4 ,the leaders would have suffered the fate of ,huss4 ,their followers would have been killed as the little groups of ,waldenses and ,albigenses had been slaughtered before them4 ,and the ,papal ,monarchy would have scored another easy triumph1 followed by an era of ,schrecklichkeit among those guilty of a 8breach of discipline40 ,even so1 the great movement for reform only succeeded by the smallest of all possible margins4 ,and as soon as the victory had been won and the menace which had threatened the existence of all the rebels had been removed1 the ,protestant camp was dissolved into an infinitesimal number of small hostile groups who tried on a greatly diminished scale to repeat all the errors of which their enemies had been guilty in the heyday of their power4 ,a ,french abb 7whose name ,i have unfortunately forgotten1 but a very wise fellow7 once said that we must learn to love humanity in spite of itself4 ,to look back from the safe distance of almost four centuries upon this era of great hope and even greater disappointment1 to think of the sublime courage of so many men and women who wasted their lives on the scaffold and on the field of battle for an ideal that was never to be realized1 to contemplate the sacrifice made by millions of obscure citizens for the things they held to be holy and then to remember the utter failure of the ,protestant rebellion as a movement towards a more liberal and more intelligent world1 is to put one's charity to a most severe test4 ,for ,protestantism1 if the truth must be told1 took away from this world many things that were good and noble and beautiful and it added a great many others that were narrow and hateful and graceless4 ,and instead of making the history of the human race simpler and more harmonious1 it made it more complicated and less orderly4 ,all that1 however1 was not so much the fault of the ,reformation as of certain inherent weaknesses in the mental habits of most people4 ,they refuse to be hurried4 ,they cannot possibly keep up with the pace set by their leaders4 ,they are not lacking in good will4 ,eventually they will all cross the bridge that leads into the newly discovered territory4 ,but they will do so in their own good time and bringing with them as much of the ancestral furniture as they can possibly carry4 ,as a result the ,great ,reform1 which was to establish an entirely new relationship between the individual ,christian and his ,god1 which was to do away with all the prejudices and all the corruptions of a bygone era1 became so thoroughly cluttered up with the medieval baggage of its trusted followers that it could move neither forward nor backward and soon looked for all the world like a replica of that papal establishment which it held in such great abhorrence4 ,for that is the great tragedy of the ,protestant rebellion4 ,it could not rise above the mean average of intelligence of the majority of its adherents4 ,and as a result the people of western and northern ,europe did not progress as much as might have been expected4 ,instead of a man who was supposed to be infallible1 the ,reformation gave the world a book which was held to be infallible4 ,instead of one potentate who ruled supreme1 there arose a thousand and one little potentates1 each one of whom in his own way tried to rule supreme4 ,instead of dividing all ,christendom into two well defined halves1 the ins and the outs1 the faithful and the heretics1 it created endless little groups of dissenters who had nothing in common but a most intense hatred for all those who failed to share their own opinions4 ,instead of establishing a reign of tolerance1 it followed the example of the early ,church and as soon as it had attained power and was firmly entrenched behind numberless catechisms1 creeds and confessions1 it declared bitter warfare upon those who dared to disagree with the officially established doctrines of the community in which they happened to live4 ,all this was1 no doubt1 most regrettable4 ,but it was unavoidable in view of the mental development of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries4 ,to describe the courage of leaders like ,luther and ,calvin1 there exists only one word1 and rather a terrible word1 8colossal40 ,a simple ,dominican monk1 a professor in a little tidewater college somewhere in the backwoods of the ,german hinterland1 who boldly burns a ,papal ,bull and hammers his own rebellious opinions to the door of a church2 a sickly ,french scholar who turns a small ,swiss town into a fortress which successfully defies the whole power of the papacy2 such men present us with examples of fortitude so unique that the modern world can offer no adequate comparison4 ,that these bold rebels soon found friends and supporters1 friends with a purpose of their own and supporters who hoped to fish successfully in troubled waters1 all this is neither here nor there4 ,when these men began to gamble with their lives for the sake of their conscience1 they could not foresee that this would happen and that most of the nations of the north would eventually enlist under their banners4 ,but once they had been thrown into this maelstrom of their own making1 they were obliged to go whither the current carried them4 ,soon the mere question of keeping themselves above water took all of their strength4 ,in far away ,rome the ,pope had at last learned that this contemptible disturbance was something more serious than a personal quarrel between a few ,dominican and ,augustinian friars1 and an intrigue on the part of a former ,french chaplain4 ,to the great joy of his many creditors1 he temporarily ceased building his pet cathedral and called together a council of war4 ,the papal bulls and excommunications flew fast and furiously4 ,imperial armies began to move4 ,and the leaders of the rebellion1 with their backs against the wall1 were forced to stand and fight4 ,it was not the first time in history that great men in the midst of a desperate conflict lost their sense of proportion4 ,the same ,luther who at one time proclaims that it is 8against the ,holy ,spirit to burn heretics10 a few years later goes into such a tantrum of hate when he thinks of the wickedness of those ,germans and ,dutchmen who have a leaning towards the ideas of the ,anabaptists1 that he seems to have lost his reason4 ,the intrepid reformer who begins his career by insisting that we must not force our own system of logic upon ,god1 ends his days by burning an opponent whose power of reasoning was undoubtedly superior to his own4 ,the heretic of today becomes the arch-enemy of all dissenters of tomorrow4 ,and with all their talk of a new era in which the dawn has at last followed upon the dark1 both ,calvin and ,luther remained faithful sons of the ,middle ,ages as long as they lived4 ,tolerance did not and could not possibly show itself to them in the light of a virtue4 ,as long as they themselves were outcasts1 they were willing to invoke the divine right of freedom of conscience that they might use it as an argument against their enemies4 ,once the battle was won1 this trusted weapon was carefully deposited in a corner of the ,protestant junk-room1 already cluttered with so many other good intentions that had been discarded as unpractical4 ,there it lay1 forgotten and neglected1 until a great many years later1 when it was discovered behind a trunk full of old sermons4 ,but the people who picked it up1 scraped off the rust and once more carried it into battle were of a different nature from those who had fought the good fight in the early days of the sixteenth century4 ,and yet1 the ,protestant revolution contributed greatly to the cause of tolerance4 ,not through what it accomplished directly4 ,in that field the gain was small indeed4 ,but indirectly the results of the ,reformation were all on the side of progress4 ,in the first place1 it made people familiar with the ,bible4 ,the ,church had never positively forbidden people to read the ,bible1 but neither had it encouraged the study of the sacred book by ordinary laymen4 ,now at last every honest baker and candlestick maker could own a copy of the holy work2 could peruse it in the privacy of his workshop and could draw his own conclusions without running the risk of being burned at the stake4 ,familiarity is apt to kill those sentiments of awe and fear which we feel before the mysteries of the unknown4 ,during the first two hundred years which followed immediately upon the ,reformation1 pious ,protestants believed everything they read in the ,old ,testament from ,balaam's ass to ,jonah's whale4 ,and those who dared to question a single comma 7the 8inspired0 vowel-points of learned ,abraham ,colovius67 knew better than to let their sceptical tittering be heard by the community at large4 ,not because they were afraid any longer of the ,inquisition1 but ,protestant pastors could upon occasion make a man's life exceedingly unpleasant and the economic consequences of a public ministerial censure were often very serious1 not to say disastrous4 ,gradually however this eternally repeated study of a book which was really the national history of a small nation of shepherds and traders was to bear results which ,luther and ,calvin and the other reformers had never foreseen4 ,if they had1 ,i am certain they would have shared the ,church's dislike of ,hebrew and ,greek and would have kept the scriptures carefully out of the hands of the uninitiated4 ,for in the end1 an increasing number of serious students began to appreciate the ,old ,testament as a singularly interesting book1 but containing such dreadful and blood-curdling tales of cruelty1 greed and murder that it could not possibly have been inspired and must1 by the very nature of its contents1 be the product of a people who had still lived in a state of semi-barbarism4 ,after that1 of course1 it was impossible for many people to regard the ,bible as the only font of all true wisdom4 ,and once this obstacle to free speculation had been removed1 the current of scientific investigation1 dammed up for almost a thousand years1 began to flow in its natural channel and the interrupted labors of the old ,greek and ,roman philosophers were picked up where they had been left off twenty centuries before4 ,and in the second place1 and this is even more important from the point of view of tolerance1 the ,reformation delivered northern and western ,europe from the dictatorship of a power which under the guise of a religious organization had been in reality nothing but a spiritual and highly despotic continuation of the ,roman ,empire4 ,with these statements1 our ,catholic readers will hardly agree4 ,but they too have reason to be grateful to a movement which was not only unavoidable1 but which was to render a most salutary service to their own faith4 ,for1 thrown upon her own resources1 the ,church made an heroic effort to rid herself of those abuses which had made her once sacred name a byword for rapacity and tyranny4 ,and she succeeded most brilliantly4 ,after the middle of the sixteenth century1 no more ,borgias were tolerated in the ,vatican4 ,the ,popes as ever before continued to be ,italians4 ,a deflection from this rule was practically impossible1 as the ,roman proletariat would have turned the city upside down if the cardinals entrusted with the election of a new pontiff had chosen a ,german or a ,frenchman or any other foreigner4 ,the new pontiffs1 however1 were selected with great care and only candidates of the highest character could hope to be considered4 ,and these new masters1 faithfully aided by their devoted ,jesuit auxiliaries1 began a thorough house-cleaning4 ,the sale of indulgences came to an end4 ,monastic orders were enjoined to study 7and henceforth to obey7 the rules laid down by their founders4 ,mendicant friars disappeared from the streets of civilized cities4 ,and the general spiritual indifference of the ,renaissance was replaced by an eager zeal for holy and useful lives spent in good deeds and in humble service towards those unfortunate people who were not strong enough to carry the burden of existence by themselves4 ,even so1 the greater part of the territory which had been lost was never regained4 ,speaking with a certain geographical freedom1 the northern half of ,europe remained ,protestant1 while the southern half stayed ,catholic4 ,but when we translate the result of the ,reformation into the language of pictures1 the actual changes which took place in ,europe become more clearly revealed4 ,during the ,middle ,ages there had been one universal spiritual and intellectual prison-house4 ,the ,protestant rebellion had ruined the old building and out of part of the available material it had constructed a jail of its own4 ,after the year #aeag there are therefore two dungeons1 one reserved exclusively for the ,catholics1 the other for the ,protestants4 ,at least that had been the original plan4 ,but the ,protestants1 who did not have the advantage of centuries of training along the lines of persecution and repression1 failed to make their lockup dissenter-proof4 ,through windows and chimneys and cellar-doors a large number of the unruly inmates escaped4 ,ere long the entire building was a wreck4 ,at night the miscreants came and took away whole cartloads of stones and beams and iron bars which they used the next morning to build a little fortress of their own4 ,but although this had the outward appearance of that original jail1 constructed a thousand years before by ,gregory the ,great and ,innocent ,,iii1 it lacked the necessary inner strength4 ,no sooner was it ready for occupancy1 no sooner had a new set of rules and regulations been posted upon the gates1 than a wholesale walk-out occurred among the disgruntled trustees4 ,as their keepers1 now called ministers1 had been deprived of the old methods of discipline 7excommunication1 torture1 execution1 confiscation and exile7 they were absolutely helpless before this determined mob and were forced to stand by and look on while the rebels put up such a stockade as pleased their own theological preferences and proclaimed such new doctrines as happened to suit their temporary convictions4 ,this process was repeated so often that finally there developed a sort of spiritual no-man's-land between the different lockups where curious souls could roam at random and where honest people could think whatever they pleased without hindrance or molestation4 ,and this is the great service which ,protestantism rendered to the cause of tolerance4 ,it restablished the dignity of the individual man4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,erasmus ,in the writing of every book there occurs a crisis4 ,sometimes it comes during the first fifty pages4 ,upon other occasions it does not make itself manifest until the manuscript is almost finished4 ,indeed1 a book without a crisis is like a child that has never had the measles4 ,there probably is something the matter with it4 ,the crisis in the present volume happened a few minutes ago1 for ,i have now reached the point where the idea of a work upon the subject of tolerance in the year of grace #aibe seems quite preposterous2 where all the labor spent thus far upon a preliminary study appears in the light of so much valuable time wasted2 where ,i would like best of all to make a bonfire of ,bury and ,lecky and ,voltaire and ,montaigne and ,white and use the carbon copies of my own work to light the stove4 ,how to explain this8 ,there are many reasons4 ,in the first place1 there is the inevitable feeling of boredom which overtakes an author when he has been living with his topic on a very intimate footing for too long a time4 ,in the second place1 the suspicion that books of this sort will not be of the slightest practical value4 ,and in the third place the fear that the present volume will be merely used as a quarry from which our less tolerant fellow-citizens will dig a few easy facts with which to bolster up their own bad causes4 ,but apart from these arguments 7which hold good for most serious books7 there is in the present case the almost insurmountable difficulty of 8system40 ,a story in order to be a success must have a beginning and an end4 ,this book has a beginning1 but can it ever have an end8 ,what ,i mean is this4 ,i can show the terrible crimes apparently committed in the name of righteousness and justice1 but really caused by intolerance4 ,i can depict the unhappy days upon which mankind fell when intolerance was elevated to the rank of one of the major virtues4 ,i can denounce and deride intolerance until my readers shout with one accord1 8,down with this curse1 and let us all be tolerant60 ,but there is one thing ,i cannot do4 ,i cannot tell how this highly desirable goal is to be reached4 ,there are handbooks which undertake to give us instruction in everything from after-dinner speaking to ventriloquism4 ,in an advertisement of a correspondence course last ,sunday ,i read of no less than two hundred and forty-nine subjects which the institute guaranteed to teach to perfection in exchange for a very small gratuity4 ,but no one thus far has offered to explain in forty 7or in forty thousand7 lessons 8how to become tolerant40 ,and even history1 which is supposed to hold the key to so many secrets1 refuses to be of any use in this emergency4 ,yes1 it is possible to compose learned tomes devoted to slavery or free trade or capital punishment or the growth and development of ,gothic architecture1 for slavery and free trade and capital punishment and ,gothic architecture are very definite and concrete things4 ,for lack of all other material we could at least study the lives of the men and women who had been the champions of free trade and slavery and capital punishment and ,gothic architecture or those who had opposed them4 ,and from the manner in which those excellent people had approached their subjects1 from their personal habits1 their associations1 their preferences in food and drink and tobacco1 yea1 from the very breeches they had worn1 we could draw certain conclusions about the ideals which they had so energetically espoused or so bitterly denounced4 ,but there never were any professional protagonists of tolerance4 ,those who worked most zealously for the great cause did so incidentally4 ,their tolerance was a by-product4 ,they were engaged in other pursuits4 ,they were statesmen or writers or kings or physicians or modest artisans4 ,in the midst of the king business or their medical practice or making steel engravings they found time to say a few good words for tolerance1 but the struggle for tolerance was not the whole of their careers4 ,they were interested in it as they may have been interested in playing chess or fiddling4 ,and because they were part of a strangely assorted group 7imagine ,spinoza and ,frederick the ,great and ,thomas ,jefferson and ,montaigne as boon companions67 it is almost impossible to discover that common trait of character which as a rule is to be found in all those who are engaged upon a common task1 be it soldiering or plumbing or delivering the world from sin4 ,in such a case the writer is apt to have recourse to epigrams4 ,somewhere in this world there is an epigram for every dilemma4 ,but upon this particular subject1 the ,bible and ,shakespeare and ,izaak ,walton and even old ,benham leave us in the lurch4 ,perhaps ,jonathan ,swift 7,i quote from memory7 came nearest to the problem when he said that most men had just enough religion to hate their neighbors but not quite enough to love them4 ,unfortunately that bright remark does not quite cover our present difficulty4 ,there have been people possessed of as much religion as any one individual could safely hold who have hated their neighbors as cordially as the best of them4 ,there have been others who were totally devoid of the religious instinct who squandered their affection upon all the stray cats and dogs and human beings of ,christendom4 ,no1 ,i shall have to find an answer of my own4 ,and upon due cogitation 7but with a feeling of great uncertainty7 ,i shall now state what ,i suspect to be the truth4 ,the men who have fought for tolerance1 whatever their differences1 had all of them one thing in common2 their faith was tempered by doubt2 they might honestly believe that they themselves were right1 but they never reached the point where that suspicion hardened into an absolute conviction4 ,in this day and age of super-patriotism1 with our enthusiastic clamoring for a hundred-percent this and a hundred-percent that1 it may be well to point to the lesson taught by nature which seems to have a constitutional aversion to any such ideal of standardization4 ,purely bred cats and dogs are proverbial idiots who are apt to die because no one is present to take them out of the rain4 ,hundred-percent pure iron has long since been discarded for the composite metal called steel4 ,no jeweler ever undertook to do anything with hundred-percent pure gold or silver4 ,fiddles1 to be any good1 must be made of six or seven different varieties of wood4 ,and as for a meal composed entirely of a hundred-percent mush1 ,i thank you1 no6 ,in short1 all the most useful things in this world are compounds and ,i see no reason why faith should be an exception4 ,unless the base of our 8certainty0 contains a certain amount of the alloy of 8doubt10 our faith will sound as tinkly as a bell made of pure silver or as harsh as a trombone made of brass4 ,it was a profound appreciation of this fact which set the heroes of tolerance apart from the rest of the world4 ,as far as personal integrity went1 honesty of conviction1 unselfish devotion to duty and all the other household virtues1 most of these men could have passed muster before a board of ,puritan ,inquisitors4 ,i would go further than that and state that at least half of them lived and died in such a way that they would now be among the saints1 if their peculiar trend of conscience had not forced them to be the open and avowed enemies of that institution which has taken upon itself the exclusive right of elevating ordinary human beings to certain celestial dignities4 ,but fortunately they were possessed of the divine doubt4 ,they knew 7as the ,romans and the ,greeks had known before them7 that the problem which faced them was so vast that no one in his right senses would ever expect it to be solved4 ,and while they might hope and pray that the road which they had taken would eventually lead them to a safe goal1 they could never convince themselves that it was the only right one1 that all other roads were wrong and that the enchanting by-paths which delighted the hearts of so many simple people were evil thoroughfares leading to damnation4 ,all this sounds contrary to the opinions expressed in most of our catechisms and our text-books on ethics4 ,these preach the superior virtue of a world illuminated by the pure white flame of absolute faith4 ,perhaps so4 ,but during those centuries when that flame was supposed to be burning at its brightest1 the average rank and file of humanity cannot be said to have been either particularly happy or extraordinarily comfortable4 ,i don't want to suggest any radical reforms1 but just for a change we might try that other light1 by the rays of which the brethren of the tolerant guild have been in the habit of examining the affairs of the world4 ,if that does not prove successful1 we can always go back to the system of our fathers4 ,but if it should prove to throw an agreeable luster upon a society containing a little more kindness and forbearance1 a community less beset by ugliness and greed and hatred1 a good deal would have been gained and the expense1 ,i am sure1 would be quite small4 ,and after this bit of advice1 offered for what it is worth1 ,i must go back to my history4 ,when the last ,roman was buried1 the last citizen of the world 7in the best and broadest sense of the word7 perished4 ,and it was a long time before society was once more placed upon such a footing of security that the old spirit of an all-encompassing humanity1 which had been characteristic of the best minds of the ancient world1 could safely return to this earth4 ,that1 as we saw1 happened during the ,renaissance4 ,the revival of international commerce brought fresh capital to the poverty stricken countries of the west4 ,new cities arose4 ,a new class of men began to patronize the arts1 to spend money upon books1 to endow those universities which followed so closely in the wake of prosperity4 ,and it was then that a few devoted adherents of the 8humanities10 of those sciences which boldly had taken all mankind as their field of experiment1 arose in rebellion against the narrow limitations of the old scholasticism and strayed away from the flock of the faithful who regarded their interest in the wisdom and the grammar of the ancients as a manifestation of a wicked and impure curiosity4 ,among the men who were in the front ranks of this small group of pioneers1 the stories of whose lives will make up the rest of this book1 few deserve greater credit than that very timid soul who came to be known as ,erasmus4 ,for timid he was1 although he took part in all the great verbal encounters of his day and successfully managed to make himself the terror of his enemies1 by the precision with which he handled that most deadly of all weapons1 the long-range gun of humor4 ,far and wide the missiles containing the mustard-gas of his wit were shot into the enemy's country4 ,and those ,erasmian bombs were of a very dangerous variety4 ,at a first glance they looked harmless enough4 ,there was no sputtering of a tell-tale fuse4 ,they had the appearance of an amusing new variety of fire-cracker1 but ,god help those who took them home and allowed the children to play with them4 ,the poison was sure to get into their little minds and it was of such a persistent nature that four centuries have not sufficed to make the race immune against the effects of the drug4 ,it is strange that such a man should have been born in one of the dullest towns of the mudbanks which are situated along the eastern coast of the ,north ,sea4 ,in the fifteenth century those water soaked lands had not yet attained the glories of an independent and fabulously rich commonwealth4 ,they formed a group of little insignificant principalities1 somewhere on the outskirts of civilized society4 ,they smelled forever of herring1 their chief article of export4 ,and if ever they attracted a visitor1 it was some helpless mariner whose ship had been wrecked upon their dismal shores4 ,but the very horror of a childhood spent among such unpleasant surroundings may have spurred this curious infant into that fury of activity which eventually was to set him free and make him one of the best known men of his time4 ,from the beginning of life1 everything was against him4 ,he was an illegitimate child4 ,the people of the ,middle ,ages1 being on an intimate and friendly footing both with ,god and with nature1 were a great deal more sensible about such children than we are4 ,they were sorry4 ,such things ought not to occur and of course they greatly disapproved4 ,for the rest1 however1 they were too simple-minded to punish a helpless creature in a cradle for a sin which most certainly was not of its own making4 ,the irregularity of his birth certificate inconvenienced ,erasmus only in so far as both his father and his mother seem to have been exceedingly muddle-headed citizens1 totally incapable of handling the situation and leaving their children to the care of relatives who were either boobs or scoundrels4 ,these uncles and guardians had no idea of what to do with their two little wards and after the mother had died1 the children never had a home of their own4 ,first of all they were sent to a famous school in ,deventer1 where several of the teachers belonged to the ,society of the ,brothers of the ,common ,life1 but if we are to judge by the letters which ,erasmus wrote later in life1 these young men were only 8common0 in a very different sense of the word4 ,next the two boys were separated and the younger was taken to ,gouda1 where he was placed under the immediate supervision of the head-master of the ,latin school1 who was also one of the three guardians appointed to administer his slender inheritance4 ,if that school in the days of ,erasmus was as bad as when ,i visited it four centuries later1 ,i can only feel sorry for the poor kid4 ,and to make matters worse1 the guardians by this time had wasted every penny of his money and in order to escape prosecution 7for the old ,dutch courts were strict upon such matters7 they hurried the infant into a cloister1 rushed him into holy orders and bade him be happy because 8now his future was secure40 ,the mysterious mills of history eventually ground this terrible experience into something of great literary value4 ,but ,i hate to think of the many terrible years this sensitive youngster was forced to spend in the exclusive company of the illiterate boors and thick-fingered rustics who during the end of the ,middle ,ages made up the population of fully half of all monasteries4 ,fortunately the laxity of discipline at ,steyn permitted ,erasmus to spend most of his time among the ,latin manuscripts which a former abbot had collected and which lay forgotten in the library4 ,he absorbed those volumes until he finally became a walking encyclopedia of classical learning4 ,in later years this stood him in good stead4 ,forever on the move1 he rarely was within reach of a reference library4 ,but that was not necessary4 ,he could quote from memory4 ,those who have ever seen the ten gigantic folios which contain his collected works1 or who have managed to read through part of them 7life is so short nowadays7 will appreciate what a 8knowledge of the classics0 meant in the fifteenth century4 ,of course1 eventually ,erasmus was able to leave his old monastery4 ,people like him are never influenced by circumstances4 ,they make their own circumstances and they make them out of the most unlikely material4 ,and the rest of his life ,erasmus was a free man1 searching restlessly after a spot where he might work without being disturbed by a host of admiring friends4 ,but not until the fateful hour when with an appeal to the 8lieve ,god0 of his childhood he allowed his soul to slip into the slumber of death1 did he enjoy a moment of that 8true leisure0 which has always appeared as the highest good to those who have followed the footsteps of ,socrates and ,zeno and which so few of them have ever found4 ,these peregrinations have often been described and ,i need not repeat them here in detail4 ,wherever two or more men lived together in the name of true wisdom1 there ,erasmus was sooner or later bound to make his appearance4 ,he studied in ,paris1 where as a poor scholar he almost died of hunger and cold4 ,he taught in ,cambridge4 ,he printed books in ,basel4 ,he tried 7quite in vain7 to carry a spark of enlightenment into that stronghold of orthodox bigotry1 the far-famed ,university of ,louvain4 ,he spent much of his time in ,london and took the degree of ,doctor of ,divinity in the ,university of ,turin4 ,he was familiar with the ,grand ,canal of ,venice and cursed as familiarly about the terrible roads of ,zeeland as those of ,lombardy4 ,the sky1 the parks1 the walks and the libraries of ,rome made such a profound impression upon him that even the waters of ,lethe could not wash the ,holy ,city out of his memory4 ,he was offered a liberal pension if he would only move to ,venice and whenever a new university was opened1 he was sure to be honored with a call to whatever chair he wished to take or to no chair at all1 provided he would grace the ,campus with his occasional presence4 ,but he steadily refused all such invitations because they seemed to contain a threat of permanence and dependency4 ,before all things he wanted to be free4 ,he preferred a comfortable room to a bad one1 he preferred amusing companions to dull ones1 he knew the difference between the good rich wine of the land called ,burgundy and the thin red ink of the ,apennines1 but he wanted to live life on his own terms and this he could not do if he had to call any man 8master40 ,the rle which he had chosen for himself was really that of an intellectual search-light4 ,no matter what object appeared above the horizon of contemporary events1 ,erasmus immediately let the brilliant rays of his intellect play upon it1 did his best to make his neighbors see the thing as it really was1 denuded of all frills and divested of that 8folly10 that ignorance which he hated so thoroughly4 ,that he was able to do this during the most turbulent period of our history1 that he managed to escape the fury of the ,protestant fanatics while keeping himself aloof from the fagots of his friends of the ,inquisition1 this is the one point in his career upon which he has been most often condemned4 ,posterity seems to have a veritable passion for martyrdom as long as it applies to the ancestors4 8,why didn't this ,dutchman stand up boldly for ,luther and take his chance together with the other reformers80 has been a question which seems to have puzzled at least twelve generations of otherwise intelligent citizens4 ,the answer is1 8,why should he80 ,it was not in his nature to do violent things and he never regarded himself as the leader of any movement4 ,he utterly lacked that sense of self-righteous assurance which is so characteristic of those who undertake to tell the world how the millennium ought to be brought about4 ,besides he did not believe that it is necessary to demolish the old home every time we feel the necessity of rearranging our quarters4 ,quite true1 the premises were sadly in need of repairs4 ,the drainage was old-fashioned4 ,the garden was all cluttered up with dirt and odds and ends left behind by people who had moved out long before4 ,but all this could be changed if the landlord was made to live up to his promises and would only spend some money upon immediate improvements4 ,beyond that1 ,erasmus did not wish to go4 ,and although he was what his enemies sneeringly called a 8moderate10 he accomplished quite as much 7or more7 than those out and out 8radicals0 who gave the world two tyrannies where only one had been before4 ,like all truly great men1 he was no friend of systems4 ,he believed that the salvation of this world lies in our individual endeavors4 ,make over the individual man and you have made over the entire world6 ,hence he made his attack upon existing abuses by way of a direct appeal to the average citizen4 ,and he did this in a very clever way4 ,in the first place he wrote an enormous amount of letters4 ,he wrote them to kings and to emperors and to popes and to abbots and to knights and to knaves4 ,he wrote them 7and this in the days before the stamped and self-addressed envelope7 to any one who took the trouble to approach him and whenever he took his pen in hand he was good for at least eight pages4 ,in the second place1 he edited a large number of classical texts which had been so often and so badly copied that they no longer made any sense4 ,for this purpose he had been obliged to learn ,greek4 ,his many attempts to get hold of a grammar of that forbidden tongue was one of the reasons why so many pious ,catholics insisted that at heart he must be as bad as a real heretic4 ,this of course sounds absurd but it was the truth4 ,in the fifteenth century1 respectable ,christians would never have dreamed of trying to learn this forbidden language4 ,it was a tongue of evil repute like modern ,russian4 ,a knowledge of ,greek might lead a man into all sorts of difficulties4 ,it might tempt him to compare the original gospels with those translations that had been given to him with the assurance that they were a true reproduction of the original4 ,and that would only be the beginning4 ,soon he would make a descent into the ,ghetto to get hold of a ,hebrew grammar4 ,from that point to open rebellion against the authority of the ,church was only a step and for a long time the possession of a book with strange and outlandish pothooks was regarded as ipso facto evidence of secret revolutionary tendencies4 ,quite often rooms were raided by ecclesiastical authorities in search of this contraband1 and ,byzantine refugees who were trying to eke out an existence by teaching their native tongue were not infrequently forced to leave the city in which they had found an asylum4 ,in spite of all these many obstacles1 ,erasmus had learned ,greek and in the asides which he added to his editions of ,cyprian and ,chrysostom and the other ,church fathers1 he hid many sly observations upon current events which could never have been printed had they been the subject of a separate pamphlet4 ,but this impish spirit of annotation manifested itself in an entirely different sort of literature of which he was the inventor4 ,i mean his famous collections of ,greek and ,latin proverbs which he had brought together in order that the children of his time might learn to write the classics with becoming elegance4 ,these so-called 8,adagia0 are filled with clever comments which in the eyes of his conservative neighbors were by no means what one had the right to expect of a man who enjoyed the friendship of the ,pope4 ,and finally he was the author of one of those strange little books which are born of the spirit of the moment1 which are really a joke conceived for the benefit of a few friends and then assume the dignity of a great literary classic before the poor author quite realizes what he has done4 ,it was called 8,the ,praise of ,folly0 and we happen to know how it came to be written4 ,it was in the year #aeae that the world had been startled by a pamphlet written so cleverly that no one could tell whether it was meant as an attack upon the friars or as a defense of the monastic life4 ,no name appeared upon the title page1 but those who knew what was what in the world of letters recognized the somewhat unsteady hand of one ,ulrich von ,hutten4 ,and they guessed right2 for that talented young man1 poet laureate and town bum extraordinary1 had taken no mean share in the production of this gross but useful piece of buffoonery and he was proud of it4 ,when he heard that no one less than ,thomas ,more1 the famous champion of the ,new ,learning in ,england1 had spoken well of his work1 he wrote to ,erasmus and asked him for particulars4 ,erasmus was no friend of von ,hutten4 ,his orderly mind 7reflected in his orderly way of living7 did not take kindly to those blowsy ,teuton ,ritters who spent their mornings and afternoons valiantly wielding pen and rapier for the cause of enlightenment and then retired to the nearest pot-house that they might forget the corruption of the times by drinking endless bumpers of sour beer4 ,but von ,hutten1 in his own way1 was really a man of genius and ,erasmus answered him civilly enough4 ,yea1 as he wrote1 he grew eloquent upon the virtues of his ,london friend and depicted so charming a scene of domestic contentment that the household of ,sir ,thomas might well serve as a model for all other families until the end of time4 ,it was in this letter that he mentions how ,more1 himself a humorist of no small parts1 had given him the original idea for his 8,praise of ,folly0 and very likely it was the good-natured horse-play of the ,more establishment 7a veritable ,noah's ark of sons and daughters-in-law and daughters and sons-in-law and birds and dogs and a private zoo and private theatricals and bands of amateur fiddlers7 which had inspired him to write that delightful piece of nonsense with which his name is forever associated4 ,in some vague way the book reminds me of the ,punch and ,judy shows which for so many centuries were the only amusement of little ,dutch children4 ,those ,punch and ,judy shows1 with all the gross vulgarity of their dialogue1 invariably maintained a tone of lofty moral seriousness4 ,the hollow voiced figure of ,death dominated the scene4 ,one by one the other actors were forced to appear before this ragged hero and give an account of themselves4 ,and one by one1 to the everlasting delight of the youthful audience1 they were knocked on the head with an enormous cudgel and were thrown on an imaginary scrap-heap4 ,in the 8,praise of ,folly10 the whole social fabric of the age is carefully taken apart while ,folly1 as a sort of inspired ,coroner1 stands by and favors the public at large with her comments4 ,no one is spared4 ,the whole of ,medieval ,main ,street is ransacked for suitable characters4 ,and of course1 the go-getters of that day1 the peddling friars of salvation with all their sanctimonius sales-talk1 their gross ignorance and the futile pomposity of their arguments1 came in for a drubbing which was never forgotten and never forgiven4 ,but the ,pope and his cardinals and his bishops1 incongruous successors to the poverty stricken fishermen and carpenters from the land of ,galilee1 were also on the bill and held the stage for several chapters4 ,the 8,folly0 of ,erasmus however was a much more substantial personage than the usual ,jack-in-the-,box of humorous literature4 ,throughout this little book 7as indeed throughout everything he wrote7 ,erasmus preached a gospel of his own which one might call the philosophy of tolerance4 ,it was this willingness to live and let live2 this insistence upon the spirit of the divine law rather than upon the commas and the semi-colons in the original version of that divine law2 this truly human acceptance of religion as a system of ethics rather than as a form of government which made serious-minded ,catholics and ,protestants inveigh against ,erasmus as a 8godless knave0 and an enemy of all true religion who 8slandered ,christ0 but hid his real opinions behind the funny phrases of a clever little book4 ,this abuse 7and it lasted until the day of his death7 did not have any effect4 ,the little man with the long pointed nose1 who lived until the age of seventy at a time when the addition or omission of a single word from an established text might cause a man to be hanged1 had no liking at all for the popular-hero business and he said so openly4 ,he expected nothing from an appeal to swords and arquebusses and knew only too well the risk the world was running when a minor theological dispute was allowed to degenerate into an international religious war4 ,and so1 like a gigantic beaver1 he worked day and night to finish that famous dam of reason and common sense which he vaguely hoped might stem the waxing tide of ignorance and intolerance4 ,of course he failed4 ,it was impossible to stop those floods of ill-will and hatred which were sweeping down from the mountains of ,germany and the ,alps1 and a few years after his death his work had been completely washed away4 ,but so well had he wrought that many bits of wreckage1 thrown upon the shores of posterity1 proved exceedingly good material for those irrepressible optimists who believe that some day we shall have a set of dykes that will actually hold4 ,erasmus departed this life in ,july of the year #aehf4 ,his sense of humor never deserted him4 ,he died in the house of his publisher4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,rabelais ,social upheavals make strange bed-fellows4 ,the name of ,erasmus can be printed in a respectable book intended for the entire family4 ,but to mention ,rabelais in public is considered little short of a breach of good manners4 ,indeed1 so dangerous is this fellow that laws have been passed in our country to keep his wicked works out of the hands of our innocent children and that in many states copies of his books can only be obtained from the more intrepid among our book-leggers4 ,this of course is merely one of the absurdities which have been forced upon us by the reign of terror of a flivver aristocracy4 ,in the first place1 the works of ,rabelais to the average citizen of the twentieth century are about as dull reading as 8,tom ,jones0 or 8,the ,house of the ,seven ,gables40 ,few people ever get beyond the first interminable chapter4 ,and in the second place1 there is nothing intentionally suggestive in what he says4 ,rabelais used the common vocabulary of his time4 ,that does not happen to be the common vernacular of our own day4 ,but in the era of the bucolic blues1 when ninety percent of the human race lived close to the soil1 a spade was actually a spade and lady-dogs were not 8lady-dogs40 ,no1 the current objections to the works of this distinguished surgeon go much deeper than a mere disapproval of his rich but somewhat outspoken collection of idioms4 ,they are caused by the horror which many excellent people experience when they come face to face with the point of view of a man who point blank refuses to be defeated by life4 ,the human race1 as far as ,i can make out1 is divided into two sorts of people2 those who say 8yes0 unto life and those who say 8no40 ,the former accept it and courageously they endeavor to make the best of whatever bargain fate has handed out to them4 ,the latter accept it too 7how could they help themselves87 but they hold the gift in great contempt and fret about it like children who have been given a new little brother when they really wanted a puppy or a railroad train4 ,but whereas the cheerful brethren of 8yes0 are willing to accept their morose neighbors at their own valuation and tolerate them1 and do not hinder them when they fill the landscape with their lamentations and the hideous monuments to their own despair1 the fraternity of 8no0 rarely extends this same courtesy to the parties of the first part4 ,indeed if they had their own way1 the 8nays0 would immediately purge this planet of the 8yeas40 ,as this cannot very well be done1 they satisfy the demands of their jealous souls by the incessant persecution of those who claim that the world belongs to the living and not to the dead4 ,dr4 ,rabelais belonged to the former class4 ,few of his patients or his thoughts ever went out to the cemetery4 ,this1 no doubt1 was very regrettable1 but we cannot all be grave-diggers4 ,there have to be a few ,poloniuses and a world composed exclusively of ,hamlets would be a terrible place of abode4 ,as for the story of ,rabelais' life1 there was nothing very mysterious about it4 ,the few details which are omitted in the books written by his friends are found in the works of his enemies and as a result we can follow his career with a fair degree of accuracy4 ,rabelais belonged to the generation which followed immediately upon ,erasmus but he was born into a world still largely dominated by monks1 nuns1 deacons1 and a thousand and one varieties of mendicant friars4 ,he was born in ,chinon4 ,his father was either an apothecary or a dealer in spirits 7which were different professions in the fifteenth century7 and the old man was sufficiently well-to-do to send his son to a good school4 ,there young ,franois was thrown into the company of the scions of a famous local family called du ,bellay-,langey4 ,these boys1 like their father1 had a streak of genius4 ,they wrote well4 ,upon occasion they could fight well4 ,they were men of the world in the good sense of that oft misunderstood expression4 ,they were faithful servitors of their master the king1 held endless public offices1 became bishops and cardinals and ambassadors1 translated the classics1 edited manuals of infantry drill and ballistics and brilliantly performed all the many useful services that were expected of the aristocracy in a day when a title condemned a man to a life of few pleasures and many duties and responsibilities4 ,the friendship which the du ,bellays afterwards bestowed upon ,rabelais shows that he must have been something more than an amusing table companion4 ,during the many ups and downs of his life he could always count upon the assistance and the support of his former classmates4 ,whenever he was in trouble with his clerical superiors he found the door of their castle wide open and if perchance the soil of ,france became a little too hot for this blunt young moralist1 there was always a du ,bellay1 conveniently going upon a foreign mission and greatly in need of a secretary who should be somewhat of a physician besides being a polished ,latin scholar4 ,this was no small detail4 ,more than once when it seemed that the career of our learned doctor was about to come to an abrupt and painful end1 the influence of his old friends saved him from the fury of the ,sorbonne or from the anger of those much disappointed ,calvinists who had counted upon him as one of their own and who were greatly incensed when he pilloried the jaundiced zeal of their ,genevan master as mercilessly as he had derided the three-bottled sanctity of his erstwhile colleagues in ,fontenay and ,maillezais4 ,of these two enemies1 the former was of course by far the more dangerous4 ,calvin could fulminate to his heart's content1 but outside of the narrow boundaries of a small ,swiss canton1 his lightning was as harmless as a fire-cracker4 ,the ,sorbonne1 on the other hand1 which together with the ,university of ,oxford stood firmly for orthodoxy and the ,old ,learning1 knew of no mercy when her authority was questioned and could always count upon the hearty coperation of the king of ,france and his hangman4 ,and alas6 ,rabelais1 as soon as he left school1 was a marked man4 ,not because he liked to drink good wine and told funny stories about his fellow-monks4 ,he had done much worse1 he had succumbed to the lure of the wicked ,greek tongue4 ,when rumor thereof had first reached the abbot of his cloister1 it was decided to search his cell4 ,it was found to be full of literary contraband1 a copy of ,homer1 one of the ,new ,testament1 one of ,herodotus4 ,this was a terrible discovery and it had taken a great deal of wire-pulling on the part of his influential friends to get him out of this scrape4 ,it was a curious period in the development of the ,church4 ,originally1 as ,i told you before1 the monasteries had been advance posts of civilization and both friars and nuns had rendered inestimable service in promoting the interest of the ,church4 ,more than one ,pope1 however1 had foreseen the danger that might come from a too powerful development of the monastic institutions4 ,but as so often happens1 just because every one knew that something ought to be done about these cloisters1 nothing was ever done4 ,among the ,protestants there seems to be a notion that the ,catholic ,church is a placid institution which is run silently and almost automatically by a small body of haughty autocrats and which never suffers from those inner upheavals which are an integral part of every other organization composed of ordinary mortals4 ,nothing is further from the truth4 ,perhaps1 as is so often the case1 this opinion has been caused by the misinterpretation of a single word4 ,a world addicted to democratic ideals is easily horrified at the idea of an 8infallible0 human being4 8,it must be easy10 so the popular argument runs1 8to administer this big institution when it is enough for one man to say that a thing is so to have all the others fall upon their knees and shout amen and obey him40 ,it is extremely difficult for one brought up in ,protestant countries to get a correct and fair view of this rather intricate subject4 ,but if ,i am not mistaken1 the 8infallible0 utterances of the supreme pontiff are as rare as constitutional amendments in the ,united ,states4 ,furthermore1 such important decisions are never reached until the subject has been thoroughly discussed and the debates which precede the final verdict often rock the very body of the ,church4 ,such pronunciamentos are therefore 8infallible0 in the sense that our own constitutional amendments are infallible1 because they are 8final0 and because all further argument is supposed to come to an end as soon as they have been definitely incorporated into the highest law of the land4 ,if any one were to proclaim that it is an easy job to govern these ,united ,states because in case of an emergency all the people are found to stand firmly behind the ,constitution1 he would be just as much in error as if he were to state that all ,catholics who in supreme matters of faith recognize the absolute authority of their pope are docile sheep and have surrendered every right to an opinion of their own4 ,if this were true1 the occupants of the ,lateran and the ,vatican palaces would have had an easy life4 ,but even the most superficial study of the last fifteen hundred years will show the exact opposite4 ,and those champions of the reformed faith who sometimes write as if the ,roman authorities had been ignorant of the many evils which ,luther and ,calvin and ,zwingli denounced with such great vehemence are either ignorant of the facts or are not quite fair in their zeal for the good cause4 ,such men as ,adrian ,,vi and ,clement ,,vii knew perfectly well that something very serious was wrong with their ,church4 ,but it is one thing to express the opinion that there is something rotten in the state of ,denmark4 ,it is quite a different matter to correct the evil1 as even poor ,hamlet was to learn4 ,nor was that unfortunate prince the last victim of the pleasant delusion that hundreds of years of misgovernment can be undone overnight by the unselfish efforts of an honest man4 ,many intelligent ,russians knew that the old official structure which dominated their empire was corrupt1 inefficient and a menace to the safety of the nation4 ,they made ,herculean efforts to bring about reforms and they failed4 ,how many of our citizens who have ever given the matter an hour's thought fail to see that a democratic instead of a representative form of government 7as intended by the founders of the ,republic7 must eventually lead to systematized anarchy8 ,and yet1 what can they do about it8 ,such problems1 by the time they have begun to attract public attention1 have become so hopelessly complicated that they are rarely solved except by a social cataclysm4 ,and social cataclysms are terrible things from which most men shy away4 ,rather than run to such extremes1 they try to patch up the old1 decrepit machinery and meanwhile they pray that some miracle will occur which will make it work4 ,an insolent religious and social dictatorship1 set up and maintained by a number of religious orders1 was one of the most flagrant evils of the out-going ,middle ,ages4 ,for the so-many-eth time in history1 the army was about to run away with the commander-in-chief4 ,in plain words1 the situation had grown entirely beyond the control of the popes4 ,all they could do was to sit still1 improve their own party organization1 and meanwhile try to mitigate the fate of those who had incurred the displeasure of their common enemies1 the friars4 ,erasmus was one of the many scholars who had frequently enjoyed the protection of the ,pope4 ,let ,louvain storm and the ,dominicans rave1 ,rome would stand firm and woe unto him who disregarded her command1 8,leave the old man alone60 ,and after these few introductory remarks1 it will be no matter of surprise that ,rabelais1 a mutinous soul but a brilliant mind withal1 could often count upon the support of the ,holy ,see when the superiors of his own order wished to punish him and that he readily obtained permission to leave his cloister when constant interference with his studies began to make his life unbearable4 ,and so with a sigh of relief1 he shook the dust of ,maillezais off his feet and went to ,montpellier and to ,lyons to follow a course in medicine4 ,surely here was a man of extraordinary talents6 ,within less than two years the former ,benedictine monk had become chief physician of the city hospital of ,lyons4 ,but as soon as he had achieved these new honors1 his restless soul began to look for pastures new4 ,he did not give up his powders and pills but in addition to his anatomical studies 7a novelty almost as dangerous as the study of ,greek7 he took up literature4 ,lyons1 situated in the center of the valley of the ,rhone1 was an ideal city for a man who cared for belles lettres4 ,italy was nearby4 ,a few days easy travel carried the traveler to the ,provence and although the ancient paradise of the ,troubadours had suffered dreadfully at the hands of the ,inquisition1 the grand old literary tradition had not yet been entirely lost4 ,furthermore1 the printing-presses of ,lyons were famous for the excellence of their product and her book stores were well stocked with all the latest publications4 ,when one of the master printers1 ,sebastian ,gryphius by name1 looked for some one to edit his collection of medieval classics1 it was natural that he should bethink himself of the new doctor who was also known as a scholar4 ,he hired ,rabelais and set him to work4 ,in rapid succession almanachs and chap-books followed upon the learned treatises of ,galen and ,hippocrates4 ,and out of these inconspicuous beginnings grew that strange tome which was to make its author one of the most popular writers of his time4 ,the same talent for novelty which had turned ,rabelais into a successful medical practitioner brought him his success as a novelist4 ,he did what few people had dared to do before him4 ,he began to write in the language of his own people4 ,he broke with a thousand-year-old tradition which insisted that the books of a learned man must be in a tongue unknown to the vulgar multitude4 ,he used ,french and1 furthermore1 he used the unadorned vernacular of the year #aecb4 ,i gladly leave it to the professors of literature to decide where and how and when ,rabelais discovered his two pet heroes1 ,gargantua and ,pantagruel4 ,maybe they were old heathenish ,gods who1 after the nature of their species1 had managed to live through fifteen hundred years of ,christian persecution and neglect4 ,then again1 he may have invented them in an outburst of gigantic hilarity4 ,however that be1 ,rabelais contributed enormously to the gayety of nations and greater praise no author can gain than that he has added something to the sum total of human laughter4 ,but at the same time1 his works were not funny books in the terrible modern sense of the word4 ,they had their serious side and struck a bold blow for the cause of tolerance by their caricature of the people who were responsible for that clerical reign of terror which caused such untold misery during the first fifty years of the sixteenth century4 ,rabelais1 a skillfully trained theologian1 was able to avoid all such direct statements as might have got him into trouble1 and acting upon the principle that one cheerful humorist out of jail is better than a dozen gloomy reformers behind the bars1 refrained from a too brazen exposition of his highly unorthodox opinions4 ,but his enemies knew perfectly well what he was trying to do4 ,the ,sorbonne condemned his books in unmistakable terms and the ,parliament of ,paris put him on their index and confiscated and burned all such copies of his works as could be found within their jurisdiction4 ,but notwithstanding the activities of the hangman 7who in those days was also the official book destroyer7 the 8,lives and ,heroic ,deeds and ,sayings of ,gargantua and his ,sonne ,pantagruel0 remained a popular classic4 ,for almost four centuries it has continued to edify those who can derive pleasure from a clever mixture of good-natured laughter and bantering wisdom and it will never cease to irritate those others who firmly believe that the ,goddess of ,truth1 caught with a smile on her lips1 cannot possibly be a good woman4 ,as for the author himself1 he was and is a 8man of one book40 ,his friends1 the du ,bellays1 remained faithful to him until the end1 but most of his life ,rabelais practiced the virtue of discretion and kept himself at a polite distance from the residence of that ,majesty by whose supposed 8privilege0 he published his nefarious works4 ,he ventured however upon a visit to ,rome and met with no difficulties1 but on the contrary was received with every manifestation of a cordial welcome4 ,in the year #aeej he returned to ,france and went to live in ,meudon4 ,three years later he died4 ,it is of course quite impossible to measure the exact and positive influence exercised by such a man4 ,after all1 he was a human being and not an electric current or a barrel of gasoline4 ,it has been said that he was merely destructive4 ,perhaps so4 ,but he was destructive in an age when there was a great and crying need for a social wrecking crew1 headed by just such people as ,erasmus and ,rabelais4 ,that many of the new buildings were going to be just as uncomfortable and ugly as the old ones which they were supposed to replace was something which no one was able to foresee4 ,and1 anyway1 that was the fault of the next generation4 ,they are the people we ought to blame4 ,they were given a chance such as few people ever enjoyed to make a fresh start4 ,may the ,lord have mercy upon their souls for the way in which they neglected their opportunities4 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,new ,,signboards ,,for ,,old ,the greatest of modern poets saw the world as a large ocean upon which sailed many ships4 ,whenever these little vessels bumped against each other1 they made a 8wonderful music0 which people call history4 ,i would like to borrow ,heine's ocean1 but for a purpose and a simile of my own4 ,when we were children it was fun to drop pebbles into a pond4 ,they made a nice splash and then the pretty little ripples caused a series of ever widening circles and that was very nice4 ,if bricks were handy 7which sometimes was the case7 one could make an ,armada of nutshells and matches and submit this flimsy fleet to a nice artificial storm1 provided the heavy projectile did not create that fatal loss of equilibrium which sometimes overtakes small children who play too near the water's edge and sends them to bed without their supper4 ,in that special universe reserved for grown-ups1 the same pastime is not entirely unknown1 but the results are apt to be far more disastrous4 ,everything is placid and the sun is shining and the water-wigglers are skating merrily1 and then suddenly a bold1 bad boy comes along with a piece of mill-stone 7,heaven only knows where he found it67 and before any one can stop him he has heaved it right into the middle of the old duck pond and then there is a great ado about who did it and how he ought to be spanked and some say1 8,oh1 let him go10 and others1 out of sheer envy of the kid who is attracting all the attention1 pick up any old thing that happens to lie around and they dump it into the water and everybody gets splashed and one thing leading to another1 the usual result is a free-for-all fight and a few million broken heads4 ,alexander was such a bold1 bad boy4 ,and ,helen of ,troy1 in her own charming way1 was such a bad1 bold girl1 and history is just full of them4 ,but by far the worst offenders are those wicked citizens who play this game with ideas and use the stagnant pool of man's spiritual indifference as their playground4 ,and ,i for one don't wonder that they are hated by all right-thinking citizens and are punished with great severity if ever they are unfortunate enough to let themselves be caught4 ,think of the damage they have done these last four hundred years4 ,there were the leaders of the rebirth of the ancient world4 ,the stately moats of the ,middle ,ages reflected the image of a society that was harmonious in both color and texture4 ,it was not perfect4 ,but people liked it4 ,they loved to see the blending of the brick-red walls of their little homes with the somber gray of those high cathedral towers that watched over their souls4 ,came the terrible splash of the ,renaissance and overnight everything was changed4 ,but it was only a beginning4 ,for just when the poor burghers had almost recovered from the shock1 that dreadful ,german monk appeared with a whole cartload of specially prepared bricks and dumped them right into the heart of the pontifical lagoon4 ,really1 that was too much4 ,and no wonder that it took the world three centuries to recover from the shock4 ,the older historians who studied this period often fell into a slight error4 ,they saw the commotion and decided that the ripples had been started by a common cause1 which they alternately called the ,renaissance and the ,reformation4 ,today we know better4 ,the ,renaissance and the ,reformation were movements which professed to be striving after a common purpose4 ,but the means by which they hoped to accomplish their ultimate object were so utterly different that ,humanist and ,protestant not infrequently came to regard each other with bitter hostility4 ,they both believed in the supreme rights of man4 ,during the ,middle ,ages the individual had been completely merged in the community4 ,he did not exist as ,john ,doe1 a bright citizen who came and went at will1 who sold and bought as he liked1 who went to any one of a dozen churches 7or to none at all1 as suited his tastes and his prejudices74 ,his life from the time of his birth to the hour of his death was lived according to a rigid handbook of economic and spiritual etiquette4 ,this taught him that his body was a shoddy garment1 casually borrowed from ,mother ,nature and of no value except as a temporary receptacle for his immortal soul4 ,it trained him to believe that this world was a halfway house to future glory and should be regarded with that profound contempt which travelers destined for ,new ,york bestow upon ,queenstown and ,halifax4 ,and now unto the excellent ,john1 living happily in the best of all possible worlds 7since it was the only world he knew71 came the two fairy god-mothers1 ,renaissance and ,reformation1 and said3 8,arise1 noble citizen1 from now on thou art to be free40 ,but when ,john asked1 8,free to do what80 the answers greatly differed4 8,free to go forth in quest of ,beauty10 the ,renaissance replied4 8,free to go in quest of ,truth10 the ,reformation admonished him4 8,free to search the records of the past when the world was truly the realm of men4 ,free to realize those ideals which once filled the hearts of poets and painters and sculptors and architects4 ,free to turn the universe into thine eternal laboratory1 that thou mayest know all her secrets10 was the promise of the ,renaissance4 8,free to study the word of ,god1 that thou mayest find salvation for thy soul and forgiveness for thy sins10 was the warning of the ,reformation4 ,and they turned on their heels and left poor ,john ,doe in the possession of a new freedom which was infinitely more embarrassing than the thralldom of his former days4 ,fortunately or unfortunately1 the ,renaissance soon made her peace with the established order of things4 ,the successors of ,phidias and ,horace discovered that a belief in the established ,deity and outward conformity to the rules of the ,church were two very different things and that one could paint pagan pictures and compose heathenish sonnets with complete impunity if one took the precaution to call ,hercules1 ,john the ,baptist1 and ,hera1 the ,virgin ,mary4 ,they were like tourists who go to ,india and who obey certain laws which mean nothing to them at all in order that they may gain entrance to the temples and travel freely without disturbing the peace of the land4 ,but in the eyes of an honest follower of ,luther1 the most trifling of details at once assumed enormous importance4 ,an erroneous comma in ,deuteronomy might mean exile4 ,as for a misplaced full stop in the ,apocalypse1 it called for instant death4 ,to people like these who took what they considered their religious convictions with bitter seriousness1 the merry compromise of the ,renaissance seemed a dastardly act of cowardice4 ,as a result1 ,renaissance and ,reformation parted company1 never to meet again4 ,whereupon the ,reformation1 alone against all the world1 buckled on the armor of righteousness and made ready to defend her holiest possessions4 ,in the beginning1 the army of revolt was composed almost exclusively of ,germans4 ,they fought and suffered with extreme bravery1 but that mutual jealousy which is the bane and the curse of all northern nations soon lamed their efforts and forced them to accept a truce4 ,the strategy which led to the ultimate victory was provided by a very different sort of genius4 ,luther stepped aside to make room for ,calvin4 ,it was high time4 ,in that same ,french college where ,erasmus had spent so many of his unhappy ,parisian days1 a black-bearded young ,spaniard with a limp 7the result of a ,gallic gunshot7 was dreaming of the day when he should march at the head of a new army of the ,lord to rid the world of the last of the heretics4 ,it takes a fanatic to fight a fanatic4 ,and only a man of granite1 like ,calvin1 would have been able to defeat the plans of ,loyola4 ,personally1 ,i am glad that ,i was not obliged to live in ,geneva in the sixteenth century4 ,at the same time ,i am profoundly grateful that the ,geneva of the sixteenth century existed4 ,without it1 the world of the twentieth century would have been a great deal more uncomfortable and ,i for one would probably be in jail4 ,the hero of this glorious fight1 the famous ,magister ,joannes ,calvinus 7or ,jean ,calvini or ,john ,calvin7 was a few years younger than ,luther4 ,date of birth3 ,july #aj1 #aeji4 ,place of birth3 the city of ,noyon in northern ,france4 ,background3 ,french middle class4 ,father3 a small clerical official4 ,mother3 the daughter of an inn-keeper4 ,family3 five sons and two daughters4 ,characteristic qualities of early education3 thrift1 simplicity1 and a tendency to do all things in an orderly manner1 not stingily1 but with minute and efficient care4 ,john1 the second son1 was meant for the priesthood4 ,the father had influential friends1 and could eventually get him into a good parish4 ,before he was thirteen years old1 he already held a small office in the cathedral of his home city4 ,this gave him a small but steady income4 ,it was used to send him to a good school in ,paris4 ,a remarkable boy4 ,every one who came in contact with him said1 8,watch out for that youngster60 ,the ,french educational system of the sixteenth century was well able to take care of such a child and make the best of his many gifts4 ,at the age of nineteen1 ,john was allowed to preach4 ,his future as a duly established deacon seemed assured4 ,but there were five sons and two daughters4 ,advancement in the ,church was slow4 ,the law offered better opportunities4 ,besides1 it was a time of great religious excitement and the future was uncertain4 ,a distant relative1 a certain ,pierre ,olivtan1 had just translated the ,bible into ,french4 ,john1 while in ,paris1 had spent much time with his cousin4 ,it would never do to have two heretics in one family4 ,john was packed off to ,orleans and was apprenticed to an old lawyer that he might learn the business of pleading and arguing and drawing up briefs4 ,here the same thing happened as in ,paris4 ,before the end of the year1 the pupil had turned teacher and was coaching his less industrious fellow-students in the principles of jurisprudence4 ,and soon he knew all there was to know and was ready to start upon that course which1 so his father fondly hoped1 would some day make him the rival of those famous avocats who got a hundred gold pieces for a single opinion and who drove in a coach and four when they were called upon to see the king in distant ,compigne4 ,but nothing came of these dreams4 ,john ,calvin never practiced law4 ,instead1 he returned to his first love1 sold his digests and his pandects1 devoted the proceeds to a collection of theological works and started in all seriousness upon that task which was to make him one of the most important historical figures of the last twenty centuries4 ,the years1 however1 which he had spent studying the principles of ,roman law put their stamp upon all his further activities4 ,it was impossible for him to approach a problem by way of his emotions4 ,he felt things and he felt them deeply4 ,read his letters to those of his followers who had fallen into the hands of ,catholics and who had been condemned to be roasted to death over slow burning coal fires4 ,in their helpless agony they are as fine a bit of writing as anything of which we have a record4 ,and they show such a delicate understanding of human psychology that the poor victims went to their death blessing the name of the man whose teaching had brought them into their predicament4 ,no1 ,calvin was not1 as so many of his enemies have said1 a man without a heart4 ,but life to him was a sacred duty4 ,and he tried so desperately hard to be honest with himself and with his ,god that he must first reduce every question to certain fundamental principles of faith and doctrine before he dared to expose it to the touchstone of human sentiment4 ,when ,pope ,pius ,,iv heard of his death1 he remarked1 8,the power of that heretic lay in the fact that he was indifferent to money40 ,if ,his ,holiness meant to pay his enemy the compliment of absolute personal disinterestedness1 he was right4 ,calvin lived and died a poor man and refused to accept his last quarterly salary because 8illness had made it impossible for him to earn that money as he should have done40 ,but his strength lay elsewhere4 ,he was a man of one idea1 his life centered around one all-overpowering impulse2 the desire to find the truth of ,god as revealed in the ,scriptures4 ,when he finally had reached a conclusion that seemed proof against every possible form of argument and objection1 then at last he incorporated it into his own code of life4 ,and thereafter he went his way with such utter disregard for the consequences of his decision that he became both invincible and irresistible4 ,this quality1 however1 was not to make itself manifest until many years later4 ,during the first decade after his conversion he was obliged to direct all his energies toward the very commonplace problem of keeping alive4 ,a short triumph of the 8new learning0 in the ,university of ,paris1 an orgy of ,greek declensions1 ,hebrew irregular verbs and other forbidden intellectual fruit had been followed by the usual reaction4 ,when it appeared that even the rector of that famous seat of learning had been contaminated with the pernicious new ,german doctrines1 steps were taken to purge the institution of all those who in terms of our modern medical science might be considered 8idea carriers40 ,calvin1 who1 'twas said1 had given the rector the material for several of his most objectionable speeches1 was among those whose names appeared at the top of the list of suspects4 ,his rooms were searched4 ,his papers were confiscated and an order was issued for his arrest4 ,he heard of it and hid himself in the house of a friend4 ,but storms in an academic tea-pot never last very long4 ,all the same1 a career in the ,church of ,rome had become an impossibility4 ,the moment had arrived for a definite choice4 ,in the year #aecd ,calvin broke away from the old faith4 ,almost at the same moment1 on the hills of ,montmartre1 high above the ,french capital1 ,loyola and a handful of his fellow students were taking that solemn vow which shortly afterwards was to be incorporated into the constitution of the ,society of ,jesus4 ,thereupon they both left ,paris4 ,ignatius set his face towards the east1 but remembering the unfortunate outcome of his first assault upon the ,holy ,land1 he retraced his steps1 went to ,rome and there began those activities which were to carry his fame 7or otherwise7 to every nook and corner of our planet4 ,john was of a different caliber4 ,his ,kingdom of ,god was bound to neither time nor place and he wandered forth that he might find a quiet spot and devote the rest of his days to reading1 to contemplation and to the peaceful expounding of his ideas4 ,he happened to be on his way to ,strassburg when the outbreak of a war between ,charles ,v and ,francis ,i forced him to make a detour through western ,switzerland4 ,in ,geneva he was welcomed by ,guillaume ,farel1 one of the stormy petrels of the ,french ,reformation1 fugitive extraordinary from all ecclesiastical and inquisitorial dungeons4 ,farel welcomed him with open arms1 spoke to him of the wondrous things that might be accomplished in this little ,swiss principality and bade him stay4 ,calvin asked time to consider4 ,then he stayed4 ,in this way did the chances of war decree that the ,new ,zion should be built at the foot of the ,alps4 ,it is a strange world4 ,columbus sets forth to discover the ,indies and stumbles upon a new continent4 ,calvin1 in search of a quiet spot where he may spend the rest of his days in study and holy meditation1 wanders into a third-rate ,swiss town and makes it the spiritual capital of those who soon afterwards turn the domains of their most ,catholic ,majesties into a gigantic ,protestant empire4 ,why should any one ever read fiction when history serves all purposes8 ,i do not know whether the family ,bible of ,calvin has been preserved4 ,but if it still exists1 the volume will show considerable wear on that particular page which contains the sixth chapter of the book of ,daniel4 ,the ,french reformer was a modest man1 but often he must have found consolation in the story of that other steadfast servant of the living ,god who also had been cast into a den of lions and whose innocence had saved him from a gruesome and untimely death4 ,geneva was no ,babylon4 ,it was a respectable little city inhabited by respectable ,swiss cloth makers4 ,they took life seriously1 but not quite so seriously as that new master who was now holding forth in the pulpit of their ,saint ,peter4 ,and furthermore1 there was a ,nebuchadnezzar in the form of a ,duke of ,savoy4 ,it was during one of their interminable quarrels with the house of ,savoy that the descendants of ,caesar's ,allobroges had decided to make common cause with the other ,swiss cantons and join the ,reformation4 ,the alliance therefore between ,geneva and ,wittenberg was a marriage of convenience1 an engagement based upon common interests rather than common affection4 ,but no sooner had the news spread abroad that 8,geneva had gone ,protestant10 than all the eager apostles of half a hundred new and crazy creeds flocked to the shores of ,lake ,leman4 ,with tremendous energy they began to preach some of the queerest doctrines ever conceived by mortal man4 ,calvin detested these amateur prophets with all his heart4 ,he fully appreciated what a menace they would prove to the cause of which they were such ardent but ill-guided champions4 ,and the first thing he did as soon as he had enjoyed a few months leisure was to write down as precisely and briefly as he could what he expected his new parishioners to hold true and what he expected them to hold false4 ,and that no man might claim the ancient and time-worn excuse1 8,i did not know the law10 he1 together with his friend ,farel1 personally examined all ,genevans in batches of ten and allowed only those to the full rights of citizenship who swore the oath of allegiance to this strange religious constitution4 ,next he composed a formidable catechism for the benefit of the younger generation4 ,next he prevailed upon the ,town ,council to expel all those who still clung to their old erroneous opinions4 ,then1 having cleared the ground for further action1 he set about to found him a state along the lines laid down by the political economists of the books of ,exodus and ,deuteronomy4 ,for ,calvin1 like so many other of the great reformers1 was really much more of an ancient ,jew than a modern ,christian4 ,his lips did homage to the ,god of ,jesus1 but his heart went out to the ,jehovah of ,moses4 ,this1 of course1 is a phenomenon often observed during periods of great emotional stress4 ,the opinions of the humble ,nazarene carpenter upon the subject of hatred and strife are so definite and so clear cut that no compromise has ever been found possible between them and those violent methods by which nations and individuals have1 during the last two thousand years1 tried to accomplish their ends4 ,hence1 as soon as a war breaks out1 by silent consent of all concerned1 we temporarily close the pages of the ,gospels and cheerfully wallow in the blood and thunder and the eye-for-an-eye philosophy of the ,old ,testament4 ,and as the ,reformation was really a war and a very atrocious one1 in which no quarter was asked and very little quarter was given1 it need not surprise us that the state of ,calvin was in reality an armed camp in which all semblance of personal liberty was gradually suppressed4 ,of course1 all this was not accomplished without tremendous opposition1 and in the year #aech the attitude of the more liberal elements in the community became so threatening that ,calvin was forced to leave the city4 ,but in #aeda his adherents returned to power4 ,amidst the ringing of many bells and the loud hosannas of the deacons1 ,magister ,joannes returned to his citadel on the river ,rhone4 ,thereafter he was the uncrowned ,king of ,geneva and the next twenty-three years he devoted to the establishment and the perfection of a theocratic form of government1 the like of which the world had not seen since the days of ,ezekiel and ,ezra4 ,the word 8discipline0 according to the ,oxford ,concise ,dictionary1 means 8to bring under control1 to train to obedience and order1 to drill40 ,it expresses best the spirit which permeated the entire political-clerical structure of ,calvin's dreams4 ,luther1 after the nature of most ,germans1 had been a good deal of a sentimentalist4 ,the ,word of ,god alone1 so it seemed to him1 would show a man the way to the life everlasting4 ,this was much too indefinite to suit the taste of the great ,french reformer4 ,the ,word of ,god might be a beacon light of hope1 but the road was long and dark and many were the temptations that made people forget their true destination4 ,the minister1 however1 could not go astray4 ,he was a man set apart4 ,he knew all pitfalls4 ,he was incorruptible4 ,and if perchance he felt inclined to wander from the straight path1 the weekly meetings of the clergy1 at which these worthy gentlemen were invited to criticize each other freely1 would speedily bring him back to a realization of his duties4 ,hence he was the ideal held before all those who truly aspired after salvation4 ,those of us who have ever climbed mountains know that professional guides can upon occasion be veritable tyrants4 ,they know the perils of a pile of rocks1 the hidden dangers of an innocent-looking snowfield4 ,wherefore they assume complete command of the party that has entrusted itself to their care and profanity raineth richly upon the head of the foolish tourist who dares to disobey their orders4 ,the ministers of ,calvin's ideal state had a similar conception of their duties4 ,they were ever delighted to extend a helping hand to those who stumbled and asked that they be supported4 ,but when willful people purposely left the beaten track and wandered away from the flock1 then that hand was withdrawn and became a fist which meted out punishment that was both quick and terrible4 ,in many other communities the dominies would have been delighted to exercise a similar power4 ,but the civil authorities1 jealous of their own prerogatives1 rarely allowed the clergy to compete with the courts and the executioners4 ,calvin knew this and within his own bailiwick he established a form of church discipline which practically superseded the laws of the land4 ,among the curious historical misconceptions which have gained such popularity since the days of the great war1 none is more surprising than the belief that the ,french people 7in contrast to their ,teuton neighbors7 are a liberty-loving race and detest all regimentation4 ,the ,french have for centuries submitted to the rule of a bureaucracy quite as complicated and infinitely less efficient than the one which existed in ,prussia in the pre-war days4 ,the officials are a little less punctual about their office hours and the spotlessness of their collars and they are given to sucking a particularly vile sort of cigarette4 ,otherwise they are quite as meddlesome and as obnoxious as those in the eastern republic1 and the public accepts their rudeness with a meekness that is astonishing in a race so addicted to rebellion4 ,calvin was the ideal ,frenchman in his love for centralization4 ,in some details he almost approached the perfection for detail which was the secret of ,napoleon's success4 ,but unlike the great emperor1 he was utterly devoid of all personal ambition4 ,he was just a dreadfully serious man with a weak stomach and no sense of humor4 ,he ransacked the ,old ,testament to discover what would be agreeable to his particular ,jehovah4 ,and then the people of ,geneva were asked to accept this interpretation of the ,jewish chronicles as a direct revelation of the divine will4 ,almost over night the merry city on the ,rhone became a community of rueful sinners4 ,a civic inquisition composed of six ministers and twelve elders watched night and day over the private opinions of all citizens4 ,whosoever was suspected of an inclination towards 8forbidden heresies0 was cited to appear before an ecclesiastic tribunal that he might be examined upon all points of doctrine and explain where1 how and in what way he had obtained the books which had given him the pernicious ideas which had led him astray4 ,if the culprit showed a repentant spirit1 he might escape with a sentence of enforced attendance at ,sunday ,school4 ,but in case he showed himself obstinate1 he must leave the city within twenty-four hours and never again show himself within the jurisdiction of the ,genevan commonwealth4 ,but a proper lack of orthodox sentiment was not the only thing that could get a man into trouble with the so-called ,consistorium4 ,an afternoon spent at a bowling-alley in a nearby village1 if properly reported 7as such things invariably are71 could be reason enough for a severe admonition4 ,jokes1 both practical and otherwise1 were considered the height of bad form4 ,an attempt at wit during a wedding ceremony was sufficient cause for a jail sentence4 ,gradually the ,new ,zion was so encumbered with laws1 edicts1 regulations1 rescripts and decrees that life became a highly complicated affair and lost a great deal of its old flavor4 ,dancing was not allowed4 ,singing was not allowed4 ,card playing was not allowed4 ,gambling1 of course1 was not allowed4 ,birthday parties were not allowed4 ,county fairs were not allowed4 ,silks and satins and all manifestations of external splendor were not allowed4 ,what was allowed was going to church and going to school4 ,for ,calvin was a man of positive ideas4 ,the verboten sign could keep out sin1 but it could not force a man to love virtue4 ,that had to come through an inner persuasion4 ,hence the establishment of excellent schools and a first-rate university and the encouragement of all learning4 ,and the establishment of a rather interesting form of communal life which absorbed a good deal of the surplus energy of the community and which made the average man forget the many hardships and restrictions to which he was submitted4 ,if it had been entirely lacking in human qualities1 the system of ,calvin could never have survived and it certainly would not have played such a very decisive rle in the history of the last three hundred years4 ,all of which however belongs in a book devoted to the development of political ideas4 ,this time we are interested in the question of what ,geneva did for tolerance and we come to the conclusion that the ,protestant ,rome was not a whit better than its ,catholic namesake4 ,the extenuating circumstances ,i have enumerated a few pages back4 ,in a world which was forced to stand by and witness such bestial occurrences as the massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew and the wholesale extermination of scores of ,dutch cities1 it was unreasonable to expect that one side 7the weaker one at that7 should practice a virtue which was equivalent to a self-imposed sentence of death4 ,this1 however1 does not absolve ,calvin from the crime of having aided and abetted in the legal murder of ,gruet and ,servetus4 ,in the case of the former1 ,calvin might have put up the excuse that ,jacques ,gruet was seriously suspected of having incited his fellow citizens to riot and that he belonged to a political party which was trying to bring about the downfall of the ,calvinists4 ,but ,servetus could hardly be called a menace to the safety of the community1 as far as ,geneva was concerned4 ,he was what the modern passport regulations call a 8transient40 ,another twenty-four hours and he would have been gone4 ,but he missed his boat4 ,and so he came to lose his life1 and it is a pretty terrible story4 ,miguel ,serveto1 better known as ,michael ,servetus1 was a ,spaniard4 ,his father was a respectable notary-public 7a semi-legal position in ,europe and not just a young man with a stamping machine who charges you a quarter for witnessing your signature7 and ,miguel was also destined for the law4 ,he was sent to the ,university of ,toulouse1 for in those happy days when all lecturing was done in ,latin learning was international and the wisdom of the entire world was open to those who had mastered five declensions and a few dozen irregular verbs4 ,at the ,french university ,servetus made the acquaintance of one ,juan de ,quintana who shortly afterwards became the confessor of the ,emperor ,charles ,v4 ,during the ,middle ,ages1 an imperial coronation was a good deal like a modern international exhibition4 ,when ,charles was crowned in ,bologna in the year #aecj1 ,quintana took his friend ,michael with him as his secretary and the bright young ,spaniard saw all there was to be seen4 ,like so many men of his time1 he was of an insatiable curiosity and he spent the next ten years dabbling in an infinite variety of subjects1 medicine1 astronomy1 astrology1 ,hebrew1 ,greek1 and1 most fatal of all1 theology4 ,he was a very competent doctor and in the pursuit of his theological studies he hit upon the idea of the circulation of the blood4 ,it is to be found in the fifteenth chapter of the first one of his books against the doctrine of the ,trinity4 ,it shows the one-sidedness of the theological mind of the sixteenth century that none of those who examined the works of ,servetus ever discovered that this man had made one of the greatest discoveries of all ages4 ,if only ,servetus had stuck to his medical practice6 ,he might have died peacefully in his bed at a ripe old age4 ,but he simply could not keep away from the burning questions of his day1 and having access to the printing shops of ,lyons1 he began to give vent to his opinions upon sundry subjects4 ,nowadays a generous millionaire can persuade a college to change its name from ,trinity ,college to that of a popular brand of tobacco and nothing happens4 ,the press says1 8,isn't it good of ,mr4 ,dingus to be so generous with his money60 and the public at large shouts 8,amen60 ,in a world which seems to have lost all capacity for being shocked by such a thing as blasphemy1 it is not easy to write of a time when the mere suspicion that one of its fellow citizens had spoken disrespectfully of the ,trinity would throw an entire community into a state of panic4 ,but unless we fully appreciate this fact1 we shall never be able to understand the horror in which ,servetus was held by all good ,christians of the first half of the sixteenth century4 ,and yet he was by no means a radical4 ,he was what today we would call a liberal4 ,he rejected the old belief in the ,trinity as held both by the ,protestants and the ,catholics1 but he believed so sincerely 7one feels inclined to say1 so navely7 in the correctness of his own views1 that he committed the grave error of writing letters to ,calvin suggesting that he be allowed to visit ,geneva for a personal interview and a thorough discussion of the entire problem4 ,he was not invited4 ,and1 anyway1 it would have been impossible for him to accept4 ,the ,inquisitor ,general of ,lyons had already taken a hand in the affair and ,servetus was in jail4 ,this inquisitor 7curious readers will find a description of him in the works of ,rabelais who refers to him as ,doribus1 a pun upon his name1 which was ,ory7 had got wind of the ,spaniard's blasphemies through a letter which a private citizen of ,geneva1 with the connivance of ,calvin1 had sent to his cousin in ,lyons4 ,soon the case against him was further strengthened by several samples of ,servetus' handwriting1 also surreptitiously supplied by ,calvin4 ,it really looked as if ,calvin did not care who hanged the poor fellow as long as he got hung1 but the inquisitors were negligent in their sacred duties and ,servetus was able to escape4 ,first he seems to have tried to reach the ,spanish frontier4 ,but the long journey through southern ,france would have been very dangerous to a man who was so well known and so he decided to follow the rather round-about route via ,geneva1 ,milan1 ,naples and the ,mediterranean ,sea4 ,late one ,saturday afternoon in ,august of the year #aeec he reached ,geneva4 ,he tried to find a boat to cross to the other side of the lake1 but boats were not supposed to sail so shortly before the ,sabbath day and he was told to wait until ,monday4 ,the next day was ,sunday4 ,as it was a misdemeanor for both natives and strangers to stay away from divine service1 ,servetus went to church4 ,he was recognized and arrested4 ,by what right he was put into jail was never explained4 ,servetus was a ,spanish subject and was not accused of any crime against the laws of ,geneva4 ,but he was a liberal in the matter of doctrine1 a blasphemous and profane person who dared to have opinions of his own upon the subject of the ,trinity4 ,it was absurd that such a person should invoke the protection of the law4 ,a common criminal might do so4 ,a heretic1 never6 ,and without further ado he was locked up in a filthy and damp hole1 his money and his personal belongings were confiscated and two days later he was taken to court and was asked to answer a questionnaire containing thirty-eight different points4 ,the trial lasted two months and twelve days4 ,in the end he was found guilty of 8heresies against the foundations of the ,christian religion40 ,the answers which he had given during the discussions of his opinions had exasperated his judges4 ,the usual punishment for cases of his sort1 especially if the accused were a foreigner1 was perpetual banishment from the territory of the city of ,geneva4 ,in the case of ,servetus an exception was made4 ,he was condemned to be burned alive4 ,in the meantime the ,french tribunal had re-opened the case of the fugitive and the officials of the ,inquisition had come to the same conclusion as their ,protestant colleagues4 ,they too had condemned ,servetus to death and had dispatched their sheriff to ,geneva with the request that the culprit be surrendered to him and be brought back to ,france4 ,this request was refused4 ,calvin was able to do his own burning4 ,as for that terrible walk to the place of execution1 with a delegation of arguing ministers surrounding the heretic upon his last journey1 the agony which lasted for more than half an hour and did not really come to an end until the crowd1 in their pity for the poor martyr1 had thrown a fresh supply of fagots upon the flames1 all this makes interesting reading for those who care for that sort of thing1 but it had better be omitted4 ,one execution more or less1 what difference did it make during a period of unbridled religious fanaticism8 ,but the case of ,servetus really stands by itself4 ,its consequences were terrible4 ,for now it was shown1 and shown with brutal clearness1 that those ,protestants who had clamored so loudly and persistently for 8the right to their own opinions0 were merely ,catholics in disguise1 that they were just as narrow-minded and cruel to those who did not share their own views as their enemies and that they were only waiting for the opportunity to establish a reign of terror of their own4 ,this accusation is a very serious one4 ,it cannot be dismissed by a mere shrug of the shoulders and a 8,well1 what would you expect80 ,we possess a great deal of information upon the trial and know in detail what the rest of the world thought of this execution4 ,it makes ghastly reading4 ,it is true that ,calvin1 in an outburst of generosity1 suggested that ,servetus be decapitated instead of burned4 ,servetus thanked him for his kindness1 but offered still another solution4 ,he wanted to be set free4 ,yea1 he insisted 7and the logic was all on his side7 that the court had no jurisdiction over him1 that he was merely an honest man in search for the truth and that therefore he had the right to be heard in open debate with his opponent1 ,dr4 ,calvin4 ,but of this ,calvin would not hear4 ,he had sworn that this heretic1 once he fell into his hands1 should never be allowed to escape with his life1 and he was going to be as good as his word4 ,that he could not get a conviction without the coperation of his arch-enemy1 the ,inquisition1 made no difference to him4 ,he would have made common cause with the pope if ,his ,holiness had been in the possession of some documents that would further incriminate the unfortunate ,spaniard4 ,but worse was to follow4 ,on the morning of his death1 ,servetus asked to see ,calvin and the latter came to the dark and filthy dungeon that had served his enemy as a prison4 ,upon this occasion at least he might have been generous2 more1 he might have been human4 ,he was neither4 ,he stood in the presence of a man who within another hour would be able to plead his case before the throne of ,god and he argued4 ,he debated and sputtered1 grew green and lost his temper4 ,but not a word of pity1 of charity1 or kindliness4 ,not a word4 ,only bitterness and hatred1 the feeling of 8,serve you right1 you obstinate scoundrel4 ,burn and be damned60 99 99 99 99 99 ,all this happened many1 many years ago4 ,servetus is dead4 ,all our statues and memorial tablets will not bring him back to life again4 ,calvin is dead4 ,a thousand volumes of abuse will not disturb the ashes of his unknown grave4 ,they are all of them dead1 those ardent reformers who during the trial had shuddered with fear lest the blasphemous scoundrel be allowed to escape1 those staunch pillars of the ,church who after the execution broke forth into paeans of praise and wrote each other1 8,all hail to ,geneva6 ,the deed is done40 ,they are all of them dead1 and perhaps it were best they were forgotten too4 ,only let us have a care4 ,tolerance is like liberty4 ,no one ever gets it merely by asking for it4 ,no one keeps it except by the exercise of eternal care and vigilance4 ,for the sake of some future ,servetus among our own children1 we shall do well to remember this4 ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,the ,,anabaptists ,every generation has a bogey-man all its own4 ,we have our 8,reds40 ,our fathers had their ,socialists4 ,our grandfathers had their ,molly ,maguires4 ,our great-great-grandfathers had their ,jacobins4 ,and our ancestors of three hundred years ago were not a bit better off4 ,they had their ,anabaptists4 ,the most popular 8,outline of ,history0 of the sixteenth century was a certain 8,world ,book0 or chronicle1 which ,sebastian ,frank1 soap-boiler1 prohibitionist and author1 living in the good city of ,ulm1 published in the year #aecd4 ,sebastian knew the ,anabaptists4 ,he had married into an ,anabaptist family4 ,he did not share their views1 for he was a confirmed free-thinker4 ,but this is what he wrote about them3 8that they taught nothing but love and faith and the crucifixion of the flesh1 that they manifested patience and humility under all suffering1 assisted one another with true helpfulness1 called each other brother and believed in having all things in common40 ,it is surely a curious thing that people of whom all those nice things could be truthfully said should for almost a hundred years have been hunted down like wild animals1 and should have been exposed to all the most cruel punishments of the most bloodthirsty of centuries4 ,but there was a reason and in order to appreciate it you must remember certain facts about the ,reformation4 ,the ,reformation really settled nothing4 ,it gave the world two prisons instead of one1 made a book infallible in the place of a man and established 7or rather1 tried to establish7 a rule by black garbed ministers instead of white garbed priests4 ,such meager results after half a century of struggle and sacrifice had filled the hearts of millions of people with desperate disappointment4 ,they had expected a millennium of social and religious righteousness and they were not at all prepared for a new ,gehenna of persecution and economic slavery4 ,they had been ready for a great adventure4 ,then something had happened4 ,they had slipped between the wall and the ship4 ,and they had been obliged to strike out for themselves and keep above water as best they could4 ,they were in a terrible position4 ,they had left the old church4 ,their conscience did not allow them to join the new faith4 ,officially they had1 therefore1 ceased to exist4 ,and yet they lived4 ,they breathed4 ,they were sure that they were ,god's beloved children4 ,as such it was their duty to keep on living and breathing1 that they might save a wicked world from its own folly4 ,eventually they survived1 but do not ask how6 ,deprived of their old associations1 they were forced to form groups of their own1 to look for a new leadership4 ,but what man in his senses would take up with these poor fanatics8 ,as a result1 shoemakers with second sight and hysterical midwives with visions and hallucinations assumed the rle of prophets and prophetesses and they prayed and preached and raved until the rafters of their dingy meeting places shook with the hosannas of the faithful and the tip-staffs of the village were forced to take notice of the unseemly disturbance4 ,then half a dozen men and women were sent to jail and their ,high and ,mightinesses1 the town councilors1 began what was good-naturedly called 8an investigation40 ,these people did not go to the ,catholic ,church4 ,they did not worship in the ,protestant kirk4 ,then would they please explain who they were and what they believed8 ,to give the poor councilors their due1 they were in a difficult predicament4 ,for their prisoners were the most uncomfortable of all heretics1 people who took their religious convictions absolutely seriously4 ,many of the most respectable reformers were of this earth earthy and willingly made such small compromises as were absolutely necessary1 if one hoped to lead an agreeable and respectable existence4 ,your true ,anabaptist was of a different caliber4 ,he frowned upon all half-way measures4 ,jesus had told his followers to turn the other cheek when smitten by an enemy1 and had taught that all those who take the sword shall perish by the sword4 ,to the ,anabaptists this meant a positive ordinance to use no violence4 ,they did not care to dilly-dally with words and murmur that circumstances alter cases1 that1 of course1 they were against war1 but that this was a different kind of a war and that therefore they felt that for this once ,god would not mind if they threw a few bombs or fired an occasional torpedo4 ,a divine ordinance was a divine ordinance1 and that was all there was to it4 ,and so they refused to enlist and refused to carry arms and in case they were arrested for their pacifism 7for that is what their enemies called this sort of applied ,christianity7 they went willingly forth to meet their fate and recited ,matthew xxvi3 #eb until death made an end to their suffering4 ,but anti-militarism was only a small detail in their program of queerness4 ,jesus had preached that the ,kingdom of ,god and the ,kingdom of ,caesar were two entirely different entities and could not and should not be reconciled4 ,very well4 ,these words were clear4 ,henceforth all good ,anabaptists carefully abstained from taking part in their country's government1 refused to hold public office and spent the time which other people wasted upon politics1 reading and studying the holy scriptures4 ,jesus had cautioned his disciples against unseemly quarrels and the ,anabaptists would rather lose their rightful possessions than submit a difference of opinion to a law court4 ,there were several other points which set these peculiar people apart from the rest of the world1 but these few examples of their odd behavior will explain the suspicion and detestation in which they were held by their fat and happy neighbors who invariably mixed their piety with a dose of that comfortable doctrine which bids us live and let live4 ,even so1 the ,anabaptists1 like the ,baptists and many other dissenters1 might in the end have discovered a way to placate the authorities1 if only they had been able to protect themselves from their own friends4 ,undoubtedly there are many honest ,bolshevists who dearly love their fellow proletarians and who spend their waking hours trying to make this world a better and happier place4 ,but when the average person hears the word 8,bolshevik10 he thinks of ,moscow and of a reign of terror established by a handful of scholarly cut-throats1 of jails full of innocent people and firing squads jeering at the victims they are about to shoot4 ,this picture may be slightly unfair1 but it is no more than natural that it should be part of the popular myth after the unspeakable things which have happened in ,russia during the last seven years4 ,the really good and peaceful ,anabaptists of the sixteenth century suffered from a similar disadvantage4 ,as a sect they were suspected of many strange crimes1 and with good reason4 ,in the first place1 they were inveterate ,bible readers4 ,this1 of course1 is not a crime at all1 but let me finish my sentence4 ,the ,anabaptists studied the scriptures without any discrimination and that is a very dangerous thing when one has a strong predilection for the ,book of ,revelation4 ,this strange work which even as late as the fifth century was rejected as a bit of 8spurious writing0 was just the sort of thing to appeal to people who lived during a period of intense emotional passions4 ,the exile of ,patmos spoke a language which these poor1 hunted creatures understood4 ,when his impotent rage drove him into hysterical prophecies anent the modern ,babylon1 all the ,anabaptists shouted amen and prayed for the speedy coming of the ,new ,heaven and the ,new ,earth4 ,it was not the first time that weak minds gave way under the stress of a great excitement4 ,and almost every persecution of the ,anabaptists was followed by violent outbursts of religious insanity4 ,men and women would rush naked through the streets1 announcing the end of the world1 trying to indulge in weird sacrifices that the fury of ,god might be appeased4 ,old hags would enter the divine services of some other sect and break up the meeting1 stridently shrieking nonsense about the coming of the ,dragon4 ,of course1 this sort of affliction 7in a mild degree7 is always with us4 ,read the daily papers and you will see how in some remote hamlet of ,ohio or ,iowa or ,florida a woman has butchered her husband with a meat cleaver because 8she was told to do so0 by the voice of an angel2 or how an otherwise reasonable father has just killed his wife and eight children in anticipation of the sounding of the ,seven ,trumpets4 ,such cases1 however1 are rare exceptions4 ,they can be easily handled by the local police and they really do not have great influence upon the life or the safety of the ,republic4 ,but what had happened in the year #aecd in the good town of ,mnster was something very different4 ,there the ,new ,zion1 upon strictly ,anabaptist principles1 had actually been proclaimed4 ,and people all over northern ,europe shuddered when they thought of that terrible winter and spring4 ,the villain in the case was a good-looking young tailor by the name of ,jan ,beukelszoon4 ,history knows him as ,john of ,leiden1 for ,jan was a native of that industrious little city and had spent his childhood along the banks of the sluggish old ,rhine4 ,like all other apprentices of that day1 he had traveled extensively and had wandered far and wide to learn the secrets of his trade4 ,he could read and write just enough to produce an occasional play1 but he had no real education4 ,neither was he possessed of that humility of spirit which we so often find in people who are conscious of their social disadvantages and their lack of knowledge4 ,but he was a very good-looking young man1 endowed with unlimited cheek and as vain as a peacock4 ,after a long absence in ,england and ,germany1 he went back to his native land and set up in the cloak and suit business4 ,at the same time he went in for religion and that was the beginning of his extraordinary career4 ,for he became a disciple of ,thomas ,mnzer4 ,this man ,mnzer1 a baker by profession1 was a famous character4 ,he was one of the three ,anabaptist prophets who1 in the year #aeba1 had suddenly made their appearance in ,wittenberg that they might show ,luther how to find the true road to salvation4 ,although they had acted with the best of intentions1 their efforts had not been appreciated and they had been chased out of the ,protestant stronghold with the request that never again they show their unwelcome selves within the jurisdiction of the ,dukes of ,saxony4 ,came the year #aecd and the ,anabaptists had suffered so many defeats that they decided to risk everything on one big1 bold stroke4 ,that they selected the town of ,mnster in ,westphalia as the spot for their final experiment surprised no one4 ,franz von ,waldeck1 the prince-bishop of that city1 was a drunken bounder who for years had lived openly with a score of women and who ever since his sixteenth year had offended all decent people by the outrageous bad taste of his private conduct4 ,when the town went ,protestant1 he compromised4 ,but being known far and wide for a liar and a cheat1 his treaty of peace did not give his ,protestant subjects that feeling of personal security without which life is indeed a very uncomfortable experience4 ,in consequence whereof the inhabitants of ,mnster remained in a state of high agitation until the next elections4 ,these brought a surprise4 ,the city government fell into the hands of the ,anabaptists4 ,the chairman became one ,bernard ,knipperdollinck1 a cloth merchant by day and a prophet after dark4 ,the bishop took one look at his new councilors and fled4 ,it was then that ,john of ,leiden appeared upon the scene4 ,he had come to ,mnster as the apostle of a certain ,jan ,matthysz1 a ,haarlem baker who had started a new sect of his own and was regarded as a very holy man4 ,and when he heard of the great blow that had been struck for the good cause1 he remained to help celebrate the victory and purge the bishopric of all popish contamination4 ,the ,anabaptists were nothing if not thorough4 ,they turned the churches into stone quarries4 ,they confiscated the convents for the benefit of the homeless4 ,all books except the ,bible were publicly burned4 ,and as a fitting climax1 those who refused to be re-baptized after the ,anabaptist fashion were driven into the camp of the ,bishop1 who decapitated them or drowned them on the general principle that they were heretics and small loss to the community4 ,that was the prologue4 ,the play itself was no less terrible4 ,from far and wide the high priests of half a hundred new creeds hastened to the ,new ,jerusalem4 ,there they were joined by all those who believed themselves possessed of a call for the great uplift1 honest and sincere citizens1 but as innocent as babes when it came to politics or statecraft4 ,the siege of ,mnster lasted five months and during that time1 every scheme1 system and program of social and spiritual regeneration was tried out2 every new-fangled prophet had his day in court4 ,but1 of course1 a little town chuck full of fugitives1 pestilence and hunger1 was not a fit place for a sociological laboratory and the dissensions and quarrels between the different factions lamed all the efforts of the military leaders4 ,during that crisis ,john the tailor stepped forward4 ,the short hour of his glory had come4 ,in that community of starving men and suffering children1 all things were possible4 ,john began his rgime by introducing an exact replica of that old theocratic form of government of which he had read in his ,old ,testament4 ,the burghers of ,mnster were divided into the twelve tribes of ,israel and ,john himself was chosen to be their king4 ,he had already married the daughter of one prophet1 ,knipperdollinck4 ,now he married the widow of another1 the wife of his former master1 ,john ,matthysz4 ,next he remembered ,solomon and added a couple of concubines4 ,and then the ghastly farce began4 ,all day long ,john sat on the throne of ,david in the market place and all day long the people stood by while the royal court chaplain read the latest batch of ordinances4 ,these came fast and furiously1 for the fate of the city was daily growing more desperate and the people were in dire need4 ,john1 however1 was an optimist and thoroughly believed in the omnipotence of paper decrees4 ,the people complained that they were hungry4 ,john promised that he would tend to it4 ,and forthwith a royal ukase1 duly signed by ,his ,majesty1 ordained that all wealth in the city be divided equally among the rich and the poor1 that the streets be broken up and used as vegetable gardens1 that all meals be eaten in common4 ,so far so good4 ,but there were those who said that some of the rich people had hidden part of their treasures4 ,john bade his subjects not to worry4 ,a second decree proclaimed that all those who broke a single law of the community would be immediately decapitated4 ,and1 mind you1 such a warning was no idle threat4 ,for this royal tailor was as handy with his sword as with his scissors and frequently undertook to be his own executioner4 ,then came the period of hallucinations when the populace suffered from a diversity of religious manias2 when the market place was crowded day and night with thousands of men and women1 awaiting the trumpet blasts of the angel ,gabriel4 ,then came the period of terror1 when the prophet kept up the courage of his flock by a constant orgy of blood and cut the throat of one of his own queens4 ,and then came the terrible day of retribution when two citizens in their despair opened the gates to the soldiers of the bishop and when the prophet1 locked in an iron cage1 was shown at all the ,westphalian country fairs and was finally tortured to death4 ,a weird episode1 but of terrible consequence to many a ,god-fearing and simple soul4 ,from that moment on1 all ,anabaptists were outlawed4 ,such leaders as had escaped the carnage of ,mnster were hunted down like rabbits and were killed wherever found4 ,from every pulpit1 ministers and priests fulminated against the ,anabaptists and with many curses and anathemas they denounced them as communists and traitors and rebels1 who wanted to upset the existing order of things and deserved less mercy than wolves or mad dogs4 ,rarely has a heresy hunt been so successful4 ,as a sect1 the ,anabaptists ceased to exist4 ,but a strange thing happened4 ,many of their ideas continued to live1 were picked up by other denominations1 were incorporated into all sorts of religious and philosophic systems1 became respectable1 and are today part and parcel of everybody's spiritual and intellectual inheritance4 ,it is a simple thing to state such a fact4 ,to explain how it actually came about1 that is quite a different story4 ,almost without exception the ,anabaptists belonged to that class of society which regards an inkstand as an unnecessary luxury4 ,anabaptist history1 therefore1 was writ by those who regarded the sect as a particularly venomous land of denominational radicalism4 ,only now1 after a century of study1 are we beginning to understand the great rle the ideas of these humble peasants and artisans have played in the further development of a more rational and more tolerant form of ,christianity4 ,but ideas are like lightning4 ,one never knows where they will strike next4 ,and what is the use of lightning rods in ,mnster1 when the storm breaks loose over ,sienna8 ,,chapter ,,xvii ,,the ,,sozzini ,,family ,in ,italy the ,reformation had never been successful4 ,it could not be4 ,in the first place1 the people of the south did not take their religion seriously enough to fight about it and in the second place1 the close proximity of ,rome1 the center of a particularly well equipped office of the ,inquisition1 made indulgence in private opinions a dangerous and costly pastime4 ,but1 of course1 among all the thousands of humanists who populated the peninsula1 there were bound to be a few black sheep who cared a great deal more for the good opinion of ,aristotle than for that of ,saint ,chrysostom4 ,those good people1 however1 were given many opportunities to get rid of their surplus spiritual energy4 ,there were clubs and coffee-houses and discreet salons where men and women could give vent to their intellectual enthusiasm without upsetting empires4 ,all of which was very pleasant and restful4 ,and besides1 wasn't all life a compromise8 ,hadn't it always been a compromise8 ,would it not in all likelihood be a compromise until the end of time8 ,why get excited about such a small detail as one's faith8 ,after these few introductory remarks1 the reader will surely not expect to hear a loud fanfaronade or the firing of guns when our next two heroes make their appearance4 ,for they are soft-spoken gentlemen1 and go about their business in a dignified and pleasant way4 ,in the end1 they are to do more to upset the dogmatic tyranny under which the world had suffered for such a long time than a whole army of noisy reformers4 ,but that is one of those curious things which no one can foresee4 ,they happen4 ,we are grateful4 ,but how it comes about1 that1 alas1 is something which we do not fully understand4 ,the name of these two quiet workmen in the vineyard of reason was ,sozzini4 ,they were uncle and nephew4 ,for some unknown reason1 the older man1 ,lelio ,francesco1 spelled his name with one 8z0 and the younger1 ,fausto ,paolo1 spelled his with two 8zs40 ,but as they are both of them much better known by the ,latinized form of their name1 ,socinius1 than by the ,italian ,sozzini1 we can leave that detail to the grammarians and etymologists4 ,as far as their influence was concerned1 the uncle was much less important than the nephew4 ,we shall1 therefore1 deal with him first and speak of the nephew afterwards4 ,lelio ,sozini was a ,siennese1 the descendant of a race of bankers and judges and himself destined for a career at the bar1 via the ,university of ,bologna4 ,but like so many of his contemporaries1 he allowed himself to slip into theology1 stopped reading law1 played with ,greek and ,hebrew and ,arabic and ended 7as so often happens with people of his type7 as a rationalistic mystic--a man who was at once very much of this world and yet never quite of it4 ,this sounds complicated4 ,but those who understand what ,i mean will understand without any further explanation1 and the others would not understand1 no matter what ,i said4 ,his father1 however1 seems to have had a suspicion that the son might amount to something in the world of letters4 ,he gave his boy a check and bade him go forth and see whatever there was to be seen4 ,and so ,lelio left ,sienna and during the next ten years1 he traveled from ,venice to ,geneva and from ,geneva to ,zrich and from ,zrich to ,wittenberg and then to ,london and then to ,prague and then to ,vienna and then to ,cracow1 spending a few months or years in every town and hamlet where he hoped to find interesting company and might be able to learn something new and interesting4 ,it was an age when people talked religion just as incessantly as today they talk business4 ,lelio must have collected a strange assortment of ideas and by keeping his ears open he was soon familiar with every heresy between the ,mediterranean and the ,baltic4 ,when1 however1 he carried himself and his intellectual luggage to ,geneva1 he was received politely but none too cordially4 ,the pale eyes of ,calvin looked upon this ,italian visitor with grave suspicion4 ,he was a distinguished young man of excellent family and not a poor1 friendless wanderer like ,servetus4 ,it was said1 however1 that he had ,servetian inclinations4 ,and that was most disturbing4 ,the case for or against the ,trinity1 so ,calvin thought1 had been definitely settled when the ,spanish heretic was burned4 ,on the contrary6 ,the fate of ,servetus had become a subject of conversation from ,madrid to ,stockholm1 and serious-minded people all over the world were beginning to take the side of the anti-trinitarian4 ,but that was not all4 ,they were using ,gutenberg's devilish invention to spread their views broadcast and being at a safe distance from ,geneva they were often far from complimentary in their remarks4 ,only a short while before a very learned tract had appeared which contained everything the fathers of the ,church had ever said or written upon the subject of persecuting and punishing heretics4 ,it had an instantaneous and enormous sale among those who 8hated ,god10 as ,calvin said1 or who 8hated ,calvin10 as they themselves protested4 ,calvin had let it be known that he would like to have a personal interview with the author of this precious booklet4 ,but the author1 anticipating such a request1 had wisely omitted his name from the title-page4 ,it was said that he was called ,sebastian ,castellio1 that he had been a teacher in one of the ,geneva high schools and that his moderate views upon diverse theological enormities had gained him the hatred of ,calvin and the approbation of ,montaigne4 ,no one1 however1 could prove this4 ,it was mere hearsay4 ,but where one had gone before1 others might follow4 ,calvin1 therefore1 was distantly polite to ,sozzini1 but suggested that the mild air of ,basel would suit his ,siennese friend much better than the damp climate of ,savoy and heartily bade him ,godspeed when he started on his way to the famous old ,erasmian stronghold4 ,fortunately for ,calvin1 the ,sozzini family soon afterwards fell under the suspicion of the ,inquisition1 ,lelio was deprived of his funds and falling ill of a fever1 he died in ,zrich at the age of only thirty-seven4 ,whatever joy his untimely demise may have caused in ,geneva1 it was short-lived4 ,for ,lelio1 besides a widow and several trunks of notes1 left a nephew1 who not only fell heir to his uncle's unpublished manuscripts but soon gained for himself the reputation of being even more of a ,servetus enthusiast than his uncle had been4 ,during his younger years1 ,faustus ,socinius had traveled almost as extensively as the older ,lelio4 ,his grandfather had left him a small estate and as he did not marry until he was nearly fifty1 he was able to devote all his time to his favorite subject1 theology4 ,for a short while he seems to have been in business in ,lyons4 ,what sort of a salesman he made1 ,i do not know1 but his experience in buying and selling and dealing in concrete commodities rather than spiritual values seems to have strengthened him in his conviction that very little is ever gained by killing a competitor or losing one's temper if the other man has the better of a deal4 ,and as long as he lived1 he showed himself possessed of that sober common sense which is often found in a counting-house but is very rarely part of the curriculum of a religious seminary4 ,in the year #aefc ,faustus returned to ,italy4 ,on his way home he visited ,geneva4 ,it does not appear that he ever paid his respects to the local patriarch4 ,besides1 ,calvin was a very sick man at that time4 ,the visit from a member of the ,sozzini family would only have disturbed him4 ,the next dozen years1 young ,socinius spent in the service of ,isabella de' ,medici4 ,but in the year #aegf this lady1 after a few days of matrimonial bliss1 was murdered by her husband1 ,paolo ,orsini4 ,thereupon ,socinius resigned1 left ,italy for good and went to ,basel to translate the ,psalms into colloquial ,italian and write a book on ,jesus4 ,faustus1 so it appeared from his writings1 was a careful man4 ,in the first place1 he was very deaf and such people are by nature cautious4 ,in the second place1 he derived his income from certain estates situated on the other side of the ,alps and the ,tuscan authorities had given him a hint that it might be just as well for one suspected of 8,lutheran leanings0 not to be too bold while dealing with subjects which were held in disfavor by the ,inquisition4 ,hence he used a number of pseudonyms and never printed a book unless it had been passed upon by a number of friends and had been declared to be fairly safe4 ,thus it happened that his books were not placed on the ,index4 ,it also happened that a copy of his life of ,jesus was carried all the way to ,transylvania and there fell into the hands of another liberal-minded ,italian1 the private physician of a number of ,milanese and ,florentine ladies who had married into the ,polish and ,transylvanian nobility4 ,transylvania in those days was the 8far east0 of ,europe4 ,a wilderness until the early part of the twelfth century1 it had been used as a convenient home for the surplus population of ,germany4 ,the hard working ,saxon peasants had turned this fertile land into a prosperous and well regulated little country with cities and schools and an occasional university4 ,but it remained a country far removed from the main roads of travel and trade4 ,hence it had always been a favorite place of residence for those who for one reason or another preferred to keep a few miles of marsh and mountain between themselves and the henchmen of the ,inquisition4 ,as for ,poland1 this unfortunate country has for so many centuries been associated with the general idea of reaction and jingoism that it will come as an agreeable surprise to many of my readers when ,i tell them that during the first half of the sixteenth century1 it was a veritable asylum for all those who in other parts of ,europe suffered on account of their religious convictions4 ,this unexpected state of affairs had been brought about in a typically ,polish fashion4 ,that the ,republic for quite a long time had been the most scandalously mismanaged country of the entire continent was even then a generally known fact4 ,the extent1 however1 to which the higher clergy had neglected their duties was not appreciated quite so clearly in those days when dissolute bishops and drunken village priests were the common affliction of all western nations4 ,but during the latter half of the fifteenth century it was noticed that the number of ,polish students in the different ,german universities was beginning to increase at a rate of speed which caused great concern among the authorities of ,wittenberg and ,leipzig4 ,they began to ask questions4 ,and then it developed that the ancient ,polish academy of ,cracow1 administered by the ,polish church1 had been allowed to fall into such a state of utter decay that the poor ,polanders were forced to go abroad for their education or do without4 ,a little later1 when the ,teuton universities fell under the spell of the new doctrines1 the bright young men from ,warsaw and ,radom and ,czenstochowa quite naturally followed suit4 ,and when they returned to their home towns1 they did so as full-fledged ,lutherans4 ,at that early stage of the ,reformation it would have been quite easy for the king and the nobility and the clergy to stamp out this epidemic of erroneous opinions4 ,but such a step would have obliged the rulers of the republic to unite upon a definite and common policy and that of course was directly in contradiction to the most hallowed traditions of this strange country where a single dissenting vote could upset a law which had the support of all the other members of the diet4 ,and when 7as happened shortly afterwards7 it appeared that the religion of the famous ,wittenberg professor carried with it a by-product of an economic nature1 consisting of the confiscation of all ,church property1 the ,boleslauses and the ,wladislauses and the other knights1 counts1 barons1 princes and dukes who populated the fertile plains between the ,baltic and the ,black ,sea began to show a decided leaning towards a faith which meant money in their pockets4 ,the unholy scramble for monastic real estate which followed upon the discovery caused one of those famous 8interims0 with which the ,poles1 since time immemorial1 have tried to stave off the day of reckoning4 ,during such periods all authority came to a standstill and the ,protestants made such a good use of their opportunity that in less than a year they had established churches of their own in every part of the kingdom4 ,eventually of course the incessant theological haggling of the new ministers drove the peasants back into the arms of the ,church and ,poland once more became one of the strongholds of a most uncompromising form of ,catholicism4 ,but during the latter half of the sixteenth century1 the country enjoyed complete religious license4 ,when the ,catholics and ,protestants of western ,europe began their war of extermination upon the ,anabaptists1 it was a foregone conclusion that the survivors should flee eastward and should eventually settle down along the banks of the ,vistula and it was then that ,doctor ,blandrata got hold of ,socinius' book on ,jesus and expressed a wish to make the author's acquaintance4 ,giorgio ,blandrata was an ,italian1 a physician and a man of parts4 ,he had graduated at the ,university of ,montpellier and had been remarkably successful as a woman's specialist4 ,first and last he was a good deal of a scoundrel1 but a clever one4 ,like so many doctors of his time 7think of ,rabelais and ,servetus7 he was as much of a theologian as a neurologist and frequently played one rle out against the other4 ,for example1 he cured the ,queen ,dowager of ,poland1 ,bona ,sforza 7widow of ,king ,sigismund71 so successfully of the obsession that those who doubted the ,trinity were wrong1 that she repented of her errors and thereafter only executed those who held the doctrine of the ,trinity to be true4 ,the good queen1 alas1 was gone 7murdered by one of her lovers7 but two of her daughters had married local noblemen and as their medical adviser1 ,blandrata exercised a great deal of influence upon the politics of his adopted land4 ,he knew that the country was ripe for civil war and that it would happen very soon unless something be done to make an end to the everlasting religious quarrels4 ,wherefore he set to work to bring about a truce between the different opposing sects4 ,but for this purpose he needed some one more skilled in the intricacies of a religious debate than he was himself4 ,then he had an inspiration4 ,the author of the life of ,jesus was his man4 ,he sent ,socinius a letter and asked him to come east4 ,unfortunately when ,socinius reached ,transylvania the private life of ,blandrata had just led to so grave a public scandal that the ,italian had been forced to resign and leave for parts unknown4 ,socinius1 however1 remained in this far away land1 married a ,polish girl and died in his adopted country in the year #afjd4 ,these last two decades of his life proved to be the most interesting period of his career4 ,for it was then that he gave a concrete expression to his ideas upon the subject of tolerance4 ,they are to be found in the so-called 8,catechism of ,rakow10 a document which ,socinius composed as a sort of common constitution for all those who meant well by this world and wished to make an end to future sectarian strife4 ,the latter half of the sixteenth century was an era of catechism1 confessions of faith1 credos and creeds4 ,people were writing them in ,germany and in ,switzerland and in ,france and in ,holland and in ,denmark4 ,but everywhere these carelessly printed little booklets gave expression to the ghastly belief that they 7and they alone7 contained the real ,truth with a great big capital ,t and that it was the duty of all authorities who had solemnly pledged themselves to uphold this one particular form of ,truth with a great big capital ,t to punish with the sword and the gallows and the stake those who willfully remained faithful to a different sort of truth 7which was only written with a small t and therefore was of an inferior quality74 ,the ,socinian confession of faith breathed an entirely different spirit4 ,it began by the flat statement that it was not the intention of those who had signed this document to quarrel with anybody else4 8,with good reason10 it continued1 8many pious people complain that the various confessions and catechisms which have hitherto been published and which the different churches are now publishing are apples of discord among the ,christians because they all try to impose certain principles upon people's conscience and to consider those who disagree with them as heretics40 ,thereupon it denied in the most formal way that it was the intention of the ,socinians to proscribe or oppress any one else on account of his religious convictions and turning to humanity in general1 it made the following appeal3 8,let each one be free to judge of his own religion1 for this is the rule set forth by the ,new ,testament and by the example of the earliest church4 ,who are we1 miserable people1 that we would smother and extinguish in others the fire of divine spirit which ,god has kindled in them8 ,have any of us a monopoly of the knowledge of the ,holy ,scriptures8 ,why do we not remember that our only master is ,jesus ,christ and that we are all brothers and that to no one has been given power over the souls of others8 ,it may be that one of our brothers is more learned than the others1 yet in regard to liberty and the relationship with ,christ we are all equal40 ,all this was very fine and very wonderful1 but it was said three hundred years ahead of the times4 ,neither the ,socinians nor any of the other ,protestant sects could in the long run hope to hold their own in this turbulent part of the world4 ,the counter-reformation had begun in all seriousness4 ,veritable hordes of ,jesuit fathers were beginning to be turned loose upon the lost provinces4 ,while they worked1 the ,protestants quarreled4 ,soon the people of the eastern frontier were back within the fold of ,rome4 ,today the traveler who visits these distant parts of civilized ,europe would hardly guess that1 once upon a time1 they were a stronghold of the most advanced and liberal thought of the age4 ,nor would he suspect that somewhere among those dreary ,lithuanian hills there lies a village where the world was for the first time presented with a definite program for a practical system of tolerance4 ,driven by idle curiosity1 ,i took a morning off recently and went to the library and read through the index of all our most popular text-books out of which the youth of our country learns the story of the past4 ,not a single one mentioned ,socinianism or the ,sozzinis4 ,they all jumped from ,social ,democrats to ,sophia of ,hanover and from ,sobieski to ,saracens4 ,the usual leaders of the great religious revolution were there1 including ,oecolampadius and the lesser lights4 ,one volume only contained a reference to the two great ,siennese humanists but they appeared as a vague appendix to something ,luther or ,calvin had said or done4 ,it is dangerous to make predictions1 but ,i have a suspicion that in the popular histories of three hundred years hence1 all this will have been changed and that the ,sozzinis shall enjoy the luxury of a little chapter of their own and that the traditional heroes of the ,reformation shall be relegated to the bottom of the page4 ,they have the sort of names that look terribly imposing in footnotes4 ,,chapter ,,xviii ,,montaigne ,in the ,middle ,ages it used to be said that city air made for freedom4 ,that was true4 ,a man behind a high stone wall could thumb his nose safely at baron and priest4 ,a little later1 when conditions upon the ,european continent had improved so much that international commerce was once more becoming a possibility1 another historical phenomenon began to make itself manifest4 ,done into words of three syllables it read3 8,business makes for tolerance40 ,you can verify this statement any day of the week and most of all on ,sunday in any part of our country4 ,winesberg1 ,ohio1 can afford to support the ,ku ,klux ,klan1 but ,new ,york cannot4 ,if the people of ,new ,york should ever start a movement for the exclusion of all ,jews and all ,catholics and all foreigners in general1 there would be such a panic in ,wall ,street and such an upheaval in the labor movement that the town would be ruined beyond the hope of repair4 ,the same held true during the latter half of the ,middle ,ages4 ,moscow1 the seat of a small grand ducal count1 might rage against the pagans1 but ,novgorod1 the international trading post1 must be careful lest she offend the ,swedes and ,norwegians and the ,germans and the ,flemish merchants who visited her market place and drive them to ,wisby4 ,a purely agricultural state could with impunity regale its peasantry with a series of festive autos da f4 ,but if the ,venetians or the ,genoese or the people of ,bruges had started a pogrom among the heathen within their walls1 there would have been an immediate exodus of all those who represented foreign business houses and the subsequent withdrawal of capital would have driven the city into bankruptcy4 ,a few countries which were constitutionally unable to learn from experience 7like ,spain and the papal dominions and certain possessions of the ,habsburgs71 actuated by a sentiment which they proudly called 8loyalty to their convictions10 ruthlessly expelled the enemies of the true faith4 ,as a result they either ceased to exist altogether or dwindled down to the rank of seventh rate ,ritter states4 ,commercial nations and cities1 however1 are as a rule governed by men who have a profound respect for established facts1 who know on which side their bread is buttered1 and who therefore maintain such a state of spiritual neutrality that their ,catholic and ,protestant and ,jewish and ,chinese customers can do business as usual and yet remain faithful to their own particular religion4 ,for the sake of outward respectability ,venice might pass a law against the ,calvinists1 but the ,council of ,ten was careful to explain to their gendarmes that this decree must not be taken too seriously and that unless the heretics actually tried to get hold of ,san ,marco and convert it into a meeting-house of their own1 they must be left alone and must be allowed to worship as they saw fit4 ,their good friends in ,amsterdam did likewise4 ,every ,sunday their ministers fulminated against the sins of the 8,scarlet ,woman40 ,but in the next block the terrible ,papists were quietly saying mass in some inconspicuous looking house1 and outside the ,protestant chief-of-police stood watch lest an over-zealous admirer of the ,geneva catechism try to break up this forbidden meeting and frighten the profitable ,french and ,italian visitors away4 ,this did not in the least mean that the mass of the people in ,venice or ,amsterdam ceased to be faithful sons of their respective churches4 ,they were as good ,catholics or ,protestants as they had ever been4 ,but they remembered that the good will of a dozen profitable heretics from ,hamburg or ,lbeck or ,lisbon was worth more than the approbation of a dozen shabby clerics from ,geneva or ,rome and they acted accordingly4 ,it may seem a little far-fetched to connect the enlightened and liberal opinions 7they are not always the same7 of ,montaigne with the fact that his father and grandfather had been in the herring business and that his mother was of ,spanish-,jewish descent4 ,but it seems to me that these commercial antecedents had a great deal to do with the man's general point of view and that the intense dislike of fanaticism and bigotry which characterized his entire career as a soldier and statesman had originated in a little fish-shop somewhere off the main quai of ,bordeaux4 ,montaigne himself would not have thanked me if ,i had been able to make this statement to his face4 ,for when he was born1 all vestiges of mere 8trade0 had been carefully wiped off the resplendent family escutcheon4 ,his father had acquired a bit of property called ,montaigne and had spent money lavishly that his son might be brought up as a gentleman4 ,before he was fairly able to walk private tutors had stuffed his poor little head full of ,latin and ,greek4 ,at the age of six he had been sent to high-school4 ,at thirteen he had begun to study law4 ,and before he was twenty he was a full-fledged member of the ,bordeaux town council4 ,then followed a career in the army and a period at court1 until at the age of thirty-eight1 after the death of his father1 he retired from all active business and spent the last twenty-one years of his life1 7with the exception of a few unwilling excursions into politics71 among his horses and his dogs and his books and learned as much from the one as he did from the other4 ,montaigne was very much a man of his time and suffered from several weaknesses4 ,he was never quite free from certain affections and mannerisms which he1 the fish-monger's grandson1 believed to be a part of true gentility4 ,until the end of his days he protested that he was not really a writer at all1 only a country gentleman who occasionally whiled away the tedious hours of winter by jotting down a few random ideas upon subjects of a slightly philosophic nature4 ,all this was pure buncombe4 ,if ever a man put his heart and his soul and his virtues and his vices and everything he had into his books1 it was this cheerful neighbor of the immortal d',artagnan4 ,and as this heart and this soul and these virtues and these vices were the heart and the soul and the virtues and the vices of an essentially generous1 well-bred and agreeable person1 the sum total of ,montaigne's works has become something more than literature4 ,it has developed into a definite philosophy of life1 based upon common sense and an ordinary practical variety of decency4 ,montaigne was born a ,catholic4 ,he died a ,catholic1 and in his younger years he was an active member of that ,league of ,catholic ,noblemen which was formed among the ,french nobility to drive ,calvinism out of ,france4 ,but after that fateful day in ,august of the year #aegb when news reached him of the joy with which ,pope ,gregory ,,xiii had celebrated the murder of thirty thousand ,french ,protestants1 he turned away from the ,church for good4 ,he never went so far as to join the other side4 ,he continued to go through certain formalities that he might keep his neighbors' tongues from wagging1 but those of his chapters written after the night of ,saint ,bartholomew might just as well have been the work of ,marcus ,aurelius or ,epictetus or any of a dozen other ,greek or ,roman philosophers4 ,and in one memorable essay1 entitled 8,on the ,freedom of ,conscience10 he spoke as if he had been a contemporary of ,pericles rather than a servant of ,her ,majesty ,catherine de' ,medici and he used the career of ,julian the ,apostate as an example of what a truly tolerant statesman might hope to accomplish4 ,it is a very short chapter4 ,it is only five pages long and you will find it in part nineteen of the second book4 ,montaigne had seen too much of the incorrigible obstinacy of both ,protestants and ,catholics to advocate a system of absolute freedom1 which 7under the existing circumstances7 could only provoke a new outbreak of civil war4 ,but when circumstances allowed it1 when ,protestants and ,catholics no longer slept with a couple of daggers and pistols underneath their pillows1 then an intelligent government should keep away as much as possible from interfering with other people's consciences and should permit all of its subjects to love ,god as best suited the happiness of their own particular souls4 ,montaigne was neither the only1 nor the first ,frenchman who had hit upon this idea or had dared to express it in public4 ,as early as the year #aefj1 ,michel de l',hpital1 a former chancellor of ,catherine de' ,medici and a graduate of half a dozen ,italian universities 7and incidentally suspected of being tarred with the ,anabaptist brush7 had suggested that heretics be attacked exclusively with verbal arguments4 ,he had based his somewhat startling opinion upon the ground that conscience being what it was1 it could not possibly be changed by force1 and two years later he had been instrumental in bringing about that royal ,edict of ,toleration which had given the ,huguenots the right to hold meetings of their own1 to call synods to discuss the affairs of their church and in general to behave as if they were a free and independent denomination and not merely a tolerated little sect4 ,jean ,bodin1 a ,parisian lawyer1 a most respectable citizen 7the man who had defended the rights of private property against the communistic tendencies expressed in ,thomas ,more's 8,utopia071 had spoken in a similar vein when he denied the right of sovereigns to use violence in driving their subjects to this or that church4 ,but the speeches of chancellors and the ,latin treatises of political philosophers very rarely make best sellers4 ,whereas ,montaigne was read and translated and discussed wherever civilized people came together in the name of intelligent company and good conversation and continued to be read and translated and discussed for more than three hundred years4 ,his very amateurishness1 his insistence that he just wrote for the fun of it and had no axes to grind1 made him popular with large numbers of people who otherwise would never dream of buying 7or borrowing7 a book that was officially classified under 8philosophy40 ,,chapter ,,xix ,,arminius ,the struggle for tolerance is part of the age-old conflict between 8organized society0 which places the continued safety of the 8group0 ahead of all other considerations and those private citizens of unusual intelligence or energy who hold that such improvement as the world has thus far experienced was invariably due to the efforts of the individual and not due to the efforts of the mass 7which by its very nature is distrustful of all innovations7 and that therefore the rights of the individual are far more important than those of the mass4 ,if we agree to accept these premises as true1 it follows that the amount of tolerance in any given country must be in direct proportion to the degree of individual liberty enjoyed by the majority of its inhabitants4 ,now in the olden days it sometimes happened that an exceptionally enlightened ruler spake unto his children and said1 8,i firmly believe in the principle of live and let live4 ,i expect all my beloved subjects to practice tolerance towards their neighbors or bear the consequences40 ,in that case1 of course1 eager citizens hastened to lay in a supply of the official buttons bearing the proud inscription1 8,tolerance first40 ,but these sudden conversions1 due to a fear of ,his ,majesty's hangman1 were rarely of a lasting nature and only bore fruit if the sovereign accompanied his threat by an intelligent system of gradual education along the lines of practical every day politics4 ,such a fortunate combination of circumstances occurred in the ,dutch ,republic during the latter half of the sixteenth century4 ,in the first place the country consisted of several thousand semi-independent towns and villages and these for the greater part were inhabited by fishermen1 sailors and traders1 three classes of people who are accustomed to a certain amount of independence of action and who are forced by the nature of their trade to make quick decisions and to judge the casual occurrences of the day's work upon their own merits4 ,i would not for a moment claim that1 man for man1 they were a whit more intelligent or broadminded than their neighbors in other parts of the world4 ,but hard work and tenacity of purpose had made them the grain and fish carriers of all northern and western ,europe4 ,they knew that the money of a ,catholic was just as good as that of a ,protestant and they preferred a ,turk who paid cash to a ,presbyterian who asked for six months' credit4 ,an ideal country therefore to start a little experiment in tolerance and furthermore the right man was in the right place and what is infinitely more important the right man was in the right place at the right moment4 ,william the ,silent was a shining example of the old maxim that 8those who wish to rule the world must know the world40 ,he began life as a very fashionable and rich young man1 enjoying a most enviable social position as the confidential secretary of the greatest monarch of his time4 ,he wasted scandalous sums of money upon dinners and dances1 married several of the better known heiresses of his day and lived gayly without a care for the day of tomorrow4 ,he was not a particularly studious person and racing charts interested him infinitely more than religious tracts4 ,the social unrest which followed in the wake of the ,reformation did not at first impress him as anything more serious than still another quarrel between capital and labor1 the sort of thing that could be settled by the use of a little tact and the display of a few brawny police constables4 ,but once he had grasped the true nature of the issue that had arisen between the sovereign and his subjects1 this amiable grand seigneur was suddenly transformed into the exceedingly able leader of what1 to all intents and purposes1 was the prime lost cause of the age4 ,the palaces and horses1 the gold plate and the country estates were sold at short notice 7or confiscated at no notice at all7 and the sporting young man from ,brussels became the most tenacious and successful enemy of the house of ,habsburg4 ,this change of fortune1 however1 did not affect his private character4 ,william had been a philosopher in the days of plenty4 ,he remained a philosopher when he lived in a couple of furnished rooms and did not know how to pay for ,saturday's clean wash4 ,and just as in the olden days he had worked hard to frustrate the plans of a cardinal who had expressed the intention of building a sufficient number of gallows to accommodate all ,protestants1 he now made it a point to bridle the energy of those ardent ,calvinists who wished to hang all ,catholics4 ,his task was wellnigh hopeless4 ,between twenty and thirty thousand people had already been killed1 the prisons of the ,inquisition were full of new candidates for martyrdom and in far off ,spain new armies were being recruited to smash the rebellion before it should spread to other parts of the ,empire4 ,to tell people who were fighting for their lives that they must love those who had just hanged their sons and brothers and uncles and grandfathers was out of the question4 ,but by his personal example1 by his conciliatory attitude towards those who opposed him1 ,william was able to show his followers how a man of character can invariably rise superior to the old ,mosaic law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth4 ,in this campaign for public decency he enjoyed the support of a very remarkable man4 ,in the church of ,gouda you may this very day read a curious monosyllabic epitaph which enumerates the virtues of one ,dirck ,coornhert1 who lies buried there4 ,this ,coornhert was an interesting fellow4 ,he was the son of well-to-do people and had spent many years of his youth traveling in foreign lands and getting some first hand information about ,germany1 ,spain and ,france4 ,as soon as he had returned home from this trip he fell in love with a girl who did not have a cent4 ,his careful ,dutch father had forbidden the marriage4 ,when his son married the girl just the same1 he did what those ancestral patriarchs were supposed to do under the circumstances2 he talked about filial ingratitude and disinherited the boy4 ,this was inconvenient1 in so far as young ,coornhert was now obliged to go to work for a living4 ,but he was a young man of parts1 learned a trade and set up as a copper-engraver4 ,alas6 once a ,dutchman1 always a dominie4 ,when evening came1 he hastily dropped the burin1 picked up the goose-quill and wrote articles upon the events of the day4 ,his style was not exactly what one would nowadays call 8amusing40 ,but his books contained a great deal of that amiable common sense which had distinguished the work of ,erasmus and they made him many friends and brought him into contact with ,william the ,silent who thought so highly of his abilities that he employed him as one of his confidential advisers4 ,now ,william was engaged in a strange sort of debate4 ,king ,philip1 aided and abetted by the ,pope1 was trying to rid the world of the enemy of the human race 7to wit1 his own enemy1 ,william7 by a standing offer of twenty-five thousand golden ducats and a patent of nobility and forgiveness of all sins to whomsoever would go to ,holland and murder the arch-heretic4 ,william1 who had already lived through five attempts upon his life1 felt it his duty to refute the arguments of good ,king ,philip in a series of pamphlets and ,coornhert assisted him4 ,that the house of ,habsburg1 for whom these arguments were intended1 should thereby be converted to tolerance was of course an idle hope4 ,but as all the world was watching the duel between ,william and ,philip1 those little pamphlets were translated and read everywhere and they caused a healthy discussion of many subjects that people had never before dared to mention above a whisper4 ,unfortunately the debates did not last very long4 ,on the ninth of ,july of the year #aehd a young ,french ,catholic gained that reward of twenty-five thousand ducats and six years later ,coornhert died before he had been able to finish the translation of the works of ,erasmus into the ,dutch vernacular4 ,as for the next twenty years1 they were so full of the noise of battle that even the fulminations of the different theologians went unheard4 ,and when finally the enemy had been driven from the territory of the new republic1 there was no ,william to take hold of internal affairs and three score sects and denominations1 who had been forced into temporary but unnatural friendship by the presence of a large number of ,spanish mercenaries1 flew at each other's throats4 ,of course1 they had to have a pretext for their quarrel but who ever heard of a theologian without a grievance8 ,in the ,university of ,leiden there were two professors who disagreed4 ,that was nothing either new or unusual4 ,but these two professors disagreed upon the question of the freedom of the will and that was a very serious matter4 ,at once the delighted populace took a hand in the discussion and within less than a month the entire country was divided into two hostile camps4 ,on the one side1 the friends of ,arminius4 ,on the other1 the followers of ,gomarus4 ,the latter1 although born of ,dutch parents1 had lived all his life in ,germany and was a brilliant product of the ,teuton system of pedagogy4 ,he possessed immense learning combined with a total absence of ordinary horse-sense4 ,his mind was versed in the mysteries of ,hebrew prosody but his heart beat according to the rules of the ,aramaic syntax4 ,his opponent1 ,arminius1 was a very different sort of man4 ,he was born in ,oudewater1 a little city not far away from that cloister ,steyn where ,erasmus had spent the unhappy years of his early manhood4 ,as a child he had won the friendship of a neighbor1 a famous mathematician and professor of astronomy in the ,university of ,marburg4 ,this man1 ,rudolf ,snellius1 had taken ,arminius back with him to ,germany that he might be properly educated4 ,but when the boy went home for his first vacation he found that his native town had been sacked by the ,spaniards and that all his relatives had been murdered4 ,that seemed to end his career but fortunately some rich people with kind hearts heard of the sad plight of the young orphan and they put up a purse and sent him to ,leiden to study theology4 ,he worked hard and after half a dozen years he had learned all there was to be learned and looked for fresh intellectual grazing grounds4 ,in those days1 brilliant students could always find a patron willing to invest a few dollars in their future4 ,soon ,arminius1 provided with a letter of credit issued by certain guilds of ,amsterdam1 was merrily trotting southward in search of future educational opportunities4 ,as behooved a respectable candidate of theology1 he went first of all to ,geneva4 ,calvin was dead1 but his man ,friday1 the learned ,theodore ,beza1 had succeeded him as shepherd of the seraphic flock4 ,the fine nose of this old heresy hunter at once detected a slight odor of ,ramism in the doctrines of the young ,dutchman and the visit of ,arminius was cut short4 ,the word ,ramism means nothing to modern readers4 ,but three hundred years ago it was considered a most dangerous religious novelty1 as those who are familiar with the assembled works of ,milton will know4 ,it had been invented or originated 7or what you please7 by a ,frenchman1 a certain ,pierre de la ,rame4 ,as a student1 de la ,rame had been so utterly exasperated by the antiquated methods of his professors that he had chosen as subject for his doctor's dissertation the somewhat startling text1 8,everything ever taught by ,aristotle is absolutely wrong40 ,needless to say this subject did not gain him the good will of his teachers4 ,when a few years afterwards he elaborated his idea in a number of learned volumes1 his death was a foregone conclusion4 ,he fell as one of the first victims of the massacre of ,saint ,bartholomew4 ,but his books1 those pesky books which refuse to be assassinated together with their authors1 had survived and ,rame's curious system of logic had gained great popularity throughout northern and western ,europe4 ,truly pious people however believed that ,ramism was the password to ,hades and ,arminius was advised to go to ,basel where 8libertines0 7a sixteenth century colloquialism meaning 8liberals07 had been considered good form ever since that unfortunate city had fallen under the spell of the quizzical ,erasmus4 ,arminius1 thus forewarned1 traveled northward and then decided upon something quite unusual4 ,he boldly invaded the enemy's territory1 studied for a few semesters in the ,university of ,padua and paid a visit to ,rome4 ,this made him a dangerous person in the eyes of his fellow countrymen when he returned to his native country in the year #aehg4 ,but as he seemed to develop neither horns nor a tail1 he was gradually taken back into their good favor and was allowed to accept a call as minister to ,amsterdam4 ,there he made himself not only useful but he gained quite a reputation as a hero during one of the many outbreaks of the plague4 ,soon he was held in such genuine esteem that he was entrusted with the task of reorganizing the public school system of that big city and when in the year #afjc he was called to ,leiden as a full-fledged professor of theology1 he left the capital amidst the sincere regrets of the entire population4 ,if he had known beforehand what was awaiting him in ,leiden1 ,i am sure he would never have gone4 ,he arrived just when the battle between the ,infralapsarians and the ,supralapsarians was at its height4 ,arminius was both by nature and education an ,infralapsarian4 ,he tried to be fair to his colleague1 the ,supralapsarian ,gomarus4 ,but alas1 the differences between the ,supralapsarians and the ,infralapsarians were such as allowed of no compromise4 ,and ,arminius was forced to declare himself an out and out ,infralapsarian4 ,of course1 you will ask me what ,supra- and ,infralapsarians were4 ,i don't know1 and ,i seem unable to learn such things4 ,but as far as ,i can make out1 it was the age-old quarrel between those who believed 7as did ,arminius7 that man is to a certain extent possessed of a free will and able to shape his own destinies and those who like ,sophocles and ,calvin and ,gomarus taught that everything in our lives has been pre-ordained ages before we were born and that our fate therefore depends upon a throw of the divine dice at the hour of creation4 ,in the year #afjj by far the greater number of the people of northern ,europe were ,supralapsarians4 ,they loved to listen to sermons which doomed the majority of their neighbors to eternal perdition and those few ministers who dared to preach a gospel of good will and charity were at once suspected of criminal weakness1 fit rivals of those tender hearted doctors who fail to prescribe malodorous medicines and kill their patients by their kindness4 ,as soon as the gossiping old women of ,leiden had discovered that ,arminius was an ,infralapsarian1 his usefulness had come to an end4 ,the poor man died under the torrent of abuse that was let loose upon him by his former friends and supporters4 ,and then1 as seemed unavoidable during the seventeenth century1 ,infralapsarianism and ,supralapsarianism made their entrance into the field of politics and the ,supralapsarians won at the polls and the ,infralapsarians were declared enemies of the public order and traitors to their country4 ,before this absurd quarrel had come to an end1 ,oldenbarnevelt1 the man who next to ,william the ,silent had been responsible for the foundation of the ,republic1 lay dead with his head between his feet2 ,grotius1 whose moderation had made him the first great advocate of an equitable system of international law1 was eating the bread of charity at the court of the ,queen of ,sweden2 and the work of ,william the ,silent seemed entirely undone4 ,but ,calvinism did not gain the triumph it had hoped4 ,the ,dutch ,republic was a republic only in name4 ,it was really a sort of merchants' and bankers' club1 ruled by a few hundred influential families4 ,these gentlemen were not at all interested in equality and fraternity1 but they did believe in law and order4 ,they recognized and supported the established church4 ,on ,sundays with a great display of unction they proceeded to the large white-washed sepulchers which in former days had been ,catholic ,cathedrals and which now were ,protestant lecture halls4 ,but on ,monday1 when the clergy paid its respects to the ,honorable ,burgomaster and ,town ,councilor1 with a long list of grievances against this and that and the other person1 their lordships were 8in conference0 and unable to receive the reverend gentlemen4 ,if the reverend gentlemen insisted1 and induced 7as frequently happened7 a few thousand of their loyal parishioners to 8demonstrate0 in front of the town hall1 then their lordships would graciously deign to accept a neatly written copy of the reverend gentlemen's complaints and suggestions4 ,but as soon as the door had been closed upon the last of the darkly garbed petitioners1 their lordships would use the document to light their pipes4 ,for they had adopted the useful and practical maxim of 8once is enough and too many0 and they were so horrified by what had happened during the terrible years of the great ,supralapsarian civil war that they uncompromisingly suppressed all further forms of religious frenzy4 ,posterity has not always been kind to those aristocrats of the ledger4 ,undoubtedly they regarded the country as their private property and did not always differentiate with sufficient nicety between the interests of their fatherland and those of their own firm4 ,they lacked that broad vision which goes with empire and almost invariably they were penny-wise and pound-foolish4 ,but they did something which deserves our hearty commendation4 ,they turned their country into an international clearing-house where all sorts of people with all sorts of ideas were given the widest degree of liberty to say1 think1 write and print whatever pleased them4 ,i do not want to paint too rosy a picture4 ,here and there1 under a threat of ministerial disapprobation1 the ,town ,councilors were sometimes obliged to suppress a secret society of ,catholics or to confiscate the pamphlets printed by a particularly noisy heretic4 ,but generally speaking1 as long as one did not climb on a soap-box in the middle of the market place to denounce the doctrine of predestination or carry a big rosary into a public dining-hall or deny the existence of ,god in the ,south ,side ,methodist ,church of ,haarlem1 one enjoyed a degree of personal immunity which for almost two centuries made the ,dutch ,republic a veritable haven of rest for all those who in other parts of the world were persecuted for the sake of their opinions4 ,soon the rumor of this ,paradise ,regained spread abroad4 ,and during the next two hundred years1 the print shops and the coffee-houses of ,holland were filled with a motley crew of enthusiasts1 the advance guard of a strange new army of spiritual liberation4 ,,chapter ,,xx ,,bruno ,it has been said 7and with a good deal of reason7 that the ,great ,war was a war of non-commissioned officers4 ,while the generals and the colonels and the three-star strategists sat in solitary splendor in the halls of some deserted chteau and contemplated miles of maps until they could evolve a new bit of tactics that was to give them half a square mile of territory 7and lose some thirty thousand men71 the junior officers1 the sergeants and the corporals1 aided and abetted by a number of intelligent privates1 did the so-called 8dirty work0 and eventually brought about the collapse of the ,german line of defense4 ,the great crusade for spiritual independence was fought along similar lines4 ,there were no frontal attacks which drew into action half a million soldiers4 ,there were no desperate charges to provide the enemy's gunners with an easy and agreeable target4 ,i might go even further and say that the vast majority of the people never knew that there was any fighting at all4 ,now and then1 curiosity may have compelled them to ask who was being burned that morning or who was going to be hanged the next afternoon4 ,then perhaps they discovered that a few desperate individuals continued to fight for certain principles of freedom of which both ,catholics and ,protestants disapproved most heartily4 ,but ,i doubt whether such information affected them beyond the point of mild regret and the comment that it must be very sad for their poor relatives to bear1 that uncle had come to such a terrible end4 ,it could hardly have been otherwise4 ,what martyrs actually accomplish for the cause for which they give their lives cannot possibly be reduced to mathematical formulae or be expressed in terms of amperes or horsepower4 ,any industrious young man in search of a ,ph4,d4 may read carefully through the assembled works of ,giordano ,bruno and by the patient collection of all sentences containing such sentiments as 8the state has no right to tell people what to think0 or 8society may not punish with the sword those who dissent from the generally approved dogmas10 he may be able to write an acceptable dissertation upon 8,giordano ,bruno 7#aedi-afjj7 and the principles of religious freedom40 ,but those of us no longer in search of those fatal letters must approach the subject from a different angle4 ,there were1 so we say in our final analysis1 a number of devout men who were so profoundly shocked by the fanaticism of their day1 by the yoke under which the people of all countries were forced to exist1 that they rose in revolt4 ,they were poor devils4 ,they rarely owned more than the cloak upon their back and they were not always certain of a place to sleep4 ,but they burned with a divine fire4 ,up and down the land they traveled1 talking and writing1 drawing the learned professors of learned academies into learned disputes1 arguing humbly with the humble country folk in humble rustic inns1 eternally preaching a gospel of good will1 of understanding1 of charity towards others4 ,up and down the land they traveled in their shabby clothes with their little bundles of books and pamphlets until they died of pneumonia in some miserable village in the hinterland of ,pomerania or were lynched by drunken peasants in a ,scotch hamlet or were broken on the wheel in a provincial borough of ,france4 ,and if ,i mention the name of ,giordano ,bruno1 ,i do not mean to imply that he was the only one of his kind4 ,but his life1 his ideas1 his restless zeal for what he held to be true and desirable1 were so typical of that entire group of pioneers that he will serve very well as an example4 ,the parents of ,bruno were poor people4 ,their son1 an average ,italian boy of no particular promise1 followed the usual course and went into a monastery4 ,later he became a ,dominican monk4 ,he had no business in that order for the ,dominicans were the most ardent supporters of all forms of persecution1 the 8police-dogs of the true faith10 as their contemporaries called them4 ,and they were clever4 ,it was not necessary for a heretic to have his ideas put into print to be nosed out by one of those eager detectives4 ,a single glance1 a gesture of the hand1 a shrug of the shoulders were often sufficient to give a man away and bring him into contact with the ,inquisition4 ,how ,bruno1 brought up in an atmosphere of unquestioning obedience1 turned rebel and deserted the ,holy ,scriptures for the works of ,zeno and ,anaxagoras1 ,i do not know4 ,but before this strange novice had finished his course of prescribed studies1 he was expelled from the ,dominican order and henceforth he was a wanderer upon the face of the earth4 ,he crossed the ,alps4 ,how many other young men before him had braved the dangers of those ancient mountain passes that they might find freedom in the mighty fortress which the new faith had erected at the junction of the ,rhone and the ,arve6 ,and how many of them had turned away1 broken hearted when they discovered that here as there it was the inner spirit which guided the hearts of men and that a change of creed did not necessarily mean a change of heart and mind4 ,bruno's residence in ,geneva lasted less than three months4 ,the town was full of ,italian refugees4 ,these brought their fellow-countryman a new suit of clothes and found him a job as proof-reader4 ,in the evenings he read and wrote4 ,he got hold of a copy of de la ,rame's works4 ,there at last was a man after his own heart4 ,de la ,rame believed too that the world could not progress until the tyranny of the medieval text-books was broken4 ,bruno did not go as far as his famous ,french teacher and did not believe that everything the ,greeks had ever taught was wrong4 ,but why should the people of the sixteenth century be bound by words and sentences that were written in the fourth century before the birth of ,christ8 ,why indeed8 8,because it has always been that way10 the upholders of the orthodox faith answered him4 8,what have we to do with our grandfathers and what have they to do with us8 ,let the dead bury the dead10 the young iconoclast answered4 ,and very soon afterwards the police paid him a visit and suggested that he had better pack his satchels and try his luck elsewhere4 ,bruno's life thereafter was one endless peregrination in search of a place where he might live and work in some degree of liberty and security4 ,he never found it4 ,from ,geneva he went to ,lyons and then to ,toulouse4 ,by that time he had taken up the study of astronomy and had become an ardent supporter of the ideas of ,copernicus1 a dangerous step in an age when all the contemporary ,bryans brayed1 8,the world turning around the sun6 ,the world a commonplace little planet turning around the sun6 ,ho-ho and hee-hee6 ,who ever heard such nonsense80 ,toulouse became uncomfortable4 ,he crossed ,france1 walking to ,paris4 ,and next to ,england as private secretary to a ,french ambassador4 ,but there another disappointment awaited him4 ,the ,english theologians were no better than the continental ones4 ,a little more practical1 perhaps4 ,in ,oxford1 for example1 they did not punish a student when he committed an error against the teachings of ,aristotle4 ,they fined him ten shillings4 ,bruno became sarcastic4 ,he began to write brilliantly dangerous bits of prose1 dialogues of a religious-philosophic-political nature in which the entire existing order of things was turned topsy turvy and submitted to a minute but none too flattering examination4 ,and he did some lecturing upon his favorite subject1 astronomy4 ,but college authorities rarely smile upon professors who please the hearts of their students4 ,bruno once more found himself invited to leave4 ,and so back again to ,france and then to ,marburg1 where not so long before ,luther and ,zwingli had debated upon the true nature of the transubstantiation in the castle of pious ,elisabeth of ,hungary4 ,alas6 his reputation as a 8,libertine0 had preceded him4 ,he was not even allowed to lecture4 ,wittenberg proved more hospitable4 ,that old stronghold of the ,lutheran faith1 however1 was beginning to be overrun by the disciples of ,dr4 ,calvin4 ,after that there was no further room for a man of ,bruno's liberal tendencies4 ,southward he wended his way to try his luck in the land of ,john ,huss4 ,further disappointment awaited him4 ,prague had become a ,habsburg capital and where the ,habsburg entered1 freedom went out by the city gates4 ,back to the road and a long1 long walk to ,zrich4 ,there he received a letter from an ,italian youth1 ,giovanni ,mocenigo1 who asked him to come to ,venice4 ,what made ,bruno accept1 ,i do not know4 ,perhaps the ,italian peasant in him was impressed by the luster of an old patrician name and felt flattered by the invitation4 ,giovanni ,mocenigo1 however1 was not made of the stuff which had enabled his ancestors to defy both ,sultan and ,pope4 ,he was a weakling and a coward and did not move a finger when officers of the ,inquisition appeared at his house and took his guest to ,rome4 ,as a rule1 the government of ,venice was terribly jealous of its rights4 ,if ,bruno had been a ,german merchant or a ,dutch skipper1 they would have protested violently and they might even have gone to war when a foreign power dared to arrest some one within their own jurisdiction4 ,but why incur the hostility of the pope on account of a vagabond who had brought nothing to their city but his ideas8 ,it was true he called himself a scholar4 ,the ,republic was highly flattered1 but she had scholars enough of her own4 ,and so farewell to ,bruno and may ,san ,marco have mercy upon his soul4 ,seven long years ,bruno was kept in the prison of the ,inquisition4 ,on the seventeenth of ,february of the year #afjj he was burned at the stake and his ashes were blown to the winds4 ,he was executed on the ,campo dei ,fiori4 ,those who know ,italian may therein find inspiration for a pretty little allegory4 ,,chapter ,,xxi ,,spinoza ,there are certain things in history which ,i have never been able to understand and one of these is the amount of work done by some of the artists and literary men of bygone ages4 ,the modern members of our writing guild1 with typewriters and dictaphones and secretaries and fountain pens1 can turn out between three and four thousand words a day4 ,how did ,shakespeare1 with half a dozen other jobs to distract his mind1 with a scolding wife and a clumsy goose-quill1 manage to write thirty-seven plays8 ,where did ,lope de ,vega1 veteran of the ,invincible ,armada and a busy man all his life1 find the necessary ink and paper for eighteen hundred comedies and five hundred essays8 ,what manner of man was this strange ,hofkonzertmeister1 ,johann ,sebastian ,bach1 who in a little house filled with the noise of twenty children found time to compose five oratorios1 one hundred and ninety church cantatas1 three wedding cantatas1 and a dozen motets1 six solemn masses1 three fiddle concertos1 a concerto for two violins which alone would have made his name immortal1 seven concertos for piano and orchestra1 three concertos for two pianos1 two concertos for three pianos1 thirty orchestral scores and enough pieces for the flute1 the harpsichord1 the organ1 the bull-fiddle and the ,french horn to keep the average student of music busy for the rest of his days4 ,or again1 by what process of industry and application could painters like ,rembrandt and ,rubens produce a picture or an etching at the rate of almost four a month during more than thirty years8 ,how could an humble citizen like ,antonio ,stradivarius turn out five hundred and forty fiddles1 fifty violoncellos and twelve violas in a single lifetime8 ,i am not now discussing the brains capable of devising all these plots1 hearing all these melodies1 seeing all those diversified combinations of color and line1 choosing all this wood4 ,i am just wondering at the physical part of it4 ,how did they do it8 ,didn't they ever go to bed8 ,didn't they sometimes take a few hours off for a game of billiards8 ,were they never tired8 ,had they ever heard of nerves8 ,both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were full of that sort of people4 ,they defied all the laws of hygiene1 ate and drank everything that was bad for them1 were totally unconscious of their high destinies as members of the glorious human race1 but they had an awfully good time and their artistic and intellectual output was something terrific4 ,and what was true of the arts and the sciences held equally true of such finicky subjects as theology4 ,go to any of the libraries that date back two hundred years and you will find their cellars and attics filled with tracts and homilies and discussions and refutations and digests and commentaries in duodecimo and octodecimo and octavo1 bound in leather and in parchment and in paper1 all of them covered with dust and oblivion1 but without exception containing an enormous if useless amount of learning4 ,the subjects of which they treated and many of the words they used have lost all meaning to our modern ears4 ,but somehow or other these moldy compilations served a very useful purpose4 ,if they accomplished nothing else1 they at least cleared the air4 ,for they either settled the questions they discussed to the general satisfaction of all concerned1 or they convinced their readers that those particular problems could not possibly be decided with an appeal to logic and argument and might therefore just as well be dropped right then and there4 ,this may sound like a back-handed compliment4 ,but ,i hope that critics of the thirtieth century shall be just as charitable when they wade through the remains of our own literary and scientific achievements4 99 99 99 99 99 ,baruch de ,spinoza1 the hero of this chapter1 did not follow the fashion of his time in the matter of quantity4 ,his assembled works consist of three or four small volumes and a few bundles of letters4 ,but the amount of study necessary for the correct mathematical solution of his abstract problems in ethics and philosophy would have staggered any normally healthy man4 ,it killed the poor consumptive who had undertaken to reach ,god by way of the table of multiplication4 ,spinoza was a ,jew4 ,his people1 however1 had never suffered the indignities of the ,ghetto4 ,their ancestors had settled down in the ,spanish peninsula when that part of the world was a ,moorish province4 ,after the reconquest and the introduction of that policy of 8,spain for the ,spaniard0 which eventually forced that country into bankruptcy1 the ,spinozas had been forced to leave their old home4 ,they had sailed for the ,netherlands1 had bought a small house in ,amsterdam1 had worked hard1 had saved their money and soon were known as one of the most respectable families of the 8,portuguese colony40 ,if nevertheless their son ,baruch was conscious of his ,jewish origin1 this was due more to the training he received in his ,talmud school than to the gibes of his little neighbors4 ,for the ,dutch ,republic was so chock full of class prejudice that there was little room left for mere race prejudice and therefore lived in perfect peace and harmony with all the alien races that had found a refuge along the banks of the ,north and ,zuider ,seas4 ,and this was one of the most characteristic bits of ,dutch life which contemporary travelers never failed to omit from their 8,souvenirs de ,voyage0 and with good reason4 ,in most other parts of ,europe1 even at that late age1 the relation between the ,jew and the non-,jew was far from satisfactory4 ,what made the quarrel between the two races so hopeless was the fact that both sides were equally right and equally wrong and that both sides could justly claim to be the victim of their opponent's intolerance and prejudice4 ,in the light of the theory put forward in this book that intolerance is merely a form of self-protection of the mob1 it becomes clear that as long as they were faithful to their own respective religions1 the ,christian and the ,jew must have conceded each other as enemies4 ,in the first place1 they both of them maintained that their ,god was the only true ,god and that all the other ,gods of all the other nations were false4 ,in the second place1 they were each other's most dangerous commercial rival4 ,the ,jews had come to western ,europe as they had originally come to ,palestine1 as immigrants in search of a new home4 ,the labor unions of that day1 the ,guilds1 had made it impossible for them to take up a trade4 ,they had therefore been obliged to content themselves with such economic makeshifts as pawnbroking and banking4 ,in the ,middle ,ages these two professions1 which closely resembled each other1 were not thought fit occupations for decent citizens4 ,why the ,church1 until the days of ,calvin1 should have felt such a repugnance towards money 7except in the form of taxes7 and should have regarded the taking of interest as a crime1 is hard to understand4 ,usury1 of course1 was something no government could tolerate and already the ,babylonians1 some forty centuries before1 had passed drastic laws against the money changers who tried to make a profit out of other people's money4 ,in several chapters of the ,old ,testament1 written two thousand years later1 we read how ,moses too had expressly forbidden his followers to lend money at exorbitant rates of interest to any one except foreigners4 ,still later1 the great ,greek philosophers1 including ,aristotle and ,plato1 had given expression to their great disapproval of money that was born of other money4 ,the ,church fathers had been even more explicit upon this subject4 ,all during the ,middle ,ages the money lenders were held in profound contempt4 ,dante even provided a special little alcove in his ,hell for the exclusive benefit of his banker friends4 ,theoretically perhaps it could be proved that the pawnbroker and his colleague1 the man behind the 8banco10 were undesirable citizens and that the world would be better off without them4 ,at the same time1 as soon as the world had ceased to be entirely agricultural1 it was found to be quite impossible to transact even the simplest business operations without the use of credit4 ,the money lender therefore had become a necessary evil and the ,jew1 who 7according to the views of the ,christians7 was doomed to eternal damnation any way1 was urged to occupy himself with a trade which was necessary but which no respectable man would touch4 ,in this way these unfortunate exiles were forced into certain unpleasant trades which made them the natural enemy of both the rich and the poor1 and then1 as soon as they had established themselves1 these same enemies turned against them1 called them names1 locked them up in the dirtiest part of the city and in moments of great emotional stress1 hanged them as wicked unbelievers or burned them as renegade ,christians4 ,it was all so terribly silly4 ,and besides it was so stupid4 ,these endless annoyances and persecutions did not make the ,jews any fonder of their ,christian neighbors4 ,and as a direct result1 a large volume of first-rate intelligence was withdrawn from public circulation1 thousands of bright young fellows1 who might have advanced the cause of commerce and science and the arts1 wasted their brains and energy upon the useless study of certain old books filled with abstruse conundrums and hair-splitting syllogisms and millions of helpless boys and girls were doomed to lead stunted lives in stinking tenements1 listening on the one hand to their elders who told them that they were ,god's chosen people who would surely inherit the earth and all the wealth thereof1 and on the other hand being frightened to death by the curses of their neighbors who never ceased to inform them that they were pigs and only fit for the gallows or the wheel4 ,to ask that people 7any people7 doomed to live under such adverse circumstances shall retain a normal outlook upon life is to demand the impossible4 ,again and again the ,jews were goaded into some desperate act by their ,christian compatriots and then1 when white with rage1 they turned upon their oppressors1 they were called 8traitors0 and 8ungrateful villains0 and were subjected to further humiliations and restrictions4 ,but these restrictions had only one result4 ,they increased the number of ,jews who had a grievance1 turned the others into nervous wrecks and generally made the ,ghetto a ghastly abode of frustrated ambitions and pent-up hatreds4 ,spinoza1 because he was born in ,amsterdam1 escaped the misery which was the birthright of most of his relatives4 ,he went first of all to the school maintained by his synagogue 7appropriately called 8the ,tree of ,life07 and as soon as he could conjugate his ,hebrew verbs was sent to the learned ,dr4 ,franciscus ,appinius van den ,ende1 who was to drill him in ,latin and in the sciences4 ,dr4 ,franciscus1 as his name indicates1 was of ,catholic origin4 ,rumor had it that he was a graduate of the ,university of ,louvain and if one were to believe the best informed deacons of the town1 he was really a ,jesuit in disguise and a very dangerous person4 ,this however was nonsense4 ,van den ,ende in his youth had actually spent a few years at a ,catholic seminary4 ,but his heart was not in his work and he had left his native city of ,antwerp1 had gone to ,amsterdam and there had opened a private school of his own4 ,he had such a tremendous flair for choosing the methods that would make his pupils like their classical lessons1 that heedless of the man's popish past1 the ,calvinistic burghers of ,amsterdam willingly entrusted their children to his care and were very proud of the fact that the pupils of his school invariably out-hexametered and out-declined the little boys of all other local academies4 ,van den ,ende taught little ,baruch his ,latin1 but being an enthusiastic follower of all the latest discoveries in the field of science and a great admirer of ,giordano ,bruno1 he undoubtedly taught the boy several things which as a rule were not mentioned in an orthodox ,jewish household4 ,for young ,spinoza1 contrary to the customs of the times1 did not board with the other boys1 but lived at home4 ,and he so impressed his family by his profound learning that all the relations proudly pointed to him as the little professor and liberally supplied him with pocket money4 ,he did not waste it upon tobacco4 ,he used it to buy books on philosophy4 ,one author especially fascinated him4 ,that was ,descartes4 ,ren ,descartes was a ,french nobleman born in that region between ,tours and ,poitiers where a thousand years before the grandfather of ,charlemagne had stopped the ,mohammedan conquest of ,europe4 ,before he was ten years old he had been sent to the ,jesuits to be educated and he spent the next decade making a nuisance of himself4 ,for this boy had a mind of his own and accepted nothing without 8being shown40 ,the ,jesuits are probably the only people in the world who know how to handle such difficult children and who can train them successfully without breaking their spirit4 ,the proof of the educational pudding is in the eating4 ,if our modern pedagogues would study the methods of ,brother ,loyola1 we might have a few ,descartes of our own4 ,when he was twenty years old1 ,ren entered military service and went to the ,netherlands where ,maurice of ,nassau had so thoroughly perfected his military system that his armies were the post-graduate school for all ambitious young men who hoped to become generals4 ,descartes' visit to the headquarters of the ,nassau prince was perhaps a little irregular4 ,a faithful ,catholic taking service with a ,protestant chieftain6 ,it sounds like high treason4 ,but ,descartes was interested in problems of mathematics and artillery but not of religion or politics4 ,therefore as soon as ,holland had concluded a truce with ,spain1 he resigned his commission1 went to ,munich and fought for a while under the banner of the ,catholic ,duke of ,bavaria4 ,but that campaign did not last very long4 ,the only fighting of any consequence then still going on was near ,la ,rochelle1 the city which the ,huguenots were defending against ,richelieu4 ,and so ,descartes went back to ,france that he might learn the noble art of siege-craft4 ,but camp life was beginning to pall upon him4 ,he decided to give up a military career and devote himself to philosophy and science4 ,he had a small income of his own4 ,he had no desire to marry4 ,his wishes were few4 ,he anticipated a quiet and happy life and he had it4 ,why he chose ,holland as a place of residence1 ,i do not know4 ,but it was a country full of printers and publishers and bookshops and as long as one did not openly attack the established form of government or religion1 the existing law on censorship remained a dead letter4 ,furthermore1 as he never learned a single word of the language of his adopted country 7a trick not difficult to a true ,frenchman71 ,descartes was able to avoid undesirable company and futile conversations and could give all of his time 7some twenty hours per day7 to his own work4 ,this may seem a dull existence for a man who had been a soldier4 ,but ,descartes had a purpose in life and it seems that he was perfectly contented with his self-inflicted exile4 ,he had during the course of years become convinced that the world was still plunged in a profound gloom of abysmal ignorance2 that what was then being called science had not even the remotest resemblance to true science1 and that no general progress would be possible until the whole ancient fabric of error and falsehood had first of all been razed to the ground4 ,no small order1 this4 ,descartes however was possessed of endless patience and at the age of thirty he set to work to give us an entirely new system of philosophy4 ,warming up to his task he added geometry and astronomy and physics to his original program and he performed his task with such noble impartiality of mind that the ,catholics denounced him as a ,calvinist and the ,calvinists cursed him for an atheist4 ,this clamor1 if ever it reached him1 did not disturb him in the least4 ,he quietly continued his researches and died peacefully in the city of ,stockholm1 whither he had gone to talk philosophy with the ,queen of ,sweden4 ,among the people of the seventeenth century1 ,cartesianism 7the name under which his philosophies became known7 made quite as much of a stir as ,darwinism was to make among the contemporaries of ,queen ,victoria4 ,to be a ,cartesian in the year #afhj meant something terrible1 something almost indecent4 ,it proclaimed one an enemy of the established order of society1 a ,socinian1 a low fellow who by his own confession had set himself apart from the companionship of his respectable neighbors4 ,this did not prevent the majority of the intelligent classes from accepting ,cartesianism as readily and as eagerly as our grandfathers accepted ,darwinism4 ,but among the orthodox ,jews of ,amsterdam1 such subjects were never even mentioned4 ,cartesianism was not mentioned in either ,talmud or ,torah4 ,hence it did not exist4 ,and when it became apparent that it existed just the same in the mind of one ,baruch de ,spinoza1 it was a foregone conclusion that said ,baruch de ,spinoza would himself cease to exist as soon as the authorities of the synagogue had been able to investigate the case and take official action4 ,the ,amsterdam synagogue had at that moment passed through a severe crisis4 ,when little ,baruch was fifteen years old1 another ,portuguese exile by the name of ,uriel ,acosta had arrived in ,amsterdam1 had forsworn ,catholicism1 which he had accepted under a threat of death1 and had returned to the faith of his fathers4 ,but this fellow ,acosta had not been an ordinary ,jew4 ,he was a gentleman accustomed to carry a feather in his hat and a sword at his side4 ,to him the arrogance of the ,dutch rabbis1 trained in the ,german and ,polish schools of learning1 had come as a most unpleasant surprise1 and he had been too proud and too indifferent to hide his opinions4 ,in a small community like that1 such open defiance could not possibly be tolerated4 ,a bitter struggle had followed4 ,on the one side a solitary dreamer1 half prophet1 half hidalgo4 ,on the other side the merciless guardians of the law4 ,it had ended in tragedy4 ,first of all ,acosta had been denounced to the local police as the author of certain blasphemous pamphlets which denied the immortality of the soul4 ,this had got him into trouble with the ,calvinist ministers4 ,but the matter had been straightened out and the charge had been dropped4 ,thereupon the synagogue had excommunicated the stiff-necked rebel and had deprived him of his livelihood4 ,for months thereafter the poor man had wandered through the streets of ,amsterdam until destitution and loneliness had driven him back to his own flock4 ,but he was not re-admitted until he had first of all publicly apologized for his evil conduct and had then suffered himself to be whipped and kicked by all the members of the congregation4 ,these indignities had unbalanced his mind4 ,he had bought a pistol and had blown his brains out4 ,this suicide had caused a tremendous lot of talk among the principal citizens of ,amsterdam4 ,the ,jewish community felt that it could not risk the chance of another public scandal4 ,when it became evident that the most promising pupil of the 8,tree of ,life0 had been contaminated by the new heresies of ,descartes1 a direct attempt was made to hush things up4 ,baruch was approached and was offered a fixed annual sum if he would give his word that he would be good1 would continue to show himself in the synagogue and would not publish or say anything against the law4 ,now ,spinoza was the last man to consider such a compromise4 ,he curtly refused to do anything of the sort4 ,in consequence whereof he was duly read out of his own church according to that famous ancient ,formula of ,damnation which leaves very little to the imagination and goes back all the way to the days of ,jericho to find the appropriate number of curses and execrations4 ,as for the victim of these manifold maledictions1 he remained quietly in his room and read about the occurrence in next day's paper4 ,even when an attempt was made upon his life by an over zealous follower of the law1 he refused to leave town4 ,this came as a great blow to the prestige of the ,rabbis who apparently had invoked the names of ,joshua and ,elisha in vain and who saw themselves publicly defied for the second time in less than half a dozen years4 ,in their anxiety they went so far as to make an appeal to the town hall4 ,they asked for an interview with the ,burgomasters and explained that this ,baruch de ,spinoza whom they had just expelled from their own church was really a most dangerous person1 an agnostic who refused to believe in ,god and who therefore ought not to be tolerated in a respectable ,christian community like the city of ,amsterdam4 ,their lordships1 after their pleasant habit1 washed their hands of the whole affair and referred the matter to a sub-committee of clergymen4 ,the sub-committee studied the question1 discovered that ,baruch de ,spinoza had done nothing that could be construed as an offense against the ordinances of the town1 and so reported to their lordships4 ,at the same time they considered it to be good policy for members of the cloth to stand together and therefore they suggested that the ,burgomasters ask this young man1 who seemed to be so very independent1 to leave ,amsterdam for a couple of months and not to return until the thing had blown over4 ,from that moment on the life of ,spinoza was as quiet and uneventful as the landscape upon which he looked from his bedroom windows4 ,he left ,amsterdam and hired a small house in the village of ,rijnsberg near ,leiden4 ,he spent his days polishing lenses for optical instruments and at night he smoked his pipe and read or wrote as the spirit moved him4 ,he never married4 ,there was rumor of a love affair between him and a daughter of his former ,latin teacher1 van den ,ende4 ,but as the child was ten years old when ,spinoza left ,amsterdam1 this does not seem very likely4 ,he had several very loyal friends and at least twice a year they offered to give him a pension that he might devote all his time to his studies4 ,he answered that he appreciated their good intentions but that he preferred to remain independent and with the exception of an allowance of eighty dollars a year from a rich young ,cartesian1 he never touched a penny and spent his days in the respectable poverty of the true philosopher4 ,he had a chance to become a professor in ,germany1 but he declined4 ,he received word that the illustrious ,king of ,prussia would be happy to become his patron and protector1 but he answered nay and remained faithful to the quiet routine of his pleasant exile4 ,after a number of years in ,rijnsberg he moved to the ,hague4 ,he had never been very strong and the particles of glass from his half-finished lenses had affected his lungs4 ,he died quite suddenly and alone in the year #afgg4 ,to the intense disgust of the local clergy1 not less than six private carriages belonging to prominent members of the court followed the 8atheist0 to his grave4 ,and when two hundred years later a statue was unveiled to his memory1 the police reserves had to be called out to protect the participants in this solemn celebration against the fury of a rowdy crowd of ardent ,calvinists4 ,so much for the man4 ,what about his influence8 ,was he merely another of those industrious philosophers who fill endless books with endless theories and speak a language which drove even ,omar ,khayyam to an expression of exasperated annoyance8 ,no1 he was not4 ,neither did he accomplish his results by the brilliancy of his wit or the plausible truth of his theories4 ,spinoza was great mainly by force of his courage4 ,he belonged to a race that knew only one law1 a set of hard and fast rules laid down for all times in the dim ages of a long forgotten past1 a system of spiritual tyranny created for the benefit of a class of professional priests who had taken it upon themselves to interpret this sacred code4 ,he lived in a world in which the idea of intellectual freedom was almost synonymous with political anarchy4 ,he knew that his system of logic must offend both ,jews and ,gentiles4 ,but he never wavered4 ,he approached all problems as universal problems4 ,he regarded them without exception as the manifestation of an omnipresent will and believed them to be the expression of an ultimate reality which would hold good on ,doomsday as it had held good at the hour of creation4 ,and in this way he greatly contributed to the cause of human tolerance4 ,like ,descartes before him1 ,spinoza discarded the narrow boundaries laid down by the older forms of religion and boldly built himself a new system of thought based upon the rocks of a million stars4 ,by so doing he made man what man had not been since the days of the ancient ,greeks and ,romans1 a true citizen of the universe4 ,,chapter ,,xxii ,,the ,,new ,,zion ,there was little reason to fear that the works of ,spinoza would ever be popular4 ,they were as amusing as a text-book on trigonometry and few people ever get beyond the first two or three sentences of any given chapter4 ,it took a different sort of man to spread the new ideas among the mass of the people4 ,in ,france the enthusiasm for private speculation and investigation had come to an end as soon as the country had been turned into an absolute monarchy4 ,in ,germany the poverty and the horror which had followed in the wake of the ,thirty ,years ,war had killed all personal initiative for at least two hundred years4 ,during the second half of the seventeenth century1 therefore1 ,england was the only one among the larger countries of ,europe where further progress along the lines of independent thought was still possible and the prolonged quarrel between the ,crown and ,parliament was adding an element of instability which proved to be of great help to the cause of personal freedom4 ,first of all we must consider the ,english sovereigns4 ,for years these unfortunate monarchs had been between the devil of ,catholicism and the deep sea of ,puritanism4 ,their ,catholic subjects 7which included a great many faithful ,episcopalians with a secret leaning towards ,rome7 were forever clamoring for a return to that happy era when the ,british kings had been vassals of the pope4 ,their ,puritan subjects on the other hand1 with one eye firmly glued upon the example of ,geneva1 dreamed of the day when there should be no king at all and ,england should be a replica of the happy commonwealth tucked away in a little corner of the ,swiss mountains4 ,but that was not all4 ,the men who ruled ,england were also kings of ,scotland and their ,scottish subjects1 when it came to religion1 knew exactly what they wanted4 ,and so thoroughly were they convinced that they themselves were right that they were firmly opposed to the idea of liberty of conscience4 ,they thought it wicked that other denominations should be suffered to exist and to worship freely within the confines of their own ,protestant land4 ,and they insisted not only that all ,catholics and ,anabaptists be exiled from the ,british ,isles but furthermore that ,socinians1 ,arminians1 ,cartesians1 in short all those who did not share their own views upon the existence of a living ,god1 be hanged4 ,this triangle of conflicts1 however1 produced an unexpected result4 ,it forced the men who were obliged to keep peace between those mutually hostile parties to be much more tolerant than they would have been otherwise4 ,if both the ,stuarts and ,cromwell at different times of their careers insisted upon equal rights for all denominations1 and history tells us they did1 they were most certainly not animated by a love for ,presbyterians or ,high ,churchmen1 or vice versa4 ,they were merely making the best of a very difficult bargain4 ,the terrible things which happened in the colonies along the ,bay of ,massachusetts1 where one sect finally became all powerful1 show us what would have been the fate of ,england if any one of the many contending factions had been able to establish an absolute dictatorship over the entire country4 ,cromwell of course reached the point where he was able to do as he liked4 ,but the ,lord ,protector was a very wise man4 ,he knew that he ruled by the grace of his iron brigade and carefully avoided such extremes of conduct or of legislation as would have forced his opponents to make common cause4 ,beyond that1 however1 his ideas concerning tolerance did not go4 ,as for the abominable 8atheists0--the aforementioned ,socinians and ,arminians and ,cartesians and other apostles of the divine right of the individual human being1 their lives were just as difficult as before4 ,of course1 the ,english 8,libertines0 enjoyed one enormous advantage4 ,they lived close to the sea4 ,only thirty-six hours of sickness separated them from the safe asylum of the ,dutch cities4 ,as the printing shops of these cities were turning out most of the contraband literature of southern and western ,europe1 a trip across the ,north ,sea really meant a voyage to one's publisher and gave the enterprising traveler a chance to gather in his royalties and see what were the latest additions to the literature of intellectual protest4 ,among those who at one time or another availed themselves of this convenient opportunity for quiet study and peaceful reflection1 no one has gained a more deserving fame than ,john ,locke4 ,he was born in the same year as ,spinoza4 ,and like ,spinoza 7indeed like most independent thinkers7 he was the product of an essentially pious household4 ,the parents of ,baruch were orthodox ,jews4 ,the parents of ,john were orthodox ,christians4 ,undoubtedly they both meant well by their children when they trained them in the strict doctrines of their own respective creeds4 ,but such an education either breaks a boy's spirit or it turns him into a rebel4 ,baruch and ,john1 not being the sort that ever surrenders1 gritted their teeth1 left home and struck out for themselves4 ,at the age of twenty ,locke went to ,oxford and there for the first time heard of ,descartes4 ,but among the dusty book-stalls of ,st4 ,catherine ,street he found certain other volumes that were much to his taste4 ,for example1 there were the works of ,thomas ,hobbes4 ,an interesting figure1 this former student of ,magdalen ,college1 a restless person who had visited ,italy and had held converse with ,galileo1 who had exchanged letters with the great ,descartes himself and who had spent the greater part of his life on the continent1 an exile from the fury of the ,puritans4 ,between times he had composed an enormous book which contained all his ideas upon every conceivable subject and which bore the inviting title of 8,leviathan1 or the ,matter1 ,form and ,power of a ,commonwealth1 ,ecclesiastical and ,civil40 ,this learned tome made its appearance when ,locke was in his ,sophomore year4 ,it was so outspoken upon the nature of princes1 their rights and most especially their duties1 that even the most thorough going ,cromwellian must approve of it1 and that many of ,cromwell's partisans felt inclined to pardon this doubting ,thomas who was a full-fledged royalist yet exposed the royalist pretensions in a volume that weighed not less than five pounds4 ,of course ,hobbes was the sort of person whom it has never been easy to classify4 ,his contemporaries called him a ,latitudinarian4 ,that meant that he was more interested in the ethics of the ,christian religion than in the discipline and the dogmas of the ,christian church and believed in allowing people a fair degree of 8latitude0 in their attitude upon those questions which they regarded as non-essential4 ,locke had the same temperament as ,hobbes4 ,he too remained within the ,church until the end of his life but he was heartily in favor of a most generous interpretation both of life and of faith4 ,what was the use1 ,locke and his friends argued1 of ridding the country of one tyrant 7who wore a golden crown7 if it only led up to a fresh abuse of power by another tyrant 7who wore a black slouch hat78 ,why renounce allegiance to one set of priests and then the next day accept the rule of another set of priests who were fully as overbearing and arrogant as their predecessors8 ,logic undoubtedly was on their side but such a point of view could not possibly be popular among those who would have lost their livelihood if the 8latitude men0 had been successful and had changed a rigid social system into an ethical debating society8 ,and although ,locke1 who seems to have been a man of great personal charm1 had influential friends who could protect him against the curiosity of the sheriffs1 the day was soon to come when he would no longer be able to escape the suspicion of being an atheist4 ,that happened in the fall of the year #afhc1 and ,locke thereupon went to ,amsterdam4 ,spinoza had been dead for half a dozen years1 but the intellectual atmosphere of the ,dutch capital continued to be decidedly liberal and ,locke was given a chance to study and write without the slightest interference on the part of the authorities4 ,he was an industrious fellow and during the four years of his exile he composed that famous 8,letter on ,tolerance0 which makes him one of the heroes of our little history4 ,in this letter 7which under the criticism of his opponents grew into three letters7 he flatly denied that the state had the right to interfere with religion4 ,the state1 as ,locke saw it 7and in this he was borne out by a fellow exile1 a ,frenchman by the name of ,pierre ,bayle1 who was living in ,rotterdam at that time composing his incredibly learned one-man encyclopedia71 the state was merely a sort of protective organization which a certain number of people had created and continued to maintain for their mutual benefit and safety4 ,why such an organization should presume to dictate what the individual citizens should believe and what not--that was something which ,locke and his disciples failed to understand4 ,the state did not undertake to tell them what to eat or drink4 ,why should it force them to visit one church and keep away from another8 ,the seventeenth century1 as a result of the half-hearted victory of ,protestantism1 was an era of strange religious compromises4 ,the peace of ,westphalia which was supposed to make an end to all religious warfare had laid down the principle that 8all subjects shall follow the religion of their ruler40 ,hence in one six-by-nine principality all citizens were ,lutherans 7because the local grand duke was a ,lutheran7 and in the next they were all ,catholics 7because the local baron happened to be a ,catholic74 8,if10 so ,locke reasoned1 8the ,state has the right to dictate to the people concerning the future weal of their souls1 then one-half of the people are foreordained to perdition1 for since both religions cannot possibly be true 7according to article ,i of their own catechisms7 it follows that those who are born on one side of a boundary line are bound for ,heaven and those who are born on the other side are bound for ,hell and in this way the geographical accident of birth decides one's future salvation40 ,that ,locke did not include ,catholics in his scheme of tolerance is regrettable1 but understandable4 ,to the average ,britisher of the seventeenth century ,catholicism was not a form of religious conviction but a political party which had never ceased to plot against the safety of the ,english state1 which had built ,armadas and had bought barrels of gun-powder with which to destroy the parliament of a supposedly friendly nation4 ,hence ,locke refused to his ,catholic opponents those rights which he was willing to grant to the heathen in his colonies and asked that they continue to be excluded from ,his ,majesty's domains1 but solely on the ground of their dangerous political activities and not because they professed a different faith4 ,one had to go back almost sixteen centuries to hear such sentiments4 ,then a ,roman emperor had laid down the famous principle that religion was an affair between the individual man and his ,god and that ,god was quite capable of taking care of himself whenever he felt that his dignity had been injured4 ,the ,english people who had lived and prospered through four changes of government within less than sixty years were inclined to see the fundamental truth of such an ideal of tolerance based upon common sense4 ,when ,william of ,orange crossed the ,north ,sea in the year #afhh1 ,locke followed him on the next ship1 which carried the new ,queen of ,england4 ,henceforth he lived a quiet and uneventful existence and when he died at the ripe old age of seventy-two he was known as a respectable author and no longer feared as a heretic4 ,civil war is a terrible thing but it has one great advantage4 ,it clears the atmosphere4 ,the political dissensions of the seventeenth century had completely consumed the superfluous energy of the ,english nation and while the citizens of other countries continued to kill each other for the sake of the ,trinity and prenatal damnation1 religious persecution in ,great ,britain came to an end4 ,now and then a too presumptuous critic of the established church1 like ,daniel ,defoe1 might come into unpleasant contact with the law1 but the author of 8,robinson ,crusoe0 was pilloried because he was a humorist rather than an amateur theologian and because the ,anglo-,saxon race1 since time immemorial1 has felt an inborn suspicion of irony4 ,had ,defoe written a serious defense of tolerance1 he would have escaped with a reprimand4 ,when he turned his attack upon the tyranny of the church into a semi-humorous pamphlet entitled 8,the ,shortest ,way with ,dissenters10 he showed that he was a vulgar person without a decent sense of the proprieties and one who deserved no better than the companionship of the pickpockets of ,newgate ,prison4 ,even then ,defoe was fortunate that he had never extended his travels beyond the confines of the ,british ,isles4 ,for intolerance having been driven from the mother country had found a most welcome refuge in certain of the colonies on the other side of the ocean4 ,and this was due not so much to the character of the people who had moved into these recently discovered regions as to the fact that the new world offered infinitely greater economic advantages than the old one4 ,in ,england itself1 a small island so densely populated that it offered standing room only to the majority of her people1 all business would soon have come to an end if the people had not been willing to practice the ancient and honorable rule of 8give and take40 ,but in ,america1 a country of unknown extent and unbelievable riches1 a continent inhabited by a mere handful of farmers and workmen1 no such compromise was necessary4 ,and so it happened that a small communist settlement on the shores of ,massachusetts ,bay could develop into such a stronghold of self-righteous orthodoxy that the like of it had not been seen since the happy days when ,calvin exercised the functions of ,chief of ,police and ,lord ,high ,executioner in western ,switzerland4 ,the credit for the first permanent settlement in the chilly regions of the ,charles ,river usually goes to a small group of people who are referred to as the ,pilgrim ,fathers4 ,a ,pilgrim1 in the usual sense of the word1 is one who 8journeys to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion40 ,the passengers of the ,mayflower were not pilgrims in that sense of the word4 ,they were ,english bricklayers and tailors and cord-wainers and blacksmiths and wheelwrights who had left their country to escape certain of those hated 8poperies0 which continued to cling to the worship in most of the churches around them4 ,first they had crossed the ,north ,sea and had gone to ,holland where they arrived at a moment of great economic depression4 ,our school-books continue to ascribe their desire for further travel to their unwillingness to let their children learn the ,dutch language and otherwise to see them absorbed by the country of their adoption4 ,it seems very unlikely1 however1 that those simple folk were guilty of such shocking ingratitude and purposely followed a most reprehensible course of hyphenation4 ,the truth is that most of the time they were forced to live in the slums1 that they found it very difficult to make a living in an already over-populated country1 and that they expected a better revenue from tobacco planting in ,america than from wool-carding in ,leiden4 ,hence to ,virginia they sailed1 but having been thrown by adverse currents and bad seamanship upon the shores of ,massachusetts1 they decided to stay where they were rather than risk the horrors of another voyage in their leaky tub4 ,but although they had now escaped the dangers of drowning and seasickness1 they were still in a highly perilous position4 ,most of them came from small cities in the heart of ,england and had little aptitude for a life of pioneering4 ,their communistic ideas were shattered by the cold1 their civic enthusiasm was chilled by the endless gales and their wives and children were killed by an absence of decent food4 ,and1 finally1 the few who survived the first three winters1 good-natured people accustomed to the rough and ready tolerance of the home country1 were entirely swamped by the arrival of thousands of new colonists who without exception belonged to a sterner and less compromising variety of ,puritan faith and who made ,massachusetts what it was to remain for several centuries1 the ,geneva on the ,charles ,river4 ,hanging on for dear life to their small stretch of land1 forever on the verge of disaster1 they felt more than ever inclined to find an excuse for everything they thought and did within the pages of the ,old ,testament4 ,cut off from polite human society and books1 they began to develop a strange religious psyche of their own4 ,in their own eyes they had fallen heir to the traditions of ,moses and ,gideon and soon became veritable ,maccabees to their ,indian neighbors of the west4 ,they had nothing to reconcile them to their lives of hardship and drudgery except the conviction that they were suffering for the sake of the only true faith4 ,hence their conclusion 7easily arrived at7 that all other people must be wrong4 ,hence the brutal treatment of those who failed to share their own views1 who suggested by implication that the ,puritan way of doing and thinking was not the only right way4 ,hence the exclusion from their country of all harmless dissenters who were either unmercifully flogged and then driven into the wilderness or suffered the loss of their ears and tongues unless they were fortunate enough to find a refuge in one of the neighboring colonies which belonged to the ,swedes and the ,dutch4 ,no1 for the cause of religious freedom or tolerance1 this colony achieved nothing except in that roundabout and involuntary fashion which is so common in the history of human progress4 ,the very violence of their religious despotism brought about a reaction in favor of a more liberal policy4 ,after almost two centuries of ministerial tyranny1 there arose a new generation which was the open and avowed enemy of all forms of priest-rule1 which believed profoundly in the desirability of the separation of state and church and which looked askance upon the ancestral admixture of religion and politics4 ,by a stroke of good luck this development came about very slowly and the crisis did not occur until the period immediately before the outbreak of hostilities between ,great ,britain and her ,american colonies4 ,as a result1 the ,constitution of the ,united ,states was written by men who were either freethinkers or secret enemies of the old-fashioned ,calvinism and who incorporated into this document certain highly modern principles which have proved of the greatest value in maintaining the peaceful balance of our republic4 ,but ere this happened1 the new world had experienced a most unexpected development in the field of tolerance and curiously enough it took place in a ,catholic community1 in that part of ,america now covered by the free state of ,maryland4 ,the ,calverts1 who were responsible for this interesting experiment1 were of ,flemish origin1 but the father had moved to ,england and had rendered very distinguished services to the house of ,stuart4 ,originally they had been ,protestants1 but ,george ,calvert1 private secretary and general utility man to ,king ,james ,i1 had become so utterly disgusted with the futile theological haggling of his contemporaries that he returned to the old faith4 ,good1 bad or indifferent1 it called black1 black and white1 white and did not leave the final settlement of every point of doctrine to the discretion of a board of semi-literate deacons4 ,this ,george ,calvert1 so it seems1 was a man of parts4 ,his back-sliding 7a very serious offense in those days67 did not lose him the favor of his royal master4 ,on the contrary1 he was made ,baron ,baltimore of ,baltimore and was promised every sort of assistance when he planned to establish a little colony of his own for the benefit of persecuted ,catholics4 ,first1 he tried his luck in ,newfoundland4 ,but his settlers were frozen out of house and home and his ,lordship then asked for a few thousand square miles in ,virginia4 ,the ,virginians1 however1 staunchly ,episcopalian1 would have naught of such dangerous neighbors and ,baltimore then asked for a slice of that wilderness which lay between ,virginia and the ,dutch and ,swedish possessions of the north4 ,ere he received his charter he died4 ,his son ,cecil1 however1 continued the good work1 and in the winter of #afcc-afcd two little ships1 the ,ark and the ,dove1 under command of ,leonard ,calvert1 brother to ,george1 crossed the ocean1 and in ,march of #afcd they safely landed their passengers on the shores of the ,chesapeake ,bay4 ,the new country was called ,maryland4 ,this was done in honor of ,mary1 daughter of that ,french king1 ,henri ,,iv1 whose plans for a ,european ,league of ,nations had been cut short by the dagger of a crazy monk1 and wife to that ,english monarch who soon afterwards was to lose his head at the hands of his ,puritan subjects4 ,this extraordinary colony which did not exterminate its ,indian neighbors and offered equal opportunities to both ,catholics and ,protestants passed through many difficult years4 ,first of all it was overrun by ,episcopalians who tried to escape the fierce intolerance of the ,puritans in ,massachusetts4 ,next it was invaded by ,puritans who tried to escape the fierce intolerance of the ,episcopalians in ,virginia4 ,and the two groups of fugitives1 with the usual arrogance of that sort of people1 tried hard to introduce their own 8correct form of worship0 into the commonwealth that had just offered them refuge4 ,as 8all disputes which might give rise to religious passions0 were expressly forbidden on ,maryland territory1 the older colonists were entirely within their right when they bade both ,episcopalians and ,puritans to keep the peace4 ,but soon afterwards war broke out in the home country between the ,cavaliers and the ,roundheads and the ,marylanders feared that1 no matter who should win1 they would lose their old freedom4 ,hence1 in ,april of the year #afdi and shortly after news of the execution of ,charles ,i had reached them1 and at the direct suggestion of ,cecil ,calvert1 they passed their famous ,act of ,tolerance which1 among other things1 contained this excellent passage3 8,that since the coercion of conscience in the matter of religion has often produced very harmful results in those communities in which it was exercised1 for the more tranquil and pacific government in this province and for the better preservation of mutual love and unity among its inhabitants1 it is hereby decided that nobody in this province who professes faith in ,jesus ,christ shall be disturbed1 molested or persecuted in any way for reasons respecting his religion or the free exercise thereof40 ,that such an act could be passed in a country in which the ,jesuits occupied a favorite position shows that the ,baltimore family was possessed of remarkable political ability and of more than ordinary courage4 ,how profoundly this generous spirit was appreciated by some of their guests was shown in the same year when a number of ,puritan exiles overthrew the government of ,maryland1 abolished the ,act of ,tolerance and replaced it by an 8,act ,concerning ,religion0 of their own which granted full religious liberty to all those who declared themselves ,christians 8with the exception of ,catholics and ,episcopalians40 ,this period of reaction fortunately did not last long4 ,in the year #affj the ,stuarts returned to power and once more the ,baltimores reigned in ,maryland4 ,the next attack upon their policy came from the other side4 ,the ,episcopalians gained a complete victory in the mother country and they insisted that henceforth their church should be the official church of all the colonies4 ,the ,calverts continued to fight but they found it impossible to attract new colonists4 ,and so1 after a struggle which lasted another generation1 the experiment came to an end4 ,protestantism triumphed4 ,so did intolerance4 ,,chapter ,,xxiii ,,the ,,sun ,,king ,the eighteenth century is usually referred to as an era of despotism4 ,and in an age which believes in the dogma of democracy1 despotism1 however enlightened1 is not apt to be regarded as a desirable form of government4 ,historians who mean well by the human race are very apt to point the finger of scorn at that great monarch ,louis ,,xiv and ask us to draw our own conclusions4 ,when this brilliant sovereign came to the throne1 he inherited a country in which the forces of ,catholicism and ,protestantism were so evenly balanced that the two parties1 after a century of mutual assassination 7with the odds heavily in favor of the ,catholics71 had at last concluded a definite peace and had promised to accept each other as unwelcome but unavoidable neighbors and fellow citizens4 ,the 8perpetual and irrevocable0 ,edict of ,nantes of the year #aeih which contained the terms of agreement1 stated that the ,catholic religion was the official religion of the state but that the ,protestants should enjoy complete liberty of conscience and should not suffer any persecution on account of their belief4 ,they were furthermore allowed to build churches of their own and to hold public office4 ,and as a token of good faith1 the ,protestants were allowed to hold two hundred fortified cities and villages within the realm of ,france4 ,this1 of course1 was an impossible arrangement4 ,the ,huguenots were no angels4 ,to leave two hundred of the most prosperous cities and villages of ,france in the hands of a political party which was the sworn enemy of the government was quite as absurd as if we should surrender ,chicago and ,san ,francisco and ,philadelphia to the ,democrats to make them accept a ,republican administration1 or vice versa4 ,richelieu1 as intelligent a man as ever ruled a country1 recognized this4 ,after a long struggle he deprived the ,protestants of their political power1 but although a cardinal by profession1 he scrupulously refrained from any interference with their religious freedom4 ,the ,huguenots could no longer conduct independent diplomatic negotiations with the enemies of their own country1 but otherwise they enjoyed the same privileges as before and could sing psalms and listen to sermons or not as pleased them4 ,mazarin1 the next man to rule ,france in the real sense of the word1 had followed a similar policy4 ,but he died in the year #affa4 ,then young ,louis ,,xiv personally undertook to rule his domains1 and there was an end to the era of good will4 ,it seems most unfortunate that when this brilliant if disreputable ,majesty was forced for once in his life into the companionship of decent people he should have fallen into the clutches of a good woman who was also a religious fanatic4 ,franoise d',aubign1 the widow of a literary hack by the name of ,scarron1 had begun her career at the ,french court as governess to the seven illegitimate children of ,louis ,,xiv and the ,marquise de ,montespan4 ,when that lady's love philtres ceased to have the desired effect and the ,king began to show occasional signs of boredom1 it was the governess who stepped into her shoes4 ,only she was different from all her predecessors4 ,before she agreed to move into ,his ,majesty's apartments1 the ,archbishop of ,paris had duly solemnized her marriage to the descendant of ,saint ,louis4 ,during the next twenty years the power behind the throne was therefore in the hands of a woman who was completely dominated by her confessor4 ,the clergy of ,france had never forgiven either ,richelieu or ,mazarin for their conciliatory attitude towards the ,protestants4 ,now at last they had a chance to undo the work of these shrewd statesmen and they went to it with a will4 ,for not only were they the official advisers of the ,queen1 but they also became the bankers of the ,king4 ,that again is a curious story4 ,during the last eight centuries the monasteries had accumulated the greater part of the wealth of ,france and as they paid no taxes in a country which suffered perpetually from a depleted treasury1 their surplus wealth was of great importance4 ,and ,his ,majesty1 whose glory was greater than his credit1 made a grateful use of this opportunity to replenish his own coffers and in exchange for certain favors extended to his clerical supporters he was allowed to borrow as much money as he wanted4 ,in this way the different stipulations of the 8irrevocable0 ,edict of ,nantes were one by one revoked4 ,at first the ,protestant religion was not actually forbidden1 but life for those who remained faithful to the ,huguenot cause was made exasperatingly uncomfortable4 ,whole regiments of dragoons were turned loose upon those provinces where the false doctrines were supposed to be most strongly entrenched4 ,the soldiers were billeted among the inhabitants with instructions to make themselves thoroughly detestable4 ,they ate the food and drank the wine and stole the forks and spoons and broke the furniture and insulted the wives and daughters of perfectly harmless citizens and generally behaved as if they were in a conquered territory4 ,when their poor hosts1 in their despair1 rushed to the courts for some form of redress and protection1 they were laughed at for their trouble and were told that they had brought their misfortunes upon their own heads and knew perfectly well how they could get rid of their unwelcome guests and at the same time regain the good will of the government4 ,a few1 a very few1 followed this suggestion and allowed themselves to be baptized by the nearest village priest4 ,but the vast majority of these simple people remained faithful to the ideals of their childhood4 ,at last1 however1 when one after another their churches were closed and their clergy were sent to the galleys1 they began to understand that they were doomed4 ,rather than surrender1 they decided to go into exile4 ,but when they reached the frontier1 they were told that no one was allowed to leave the country1 that those who were caught in the act were to be hanged1 and that those who aided and abetted such fugitives were liable to be sent to the galleys for life4 ,there are apparently certain things which this world will never learn4 ,from the days of the ,pharaohs to those of ,lenin1 all governments at one time or another have tried the policy of 8closing the frontier0 and none of them has ever been able to score a success4 ,people who want to get out so badly that they are willing to take all sorts of risks can invariably find a way4 ,hundreds of thousands of ,french ,protestants took to the 8underground route0 and soon afterwards appeared in ,london or ,amsterdam or ,berlin or ,basel4 ,of course1 such fugitives were not able to carry much ready cash4 ,but they were known everywhere as honest and hard working merchants and artisans4 ,their credit was good and their energy undiminished4 ,after a few years they usually regained that prosperity which had been their share in the old country and the home government was deprived of a living economic asset of incalculable value4 ,indeed1 it is no exaggeration to say that the revocation of the ,edict of ,nantes was the prelude to the ,french ,revolution4 ,france had been and still was a very rich country4 ,but commerce and clericalism have never been able to coperate4 ,from the moment that the ,french government surrendered to petticoats and cassocks1 her fate was sealed4 ,the same pen that decreed the expulsion of the ,huguenots signed the death-warrant of ,louis ,,xvi4 ,,chapter ,,xxiv ,,frederick ,,the ,,great ,the house of ,hohenzollern has never been famous for its love of popular forms of government4 ,but ere the crazy strain of the ,bavarian ,wittelsbachs had tainted this sober-minded family of bookkeepers and overseers1 they rendered some very useful service to the cause of tolerance4 ,in part this was the result of a practical necessity4 ,the ,hohenzollerns had fallen heir to the poorest part of ,europe1 a half-populated wilderness of sand and forests4 ,the ,thirty ,years ,war had left them bankrupt4 ,they needed both men and money to start in business once more and they set out to get them1 regardless of race1 creed or previous condition of servitude4 ,the father of ,frederick the ,great1 a vulgarian with the manners of a coal-heaver and the personal tastes of a bartender1 could grow quite tender when he was called upon to meet a delegation of foreign fugitives4 8,the more the merrier10 was his motto in all matters pertaining to the vital statistics of his kingdom and he collected the disinherited of all nations as carefully as he collected the six-foot-three grenadiers of his lifeguard4 ,his son was of a very different caliber1 a highly civilized human being who1 having been forbidden by his father to study ,latin and ,french1 had made a speciality of both languages and greatly preferred the prose of ,montaigne to the poetry of ,luther and the wisdom of ,epictetus of that of the ,minor ,prophets4 ,the ,old ,testament severity of his father 7who ordered the boy's best friend to be decapitated in front of his window so as to teach him a lesson in obedience7 had not inclined his heart toward those ,judaean ideals of rectitude of which the ,lutheran and ,calvinist ministers of his day were apt to speak with such great praise4 ,he came to regard all religion as a survival of prehistoric fear and ignorance1 a mood of subservience carefully encouraged by a small class of clever and unscrupulous fellows who knew how to make good use of their own pre-eminent position by living pleasantly at the expense of their neighbors4 ,he was interested in ,christianity and even more so in the person of ,christ himself1 but he approached the subject by way of ,locke and ,socinius and as a result he was1 in religious matters at least1 a very broad minded person1 and could truly boast that in his country 8every one could find salvation after his own fashion40 ,this clever saying he made the basis for all his further experiments along the line of ,tolerance4 ,for example1 he decreed that all religions were good as long as those who professed them were upright people who led decent1 law-abiding lives2 that therefore all creeds must enjoy equal rights and the state must never interfere in religious questions1 but must content herself with playing policeman and keeping the peace between the different denominations4 ,and because he truly believed this1 he asked nothing of his subjects except that they be obedient and faithful and leave the final judgment of their thoughts and deeds 8to ,him alone who knew the conscience of men0 and of whom he 7the ,king7 did not venture to form so small an opinion as to believe him to be in need of that human assistance which imagines that it can further the divine purpose by the exercise of violence and cruelty4 ,in all these ideas1 ,frederick was a couple of centuries ahead of his day4 ,his contemporaries shook their heads when the king gave his ,catholic subjects a piece of land that they might build themselves a church right in the heart of his capital4 ,they began to murmur ominous words of warning when he made himself the protector of the ,jesuit order1 which had just been driven out of most ,catholic countries1 and they definitely ceased to regard him as a ,christian when he claimed that ethics and religion had nothing to do with each other and that each man could believe whatever he pleased as long as he paid his taxes and served his time in the army4 ,because at that time they happened to live within the boundaries of ,prussia1 these critics held their peace1 for ,his ,majesty was a master of epigram and a witty remark on the margin of a royal rescript could do strange things to the career of those who in some way or another had failed to please him4 ,the fact however remains that it was the head of an unlimited monarchy1 an autocrat of thirty years' standing1 who gave ,europe a first taste of almost complete religious liberty4 ,in this distant corner of ,europe1 ,protestant and ,catholic and ,jew and ,turk and ,agnostic enjoyed for the first time in their lives equal rights and equal prerogatives4 ,those who preferred to wear red coats could not lord it over their neighbors who preferred to wear green coats1 and vice versa4 ,and the people who went back for their spiritual consolation to ,nicaea were forced to live in peace and amity with others who would as soon have supped with the ,devil as with the ,bishop of ,rome4 ,that ,frederick was entirely pleased with the outcome of his labors1 that ,i rather doubt4 ,when he felt his last hour approaching1 he sent for his faithful dogs4 ,they seemed better company in this supreme hour than the members of 8the so-called human race40 7,his ,majesty was a columnist of no mean ability47 ,and so he died1 another ,marcus ,aurelius who had strayed into the wrong century and who1 like his great predecessor1 left a heritage which was entirely too good for his successors4 ,,chapter ,,xxv ,,voltaire ,in this day and age we hear a great deal of talk about the nefarious labors of the press agent and many good people denounce 8publicity0 as an invention of the modern devil of success1 a new-fangled and disreputable method of attracting attention to a person or to a cause4 ,but this complaint is as old as the hills4 ,events of the past1 when examined without prejudice1 completely contradict the popular notion that publicity is something of recent origin4 ,the prophets of the ,old ,testament1 both major and minor1 were past-masters in the art of attracting a crowd4 ,greek history and ,roman history are one long succession of what we people of the journalistic profession call 8publicity stunts40 ,some of that publicity was dignified4 ,a great deal of it was of so patent and blatant a nature that today even ,broadway would refuse to fall for it4 ,reformers like ,luther and ,calvin fully understood the tremendous value of carefully pre-arranged publicity4 ,and we cannot blame them4 ,they were not the sort of men who could be happy growing humbly by the side of the road like the blushing daisies4 ,they were very much in earnest4 ,they wanted their ideas to live4 ,how could they hope to succeed without attracting a crowd of followers8 ,a ,thomas ,kempis can become a great moral influence by spending eighty years in a quiet corner of a monastery1 for such long voluntary exile1 if duly advertised 7as it was71 becomes an excellent selling point and makes people curious to see the little book which was born of a lifetime of prayer and meditation4 ,but a ,francis of ,assisi or a ,loyola1 who hope to see some tangible results of their work while they are still on this planet1 must willy-nilly resort to methods now usually associated with a circus or a new movie star4 ,christianity lays great stress upon modesty and praises those who are humble of spirit4 ,but the sermon which extols these virtues was delivered under circumstances which have made it a subject of conversation to this very day4 ,no wonder that those men and women who were denounced as the arch enemies of the ,church took a leaf out of the ,holy ,book and resorted to certain rather obvious methods of publicity when they began their great fight upon the spiritual tyranny which held the western world in bondage4 ,i offer this slight explanation because ,voltaire1 the greatest of all virtuosos in the field of free advertisement1 has very often been blamed for the way in which he sometimes played upon the tom-tom of public consciousness4 ,perhaps he did not always show the best of good taste4 ,but those whose lives he saved may have felt differently about it4 ,and furthermore1 just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating1 the success or failure of a man like ,voltaire should be measured by the services he actually rendered to his fellow-men and not by his predilection for certain sorts of dressing-gowns1 jokes and wall-paper4 ,in an outburst of justifiable pride this strange creature once said1 8,what of it if ,i have no scepter8 ,i have got a pen40 ,and right he was4 ,he had a pen4 ,any number of pens4 ,he was the born enemy of the goose and used more quills than two dozen ordinary writers4 ,he belonged to that class of literary giants who all alone and under the most adverse circumstances can turn out as much copy as an entire syndicate of modern sport writers4 ,he scribbled on the tables of dirty country inns4 ,he composed endless hexameters in the chilly guest-rooms of lonely country houses4 ,his scrawls littered the floors of dingy boarding-houses in ,greenwich4 ,he spattered ink upon the carpets of the royal ,prussian residence and used reams of the private stationery which bore the monogram of the governor of the ,bastille4 ,before he had ceased to play with a hoop and marbles1 ,ninon de ,lenclos had presented him with a considerable sum of pocket-money that he might 8buy some books10 and eighty years later1 in the self-same town of ,paris1 we hear him ask for a pad of foolscap and unlimited coffee that he may finish yet one more volume before the inevitable hour of darkness and rest4 ,his tragedies1 however1 and his stories1 his poetry and his treatises upon philosophy and physics1 do not entitle him to an entire chapter of this book4 ,he wrote no better verses than half a hundred other sonneteers of that era4 ,as a historian he was both unreliable and dull1 while his ventures in the realm of science were no better than the sort of stuff we find in the ,sunday papers4 ,but as the brave and unyielding enemy of all that was stupid and narrow and bigoted and cruel1 he wielded an influence which has endured until the beginning of the ,great ,civil ,war of the year #aiad4 ,the age in which he lived was a period of extremes4 ,on the one hand1 the utter selfishness and corruption of a religious1 social and economic system which had long since outlived its usefulness4 ,on the other side1 a large number of eager but overzealous young men and young women ready to bring about a millennium which was based upon nothing more substantial than their good intentions4 ,a humorous fate dropped this pale and sickly son of an inconspicuous notary public into this maelstrom of sharks and pollywogs1 and bade him sink or swim4 ,he preferred to swim and struck out for shore4 ,the methods he employed during his long struggle with adverse circumstances were often of a questionable nature4 ,he begged and flattered and played the clown4 ,but this was in the days before royalties and literary agents4 ,and let the author who never wrote a potboiler throw the first stone6 ,not that ,voltaire would have been greatly worried by a few additional bricks4 ,during a long and busy life devoted to warfare upon stupidity1 he had experienced too many defeats to worry about such trifles as a public beating or a couple of well aimed banana peels4 ,but he was a man of indomitable good cheer4 ,if today he must spend his leisure hours in ,his ,majesty's prison1 tomorrow he may find himself honored with a high titulary position at the same court from which he has just been banished4 ,and if all his life he is obliged to listen to angry village priests denouncing him as the enemy of the ,christian religion1 isn't there somewhere in a cupboard filled with old love letters that beautiful medal presented to him by the ,pope to prove that he can gain the approbation of ,holy ,church as well as her disapproval8 ,it was all in the day's work4 ,meanwhile he fully intended to enjoy himself hugely and crowd his days and weeks and months and years with a strange and colorful assortment of the most variegated experiences4 ,by birth ,voltaire belonged to the better middle class4 ,his father was what for the lack of a better term we might call a sort of private trust company4 ,he was the confidential handy-man of a number of rich nobles and looked after their legal and financial interests4 ,young ,arouet 7for that was the family name7 was therefore accustomed to a society a little better than that of his own people1 something which later in life gave him a great advantage over most of his literary rivals4 ,his mother was a certain ,mademoiselle d',aumard4 ,she had been a poor girl who did not bring her husband a cent of dowry4 ,but she was possessed of that small 8d'0 which all ,frenchmen of the middle classes 7and all ,europeans in general and a few ,americans in particular7 regard with humble awe1 and her husband thought himself pretty lucky to win such a prize4 ,as for the son1 he also basked in the reflected glory of his ennobled grandparents and as soon as he began to write1 he exchanged the plebeian ,franois ,marie ,arouet for the more aristocratic ,franois ,marie de ,voltaire1 but how and where he hit upon this surname is still a good deal of a mystery4 ,he had a brother and a sister4 ,the sister1 who took care of him after his mother's death1 he loved very sincerely4 ,the brother1 on the other hand1 a faithful priest of the ,jansenist denomination1 full of zeal and rectitude1 bored him to distraction and was one of the reasons why he spent as little time as possible underneath the paternal shingles4 ,father ,arouet was no fool and soon discovered that his little 8,zozo0 promised to be a handful4 ,wherefore he sent him to the ,jesuits that he might become versed in ,latin hexameters and ,spartan discipline4 ,the good fathers did their best by him4 ,they gave their spindly-legged pupil a sound training in the rudiments of both the dead and living tongues4 ,but they found it impossible to eradicate a certain bump of 8queerness0 which from the very beginning had set this child apart from the other scholars4 ,at the age of seventeen they willingly let him go1 and to please his father1 young ,franois then took up the study of the law4 ,unfortunately one could not read all day long4 ,there were the long hours of the lazy evenings4 ,these hours ,franois whiled away either writing funny little pieces for the local newspapers or reading his latest literary compositions to his cronies in the nearest coffee-house4 ,two centuries ago such a life was generally believed to lead straight to perdition4 ,father ,arouet fully appreciated the danger his son was running4 ,he went to one of his many influential friends and obtained for ,m4 ,franois a position as secretary to the ,french ,legation at the ,hague4 ,the ,dutch capital1 then as now1 was exasperatingly dull4 ,out of sheer boredom ,voltaire began a love affair with the not particularly attractive daughter of a terrible old woman who was a society reporter4 ,the lady1 who hoped to marry her darling to a more promising party1 rushed to the ,french minister and asked him to please remove this dangerous ,romeo before the whole city knew about the scandal4 ,his ,excellency had troubles enough of his own and was not eager for more4 ,he bundled his secretary into the next stage-coach for ,paris and ,franois1 without a job1 once more found himself at the mercy of his father4 ,in this emergency ,matre ,arouet bethought himself of an expedient which was often used by such ,frenchmen as had a friend at court4 ,he asked and obtained a 8lettre de cachet0 and placed his son before the choice of enforced leisure in a jail or industrious application in a law-school4 ,the son said that he would prefer the latter and promised that he would be a model of industry and application4 ,he was as good as his word and applied himself to the happy life of a free lance pamphleteer with such industry that the whole town talked about it4 ,this was not according to the agreement with his papa and the latter was entirely within his rights when he decided to send his son away from the flesh-pots of the ,seine and packed him off to a friend in the country1 where the young man was to remain for a whole year4 ,there1 with twenty-four hours leisure each day of the week 7,sundays included7 ,voltaire began the study of letters in all seriousness and composed the first of his plays4 ,after twelve months of fresh air and a very healthy monotony1 he was allowed to return to the scented atmosphere of the capital and at once made up for lost time by a series of lampoons upon the ,regent1 a nasty old man who deserved all that was said about him but did not like this publicity the least little bit4 ,hence1 a second period of exile in the country1 followed by more scribbling and at last a short visit to the ,bastille4 ,but prison in those days1 that is to say1 prison for young gentlemen of ,voltaire's social prominence1 was not a bad place4 ,one was not allowed to leave the premises but otherwise did pretty much as one pleased4 ,and it was just what ,voltaire needed4 ,a lonely cell in the heart of ,paris gave him a chance to do some serious work4 ,when he was released1 he had finished several plays and these were performed with such tremendous success that one of them broke all records of the eighteenth century and ran for forty-five nights in succession4 ,this brought him some money 7which he needed badly7 but it also established his reputation as a wit1 a most unfortunate thing for a young man who still has to make his career4 ,for hereafter he was held responsible for every joke that enjoyed a few hours' popularity on the boulevards and in the coffee-houses4 ,and incidentally it was the reason why he went to ,england and took a post-graduate course in liberal statesmanship4 ,it happened in the year #agbe4 ,voltaire had 7or had not7 been funny about the old but otherwise useless family of de ,rohan4 ,the ,chevalier de ,rohan felt that his honor had been assailed and that something must be done about it4 ,of course1 it was impossible for a descendant of the ancient rulers of ,brittany to fight a duel with the son of a notary public and the ,chevalier delegated the work of revenge to his flunkeys4 ,one night ,voltaire was dining with the ,duc de ,sully1 one of his father's customers1 when he was told that some one wished to speak to him outside4 ,he went to the door1 was fallen upon by the lackeys of my ,lord de ,rohan and was given a sound beating4 ,the next day the story was all over the town4 ,voltaire1 even on his best days1 looked like the caricature of a very ugly little monkey4 ,what with his eyes blackened and his head bandaged1 he was a fit subject for half a dozen popular reviews4 ,only something very drastic could save his reputation from an untimely death at the hands of the comic papers4 ,and as soon as raw beefsteak had done its work1 ,m4 de ,voltaire sent his witnesses to ,m4 le ,chevalier de ,rohan and began his preparation for mortal combat by an intensive course in fencing4 ,alas6 when the morning came for the great fight1 ,voltaire once more found himself behind the bars4 ,de ,rohan1 a cad unto the last1 had given the duel away to the police1 and the battling scribe remained in custody until1 provided with a ticket for ,england1 he was sent traveling in a northwestern direction and was told not to return to ,france until requested to do so by ,his ,majesty's gendarmes4 ,four whole years ,voltaire spent in and near ,london4 ,the ,british kingdom was not exactly a ,paradise1 but compared to ,france1 it was a little bit of ,heaven4 ,a royal scaffold threw its shadow over the land4 ,the thirtieth of ,january of the year #afdi was a date remembered by all those in high places4 ,what had happened to sainted ,king ,charles might 7under slightly modified circumstances7 happen to any one else who dared to set himself above the law4 ,and as for the religion of the country1 of course the official church of the state was supposed to enjoy certain lucrative and agreeable advantages1 but those who preferred to worship elsewhere were left in peace and the direct influence of the clerical officials upon the affairs of state was1 compared to ,france1 almost negligible4 ,confessed ,atheists and certain bothersome non-conformists might occasionally succeed in getting themselves into jail1 but to a subject of ,king ,louis ,,xv the general condition of life in ,england must have seemed wellnigh perfect4 ,in #agbi1 ,voltaire returned to ,france1 but although he was permitted to live in ,paris1 he rarely availed himself of that privilege4 ,he was like a scared animal1 willing to accept bits of sugar from the hands of his friends1 but forever on the alert and ready to escape at the slightest sign of danger4 ,he worked very hard4 ,he wrote prodigiously and with a sublime disregard for dates and facts1 and choosing for himself subjects which ran all the way from ,lima1 ,peru1 to ,moscow1 ,russia1 he composed a series of such learned and popular histories1 tragedies and comedies that at the age of forty he was by far the most successful man of letters of his time4 ,followed another episode which was to bring him into contact with a different kind of civilization4 ,in distant ,prussia1 good ,king ,frederick1 yawning audibly among the yokels of his rustic court1 sadly pined for the companionship of a few amusing people4 ,he felt a tremendous admiration for ,voltaire and for years he had tried to induce him to come to ,berlin4 ,but to a ,frenchman of the year #agej such a migration seemed like moving into the wilds of ,virginia and it was not until ,frederick had repeatedly raised the ante that ,voltaire at last condescended to accept4 ,he traveled to ,berlin and the fight was on4 ,two such hopeless egotists as the ,prussian king and the ,french playwright could not possibly hope to live under one and the same roof without coming to hate each other4 ,after two years of sublime disagreement1 a violent quarrel about nothing in particular drove ,voltaire back to what he felt inclined to call 8civilization40 ,but he had learned another useful lesson4 ,perhaps he was right1 and the ,french poetry of the ,prussian king was atrocious4 ,but ,his ,majesty's attitude upon the subject of religious liberty left nothing to be desired and that was more than could be said of any other ,european monarch4 ,and when at the age of almost sixty ,voltaire returned to his native land1 he was in no mood to accept the brutal sentences by which the ,french courts tried to maintain order without some very scathing words of protest4 ,all his life he had been greatly angered by man's unwillingness to use that divine spark of intelligence which the ,lord on the sixth day of creation had bestowed upon the most sublime product of ,his handiwork4 ,he 7,voltaire7 hated and loathed stupidity in every shape1 form and manner4 ,the 8infamous enemy0 against whom he directed most of his anger and whom1 ,cato-like1 he was forever threatening to demolish1 this 8infamous enemy0 was nothing more or less than the lazy stupidity of the mass of the people who refused to think for themselves as long as they had enough to eat and to drink and a place to sleep4 ,from the days of his earliest childhood he had felt himself pursued by a gigantic machine which seemed to move through sheer force of lethargy and combined the cruelty of ,huitzilopochtli with the relentless persistency of ,juggernaut4 ,to destroy or at least upset this contraption become the obsession of his old years1 and the ,french government1 to give this particular devil his due1 ably assisted him in his efforts by providing the world with a choice collection of legal scandals4 ,the first one occurred in the year #agfa4 ,in the town of ,toulouse in the southern part of ,france there lived a certain ,jean ,calas1 a shop-keeper and a ,protestant4 ,toulouse had always been a pious city4 ,no ,protestant was there allowed to hold office or to be a doctor or a lawyer1 a bookseller or a midwife4 ,no ,catholic was permitted to keep a ,protestant servant4 ,and on ,august #bcrd and #bdth of each year the entire community celebrated the glorious anniversary of the massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew with a solemn feast of praise and thanksgiving4 ,notwithstanding these many disadvantages1 ,calas had lived all his life in complete harmony with his neighbors4 ,one of his sons had turned ,catholic1 but the father had continued to be on friendly terms with the boy and had let it be known that as far as he was concerned1 his children were entirely free to choose whatever religion pleased them best4 ,but there was a skeleton in the ,calas closet4 ,that was ,marc ,antony1 the oldest son4 ,marc was an unfortunate fellow4 ,he wanted to be a lawyer but that career was closed to ,protestants4 ,he was a devout ,calvinist and refused to change his creed4 ,the mental conflict had caused an attack of melancholia and this in time seemed to prey upon the young man's mind4 ,he began to entertain his father and mother with long recitations of ,hamlet's well known soliloquy4 ,he took long solitary walks4 ,to his friends he often spoke of the superior advantages of suicide4 ,this went on for some time and then one night1 while the family was entertaining a friend1 the poor boy slipped into his father's storeroom1 took a piece of packing rope and hanged himself from the doorpost4 ,there his father found him a few hours later1 his coat and vest neatly folded upon the counter4 ,the family was in despair4 ,in those days the body of a person who had committed suicide was dragged nude and face downward through the streets of the town and was hanged on a gibbet outside the gate to be eaten by the birds4 ,the ,calas were respectable folks and hated to think of such a disgrace4 ,they stood around and talked of what they ought to do and what they were going to do until one of the neighbors1 hearing the commotion1 sent for the police1 and the scandal spreading rapidly1 their street was immediately filled with an angry crowd which loudly clamored for the death of old ,calas 8because he had murdered his son to prevent him from becoming a ,catholic40 ,in a little town all things are possible and in a provincial nest of eighteenth century ,france1 with boredom like a black funeral pall hanging heavily upon the entire community1 the most idiotic and fantastic yarns were given credence with a sigh of profound and eager relief4 ,the high magistrates1 fully aware of their duty under such suspicious circumstances1 at once arrested the entire family1 their guests and their servants and every one who had recently been seen in or near the ,calas home4 ,they dragged their prisoners to the town hall1 put them in irons and threw them into the dungeons provided for the most desperate criminals4 ,the next day they were examined4 ,all of them told the same story4 ,how ,marc ,antony had come into the house in his usual spirits1 how he had left the room1 how they thought that he had gone for one of his solitary walks1 etc41 etc4 ,by this time1 however1 the clergy of the town of ,toulouse had taken a hand in the matter and with their help the dreadful news of this bloodthirsty ,huguenot1 who had killed one of his own children because he was about to return to the true faith1 had spread far and wide throughout the land of ,languedoc4 ,those familiar with modern methods of detecting crime might think that the authorities would have spent that day inspecting the scene of the murder4 ,marc ,antony enjoyed quite a reputation as an athlete4 ,he was twenty-eight and his father was sixty-three4 ,the chances of the father having hanged his son from his own doorpost without a struggle were small indeed4 ,but none of the town councilors bothered about such little details4 ,they were too busy with the body of the victim4 ,for ,marc ,antony1 the suicide1 had by now assumed the dignity of a martyr and for three weeks his corpse was kept at the town hall and thereupon it was most solemnly buried by the ,white ,penitents who for some mysterious reason had made the defunct ,calvinist an ex-officio member of their own order and who conducted his embalmed remains to the ,cathedral with the circumstance and the pomp usually reserved for an archbishop or an exceedingly rich patron of the local ,basilica4 ,during these three weeks1 from every pulpit in town1 the good people of ,toulouse had been urged to bring whatever testimony they could against the person of ,jean ,calas and his family and finally1 after the case had been thoroughly thrashed out in the public press1 and five months after the suicide1 the trial began4 ,one of the judges in a moment of great lucidity suggested that the shop of the old man be visited to see whether such a suicide as he described would have been possible1 but he was overridden and with twelve votes against one1 ,calas was sentenced to be tortured and to be broken on the wheel4 ,he was taken to the torture room and was hanged by his wrists until his feet were a meter from the ground4 ,then his body was stretched until the limbs were 8drawn from their sockets40 7,i am copying from the official report47 ,as he refused to confess to a crime which he had not committed1 he was then taken down and was forced to swallow such vast quantities of water that his body had soon 8swollen to twice its natural size40 ,as he persisted in his diabolical refusal to confess his guilt1 he was placed on a tumbril and was dragged to the place of execution where his arms and legs were broken in two places by the executioner4 ,during the next two hours1 while he lay helpless on the block1 magistrates and priests continued to bother him with their questions4 ,with incredible courage the old man continued to proclaim his innocence4 ,until the chief justice1 exasperated by such obstinate lying1 gave him up as a hopeless case and ordered him to be strangled to death4 ,the fury of the populace had by this time spent itself and none of the other members of the family were killed4 ,the widow1 deprived of all her goods1 was allowed to go into retirement and starve as best she could in the company of her faithful maid4 ,as for the children1 they were sent to different convents with the exception of the youngest who had been away at school at ,nmes at the time of his brother's suicide and who had wisely fled to the territory of the sovereign city of ,geneva4 ,the case had attracted a great deal of attention4 ,voltaire in his castle of ,ferney 7conveniently built near the frontier of ,switzerland so that a few minutes' walk could carry him to foreign ground7 heard of it but at first refused to be interested4 ,he was forever at loggerheads with the ,calvinist ministers of ,geneva who regarded his private little theater which stood within sight of their own city as a direct provocation and the work of ,satan4 ,hence ,voltaire1 in one of his supercilious moods1 wrote that he could not work up any enthusiasm for this so-called ,protestant martyr1 for if the ,catholics were bad1 how much worse those terribly bigoted ,huguenots1 who boycotted his plays6 ,besides1 it seemed impossible to him 7as to a great many other people7 that twelve supposedly respectable judges would have condemned an innocent man to such a terrible death without very good reason4 ,but a few days later the sage of ,ferney1 who kept open house to all comers and no questions asked1 had a visit from an honest merchant from ,marseilles who had happened to be in ,toulouse at the time of the trial and who was able to give him some first-hand information4 ,then at last he began to understand the horror of the crime that had been committed and from that moment on he could think of nothing else4 ,there are many sorts of courage1 but a special order of merit is reserved for those rare souls who1 practically alone1 dare to face the entire established order of society and who loudly cry for justice when the high courts of the land have pronounced sentence and when the community at large has accepted their verdict as equitable and just4 ,voltaire well knew the storm that would break if he should dare to accuse the court of ,toulouse of a judicial murder1 and he prepared his case as carefully as if he had been a professional attorney4 ,he interviewed the ,calas boy who had escaped to ,geneva4 ,he wrote to every one who could possibly know something of the inside of the case4 ,he hired counsel to examine and if possible to correct his own conclusions1 lest his anger and his indignation carry him away4 ,and when he felt sure of his ground1 he opened his campaign4 ,first of all he induced every man of some influence whom he knew within the realm of ,france 7and he knew most of them7 to write to the ,chancellor of the ,kingdom and ask for a revision of the ,calas case4 ,then he set about to find the widow and as soon as she had been located1 he ordered her to be brought to ,paris at his own expense and engaged one of the best known lawyers to look after her4 ,the spirit of the woman had been completely broken4 ,she vaguely prayed that she might get her daughters out of the convent before she died4 ,beyond that1 her hopes did not extend4 ,then he got into communication with the other son who was a ,catholic1 made it possible for him to escape from his school and to join him in ,geneva4 ,and finally he published all the facts in a short pamphlet entitled 8,original ,documents ,concerning the ,calas ,family10 which consisted of letters written by the survivors of the tragedy and contained no reference whatsoever to ,voltaire himself4 ,afterwards1 too1 during the revision of the case1 he remained carefully behind the scenes1 but so well did he handle his publicity campaign that soon the cause of the ,calas family was the cause of all families in all countries of ,europe and that thousands of people everywhere 7including the ,king of ,england and the ,empress of ,russia7 contributed to the funds that were being raised to help the defense4 ,eventually ,voltaire gained his victory1 but not until he had fought one of the most desperate battle of his entire career4 ,the throne of ,france just then was occupied by ,louis ,,xv of unsavory memory4 ,fortunately his mistress hated the ,jesuits and all their works 7including the ,church7 with a most cordial hatred and was therefore on the side of ,voltaire4 ,but the ,king loved his ease above all other things and was greatly annoyed at all the fuss made about an obscure and dead ,protestant4 ,and of course as long as ,his ,majesty refused to sign a warrant for a new trial1 the ,chancellor would not take action1 and as long as the ,chancellor would not take action1 the tribunal of ,toulouse was perfectly safe and so strong did they feel themselves that they defied public opinion in a most high-handed fashion and refused to let ,voltaire or his lawyers have access to the original documents upon which they had based their conviction4 ,during nine terrible months1 ,voltaire kept up his agitation until finally in ,march of the year #agfe the ,chancellor ordered the ,tribunal of ,toulouse to surrender all the records in the ,calas case and moved that there be a new trial4 ,the widow of ,jean ,calas and her two daughters1 who had at last been returned to their mother1 were present in ,versailles when this decision was made public4 ,a year later the special court which had been ordered to investigate the appeal reported that ,jean ,calas had been done to death for a crime which he had not committed4 ,by herculean efforts the ,king was induced to bestow a small gift of money upon the widow and her children4 ,furthermore the magistrates who had handled the ,calas case were deprived of their office and it was politely suggested to the people of ,toulouse that such a thing must not happen again4 ,but although the ,french government might take a lukewarm view of the incident1 the people of ,france had been stirred to the very depths of their outraged souls4 ,and suddenly ,voltaire became aware that this was not the only miscarriage of justice on record1 that there were many others who had suffered as innocently as ,calas4 ,in the year #agfj a ,protestant country squire of the neighborhood of ,toulouse had offered the hospitality of his house to a visiting ,calvinist minister4 ,for this hideous crime he had been deprived of his estate and had been sent to the galleys for life4 ,he must have been a terribly strong man for thirteen years later he was still alive4 ,then ,voltaire was told of his plight4 ,he set to work1 got the unfortunate man away from the galleys1 brought him to ,switzerland where his wife and children were being supported by public charity and looked after the family until the crown was induced to surrender a part of the confiscated property and the family were given permission to return to their deserted homestead4 ,next came the case of ,chaumont1 a poor devil who had been caught at an open-air meeting of ,protestants and who for that crime had been dispatched to the galleys for an indeterminate period1 but who now1 at the intercession of ,voltaire1 was set free4 ,these cases1 however1 were merely a sort of grewsome hors d'uvre to what was to follow4 ,once more the scene was laid in ,languedoc1 that long suffering part of ,france which after the extermination of the ,albigensian and ,waldensian heretics had been left a wilderness of ignorance and bigotry4 ,in a village near ,toulouse there lived an old ,protestant by the name of ,sirven1 a most respectable citizen who made a living as an expert in medieval law1 a lucrative position at a time when the feudal judicial system had grown so complicated that ordinary rent-sheets looked like an income tax blank4 ,sirven had three daughters4 ,the youngest was a harmless idiot1 much given to brooding4 ,in ,march of the year #agfd she left her home4 ,the parents searched far and wide but found no trace of the child until a few days later when the bishop of the district informed the father that the girl had visited him1 had expressed a desire to become a nun and was now in a convent4 ,centuries of persecution had successfully broken the spirit of the ,protestants in that part of ,france4 ,sirven humbly answered that everything undoubtedly would be for the best in this worst of all possible worlds and meekly accepted the inevitable4 ,but in the unaccustomed atmosphere of the cloister1 the poor child had soon lost the last vestiges of reason and when she began to make a nuisance of herself1 she was returned to her own people4 ,she was then in a state of terrible mental depression and in such continual horror of voices and spooks that her parents feared for her life4 ,a short time afterwards she once more disappeared4 ,two weeks later her body was fished out of an old well4 ,at that time ,jean ,calas was up for trial and the people were in a mood to believe anything that was said against a ,protestant4 ,the ,sirvens1 remembering what had just happened to innocent ,jean ,calas1 decided not to court a similar fate4 ,they fled and after a terrible trip through the ,alps1 during which one of their grandchildren froze to death1 they at last reached ,switzerland4 ,they had not left a moment too soon4 ,a few months later1 both the father and the mother were found guilty 7in their absence7 of the crime of having murdered their child and were ordered to be hanged4 ,the daughters were condemned to witness the execution of their parents and thereafter to be banished for life4 ,a friend of ,rousseau brought the case to the notice of ,voltaire and as soon as the ,calas affair came to an end1 he turned his attention to the ,sirvens4 ,the wife meanwhile had died4 ,remained the duty of vindicating the husband4 ,it took exactly seven years to do this4 ,once again the tribunal of ,toulouse refused to give any information or to surrender any documents4 ,once more ,voltaire had to beat the tom-tom of publicity and beg money from ,frederick of ,prussia and ,catherine of ,russia and ,poniatowski of ,poland before he could force the crown to take an interest4 ,but finally1 in the seventy-eighth year of his own life and in the eighth year of this interminable lawsuit1 the ,sirvens were exonerated and the survivors were allowed to go back to their homes4 ,so ended the second case4 ,the third one followed immediately4 ,in the month of ,august of the year #agfe in the town of ,abbeville1 not far from ,amiens1 two crucifixes that stood by the side of the road were found broken to pieces by an unknown hand4 ,three young boys were suspected of this sacrilege and orders were given for their arrest4 ,one of them escaped and went to ,prussia4 ,the others were caught4 ,of these1 the older one1 a certain ,chevalier de la ,barre1 was suspected of being an atheist4 ,a copy of the ,philosophical ,dictionary1 that famous work to which all the great leaders of liberal thought had contributed1 was found among his books4 ,this looked very suspicious and the judges decided to look into the young man's past4 ,it was true they could not connect him with the ,abbeville case but had he not upon a previous occasion refused to kneel down and uncover while a religious procession went by8 ,de la ,barre said yes1 but he had been in a hurry to catch a stage-coach and had meant no offense4 ,thereupon he was tortured1 and being young and bearing the pain less easily than old ,calas1 he readily confessed that he had mutilated one of the two crucifixes and was condemned to death for 8impiously and deliberately walking before the ,host without kneeling or uncovering1 singing blasphemous songs1 tendering marks of adoration to profane books10 and other crimes of a similar nature which were supposed to have indicated a lack of respect for the ,church4 ,the sentence was so barbarous 7his tongue was to be torn out with hot irons1 his right hand was to be cut off1 and he was to be slowly burned to death1 and all that only a century and a half ago67 that the public was stirred into several expressions of disapproval4 ,even if he were guilty of all the things enumerated in the bill of particulars1 one could not butcher a boy for a drunken prank6 ,petitions were sent to the ,king1 ministers were besieged with requests for a respite4 ,but the country was full of unrest and there must be an example1 and de la ,barre1 having undergone the same tortures as ,calas1 was taken to the scaffold1 was decapitated 7as a sign of great and particular favor7 and his corpse1 together with his ,philosophical ,dictionary and some volumes by our old friend ,bayle1 were publicly burned by the hangman4 ,it was a day of rejoicing for those who dreaded the ever-growing influence of the ,sozzinis and the ,spinozas and the ,descartes4 ,it showed what invariably happened to those ill-guided young men who left the narrow path between the right and the wrong and followed the leadership of a group of radical philosophers4 ,voltaire heard this and accepted the challenge4 ,he was fast approaching his eightieth birthday1 but he plunged into the case with all his old zeal and with a brain that burned with a clear white flame of outraged decency4 ,de la ,barre had been executed for 8blasphemy40 ,first of all1 ,voltaire tried to discover whether there existed a law by which people guilty of that supposed crime could be condemned to death4 ,he could not find one4 ,then he asked his lawyer friends4 ,they could not find one4 ,and it gradually dawned upon the community that the judges in their unholy eagerness had 8invented0 this bit of legal fiction to get rid of their prisoner4 ,there had been ugly rumors at the time of de la ,barre's execution4 ,the storm that now arose forced the judges to be very circumspect and the trial of the third of the youthful prisoners was never finished4 ,as for de la ,barre1 he was never vindicated4 ,the review of the case dragged on for years and when ,voltaire died1 no decision had as yet been reached4 ,but the blows which he had struck1 if not for tolerance at least against intolerance1 were beginning to tell4 ,the official acts of terror instigated by gossiping old women and senile courts came to an end4 ,tribunals that have religious axes to grind are only successful when they can do their work in the dark and are able to surround themselves with secrecy4 ,the method of attack followed by ,voltaire was one against which such courts had no means of defense4 ,voltaire turned on all the lights1 hired a voluminous orchestra1 invited the public to attend1 and then bade his enemies do their worst4 ,as a result1 they did nothing at all4 ,,chapter ,,xxvi ,,the ,,encyclopedia ,there are three different schools of statesmanship4 ,the first one teaches a doctrine which reads somewhat as follows3 8,our planet is inhabited by poor benighted creatures who are unable to think for themselves1 who suffer mental agonies whenever they are obliged to make an independent decision and who therefore can be led astray by the first ward-heeler that comes along4 ,not only is it better for the world at large that these #8herd people' be ruled by some one who knows his own mind1 but they themselves1 too1 are infinitely happier when they do not have to bother about parliaments and ballot-boxes and can devote all their time to their work-shops1 their children1 their flivvers and their vegetable gardens40 ,the disciples of this school become emperors1 sultans1 sachems1 sheiks and archbishops and they rarely regard labor unions as an essential part of civilization4 ,they work hard and build roads1 barracks1 cathedrals and jails4 ,the adherents of the second school of political thought argue as follows3 8,the average man is ,god's noblest invention4 ,he is a sovereign in his own right1 unsurpassed in wisdom1 prudence and the loftiness of his motives4 ,he is perfectly capable of looking after his own interests1 but those committees through which he tries to rule the universe are proverbially slow when it comes to handling delicate affairs of state4 ,therefore1 the masses ought to leave all executive business to a few trusted friends who are not hampered by the immediate necessity of making a living and who can devote all their time to the happiness of the people40 ,needless to say the apostles of this glorious ideal are the logical candidates for the job of oligarch1 dictator1 first consul and ,lord protector4 ,they work hard and build roads and barracks1 but the cathedrals they turn into jails4 ,but there is a third group of people4 ,they contemplate man with the sober eye of science and accept him as he is4 ,they appreciate his good qualities1 they understand his limitations4 ,they are convinced from a long observation of past events that the average citizen1 when not under the influence of passion or self-interest1 tries really very hard to do what is right4 ,but they make themselves no false illusions4 ,they know that the natural process of growth is exceedingly slow1 that it would be as futile to try and hasten the tides or the seasons as the growth of human intelligence4 ,they are rarely invited to assume the government of a state1 but whenever they have a chance to put their ideas into action1 they build roads1 improve the jails and spend the rest of the available funds upon schools and universities4 ,for they are such incorrigible optimists that they believe that education of the right sort will gradually rid this world of most of its ancient evils and is therefore a thing that ought to be encouraged at all costs4 ,and as a final step towards the fulfillment of this ideal1 they usually write an encyclopedia4 ,like so many other things that give evidence of great wisdom and profound patience1 the encyclopedia-habit took its origin in ,china4 ,the ,chinese ,emperor ,k'ang-hi tried to make his subjects happy with an encyclopedia in five thousand and twenty volumes4 ,pliny1 who introduced encyclopedias in the west1 was contented with thirty-seven books4 ,the first fifteen hundred years of the ,christian era produced nothing of the slightest value along this line of enlightenment4 ,a fellow-countryman of ,saint ,augustine1 the ,african ,felix ,capella1 wasted a great many years of his life composing something which he held to be a veritable treasure house of miscellaneous knowledge4 ,in order that people might the more easily retain the many interesting facts which he presented to them1 he used poetry4 ,this terrible mass of misinformation was duly learned by heart by eighteen successive generations of medieval children and was held by them to be the last word in the fields of literature1 music and science4 ,two hundred years later a bishop of ,sevilla by the name of ,isidore wrote an entirely new encyclopedia and after that1 the output increased at the regular rate of two for every hundred years4 ,what has become of them all1 ,i do not know4 ,the book-worm 7most useful of domestic animals7 has possibly acted as our deliverer4 ,if all these volumes had been allowed to survive1 there would not be room for anything else on this earth4 ,when at last during the first half of the eighteenth century1 ,europe experienced a tremendous outbreak of intellectual curiosity1 the purveyors of encyclopedias entered into a veritable ,paradise4 ,such books1 then as now1 were usually compiled by very poor scholars who could live on eight dollars a week and whose personal services counted for less than the money spent upon paper and ink4 ,england especially was a great country for this sort of literature and so it was quite natural that ,john ,mills1 a ,britisher who lived in ,paris1 should think of translating the successful 8,universal ,dictionary0 of ,ephraim ,chambers into the ,french language that he might peddle his product among the subjects of good ,king ,louis and grow rich4 ,for this purpose he associated himself with a ,german professor and then approached ,lebreton1 the king's printer1 to do the actual publishing4 ,to make a long story short1 ,lebreton1 who saw a chance to make a small fortune1 deliberately swindled his partner and as soon as he had frozen ,mills and the ,teuton doctor out of the enterprise1 continued to publish the pirated edition on his own account4 ,he called the forthcoming work the 8,encyclopdie ou ,dictionnaire ,universel des ,arts et des ,sciences0 and issued a series of beautiful prospectuses with such a tremendous selling appeal that the list of subscribers was soon filled4 ,then he hired himself a professor of philosophy in the ,collge de ,france to act as his editor-in-chief1 bought a lot of paper and awaited results4 ,unfortunately1 the work of writing an encyclopedia did not prove as simple as ,lebreton had thought4 ,the professor produced notes but no articles1 the subscribers loudly clamored for ,volume ,i and everything was in great disorder4 ,in this emergency ,lebreton remembered that a 8,universal ,dictionary of ,medicine0 which had appeared only a few months before had been very favorably received4 ,he sent for the editor of this medical handbook and hired him on the spot4 ,and so it happened that a mere encyclopedia became the 8,encyclopdie40 ,for the new editor was no one less than ,denis ,diderot and the work which was to have been a hack job became one of the most important contributions of the eighteenth century towards the sum total of human enlightenment4 ,diderot at that time was thirty-seven years old and his life had been neither easy nor happy4 ,he had refused to do what all respectable young ,frenchmen were supposed to do and go to a university4 ,instead1 as soon as he could get away from his ,jesuit teachers1 he had proceeded to ,paris to become a man of letters4 ,after a short period of starvation 7acting upon the principle that two can go hungry just as cheaply as one7 he had married a lady who proved to be a terribly pious woman and an uncompromising shrew1 a combination which is by no means as rare as some people seem to believe4 ,but as he was obliged to support her1 he had been forced to take all sorts of odd jobs and to compile all sorts of books from 8,inquiries concerning ,virtue and ,merit0 to a rather disreputable rehash of ,boccaccio's 8,decameron40 ,in his heart1 however1 this pupil of ,bayle remained faithful to his liberal ideals4 ,soon the government 7after the fashion of governments during times of stress7 discovered that this inoffensive looking young author maintained grave doubts about the story of creation as rendered in the first chapter of ,genesis and otherwise was considerable of a heretic4 ,in consequence whereof ,diderot was conducted to the prison of ,vincennes and there held under lock and key for almost three months4 ,it was after his release from jail that he entered the service of ,lebreton4 ,diderot was one of the most eloquent men of his time4 ,he saw the chance of a lifetime in the enterprise of which he was to be the head4 ,a mere rehash of ,chambers' old material seemed entirely beneath his dignity4 ,it was an era of tremendous mental activity4 ,very well6 ,let the ,encyclopedia of ,lebreton contain the latest word upon every conceivable subject and let the articles be written by the foremost authorities in every line of human endeavor4 ,diderot was so full of enthusiasm that he actually persuaded ,lebreton to give him full command and unlimited time4 ,then he made up a tentative list of his coperators1 took a large sheet of foolscap and began1 8,a3 the first letter of the alphabet1 etc41 etc40 ,twenty years later he reached the ,z and the job was done4 ,rarely1 however1 has a man worked under such tremendous disadvantages4 ,lebreton had increased his original capital when he hired ,diderot1 but he never paid his editor more than five hundred dollars per year4 ,and as for the other people who were supposed to lend their assistance1 well1 we all know how those things are4 ,they were either busy just then1 or they would do it next month1 or they had to go to the country to see their grandmother4 ,with the result that ,diderot was obliged to do most of the work himself while smarting under the abuse that was heaped upon him by the officials of both the ,church and the ,state4 ,today copies of his ,encyclopedia are quite rare4 ,not because so many people want them but because so many people are glad to get rid of them4 ,the book which a century and a half ago was howled down as a manifestation of a pernicious radicalism reads today like a dull and harmless tract on the feeding of babies4 ,but to the more conservative element among the clergy of the eighteenth century1 it sounded like a clarion call of destruction1 anarchy1 atheism and chaos4 ,of course1 the usual attempts were made to denounce the editor-in-chief as an enemy of society and religion1 a loose reprobate who believed neither in ,god1 home or the sanctity of the family ties4 ,but the ,paris of the year #aggj was still an overgrown village where every one knew every one else4 ,and ,diderot1 who not only claimed that the purpose of life was 8to do good and to find the truth10 but who actually lived up to this motto1 who kept open house for all those who were hungry1 who labored twenty hours a day for the sake of humanity and asked nothing in return but a bed1 a writing desk and a pad of paper1 this simple-minded1 hard-working fellow was so shining an example of those virtues in which the prelates and the monarchs of that day were so conspicuously lacking1 that it was not easy to attack him from that particular angle4 ,and so the authorities contented themselves with making his life just as unpleasant as they possibly could by a continual system of espionage1 by everlastingly snooping around the office1 by raiding ,diderot's home1 by confiscating his notes and occasionally by suppressing the work altogether4 ,these obstructive methods1 however1 could not dampen his enthusiasm4 ,at last the work was finished and the 8,encyclopdie0 actually accomplished what ,diderot had expected of it--it became the rallying point for all those who in one way or another felt the spirit of the new age and who knew that the world was desperately in need of a general overhauling4 ,it may seem that ,i have dragged the figure of the editor slightly out of the true perspective4 ,who1 after all1 was this ,denis ,diderot1 who wore a shabby coat1 counted himself happy when his rich and brilliant friend1 the ,baron ,d',holbach1 invited him to a square meal once a week1 and who was more than satisfied when four thousand copies of his book were actually sold8 ,he lived at the same time as ,rousseau and ,d',alembert and ,turgot and ,helvtius and ,volney and ,condorcet and a score of others1 all of whom gained a much greater personal renown than he did4 ,but without the ,encyclopdie these good people would never have been able to exercise the influence they did4 ,it was more than a book1 it was a social and economic program4 ,it told what the leading minds of the day were actually thinking4 ,it contained a concrete statement of those ideas that soon were to dominate the entire world4 ,it was a decisive moment in the history of the human race4 ,france had reached a point where those who had eyes to see and ears to hear knew that something drastic must be done to avoid an immediate catastrophe1 while those who had eyes to see and ears to hear yet refused to use them1 maintained with an equal display of stubborn energy that peace and order could only be maintained by a strict enforcement of a set of antiquated laws that belonged to the era of the ,merovingians4 ,for the moment1 those two parties were so evenly balanced that everything remained as it had always been and this led to strange complications4 ,the same ,france which on one side of the ocean played such a conspicuous rle as the defender of liberty and freedom and addressed the most affectionate letters to ,monsieur ,georges ,washington 7who was a ,free ,mason7 and arranged delightful week-end parties for ,monsieur le ,ministre1 ,benjamin ,franklin1 who was what his neighbors used to call a 8sceptic0 and what we call a plain atheist1 this country on the other side of the broad ,atlantic stood revealed as the most vindictive enemy of all forms of spiritual progress and only showed her sense of democracy in the complete impartiality with which she condemned both philosopher and peasant to a life of drudgery and privation4 ,eventually all this was changed4 ,but it was changed in a way which no one had been able to foresee4 ,for the struggle that was to remove the spiritual and social handicaps of all those who were born outside the royal purple was not fought by the slaves themselves4 ,it was the work of a small group of disinterested citizens whom the ,protestants1 in their heart of hearts1 hated quite as bitterly as their ,catholic oppressors and who could count upon no other reward than that which is said to await all honest men in ,heaven4 ,the men who during the eighteenth century defended the cause of tolerance rarely belonged to any particular denomination4 ,for the sake of personal convenience they sometimes went through certain outward motions of religious conformity which kept the gendarmes away from their writing desks4 ,but as far as their inner life was concerned1 they might just as well have lived in ,athens in the fourth century ,b4,c4 or in ,china in the days of ,confucius4 ,they were often most regrettably lacking in a certain reverence for various things which most of their contemporaries held in great respect and which they themselves regarded as harmless but childish survivals of a bygone day4 ,they took little stock in that ancient national history which the western world1 for some curious reason1 had picked out from among all ,babylonian and ,assyrian and ,egyptian and ,hittite and ,chaldean records and had accepted as a guide-book of morals and customs4 ,but true disciples of their great master1 ,socrates1 they listened only to the inner voice of their own conscience and regardless of consequences1 they lived fearlessly in a world that had long since been surrendered to the timid4 ,,chapter ,,xxvii ,,the ,,intolerance ,,of ,,revolution ,the ancient edifice of official glory and unofficial misery known as the ,kingdom of ,france came crashing down on a memorable evening in the month of ,august of the year of grace #aghi4 ,on that hot and sultry night1 after a week of increasing emotional fury1 the ,national ,assembly worked itself into a veritable orgy of brotherly love4 ,until in a moment of intense excitement the privileged classes surrendered all those ancient rights and prerogatives which it had taken them three centuries to acquire and as plain citizens declared themselves in favor of those theoretical rights of man which henceforth would be the foundation-stone for all further attempts at popular self-government4 ,as far as ,france was concerned1 this meant the end of the feudal system4 ,an aristocracy which is actually composed of the 8aristoi10 of the best of the most enterprising elements of society1 which boldly assumes leadership and shapes the destinies of the common country1 has a chance to survive4 ,a nobility which voluntarily retires from active service and contents itself with ornamental clerical jobs in diverse departments of government is only fit to drink tea on ,fifth ,avenue or run restaurants on ,second4 ,the old ,france therefore was dead4 ,whether for better or for worse1 ,i do not know4 ,but it was dead and with it there passed away that most outrageous form of an invisible government which the ,church1 ever since the days of ,richelieu1 had been able to impose upon the anointed descendants of ,saint ,louis4 ,verily1 now as never before1 mankind was given a chance4 ,of the enthusiasm which at that period filled the hearts and souls of all honest men and women1 it is needless to speak4 ,the millennium was close at hand1 yea1 it had come4 ,and intolerance among the many other vices inherent in an autocratic form of government was for good and all to be eradicated from this fair earth4 ,allons1 enfants de la patrie1 the days of tyranny are gone6 ,and more words to that effect4 ,then the curtain went down1 society was purged of its many iniquities1 the cards were re-shuffled for a new deal and when it was all over1 behold our old friend ,intolerance1 wearing a pair of proletarian pantaloons and his hair brushed la ,robespierre1 a-sitting side by side with the public prosecutor and having the time of his wicked old life4 ,ten years ago he had sent people to the scaffold for claiming that authority maintaining itself solely by the grace of ,heaven might sometimes be in error4 ,now he hustled them to their doom for insisting that the will of the people need not always and invariably be the will of ,god4 ,a ghastly joke6 ,but a joke paid for 7after the nature of such popular fancies7 with the blood of a million innocent bystanders4 ,what ,i am about to say is unfortunately not very original4 ,one can find the same idea couched in different if more elegant words in the works of many of the ancients4 ,in matters pertaining to man's inner life there are1 and apparently there always have been1 and most likely there always will be two entirely different varieties of human beings4 ,a few1 by dint of endless study and contemplation and the serious searching of their immortal souls will be able to arrive at certain temperate philosophical conclusions which will place them above and beyond the common worries of mankind4 ,but the vast majority of the people are not contented with a mild diet of spiritual 8light wines40 ,they want something with a kick to it1 something that burns on the tongue1 that hurts the gullet1 that will make them sit up and take notice4 ,what that 8something0 is does not matter very much1 provided it comes up to the above-mentioned specifications and is served in a direct and simple fashion and in unlimited quantities4 ,this fact seems to have been little understood by historians and this has led to many and serious disappointments4 ,no sooner has an outraged populace torn down the stronghold of the past 7a fact duly and enthusiastically reported by the local ,herodoti and ,taciti71 than it turns mason1 carts the ruins of the former citadel to another part of the city and there remolds them into a new dungeon1 every whit as vile and tyrannical as the old one and used for the same purpose of repression and terror4 ,the very moment a number of proud nations have at last succeeded in throwing off the yoke imposed upon them by an 8infallible man0 they accept the dictates of an 8infallible book40 ,yea1 on the very day when ,authority1 disguised as a flunkey1 is madly galloping to the frontier1 ,liberty enters the deserted palace1 puts on the discarded royal raiment and forthwith commits herself to those selfsame blunders and cruelties which have just driven her predecessor into exile4 ,it is all very disheartening1 but it is an honest part of our story and must be told4 ,no doubt the intentions of those who were directly responsible for the great ,french upheaval were of the best4 ,the ,declaration of the ,rights of ,man had laid down the principle that no citizen should ever be disturbed in the peaceful pursuit of his ways on account of his opinion1 8not even his religious opinion10 provided that his ideas did not disturb the public order as laid down by the various decrees and laws4 ,this however did not mean equal rights for all religious denominations4 ,the ,protestant faith henceforth was to be tolerated1 ,protestants were not to be annoyed because they worshiped in a different church from their ,catholic neighbors1 but ,catholicism remained the official1 the 8dominant0 ,church of the state4 ,mirabeau1 with his unerring instinct for the essentials of political life1 knew that this far famed concession was only a half-way measure4 ,but ,mirabeau1 who was trying to turn a great social cataclysm into a one-man revolution1 died under the effort and many noblemen and bishops1 repenting of their generous gesture of the night of the fourth of ,august1 were already beginning that policy of obstructionism which was to be of such fatal consequence to their master the king4 ,and it was not until two years later in the year #agia 7and exactly two years too late for any practical purpose7 that all religious sects including the ,protestants and the ,jews1 were placed upon a basis of absolute equality and were declared to enjoy the same liberty before the law4 ,from that moment on1 the rles began to be reversed4 ,the constitution which the representatives of the ,french people finally bestowed upon an expectant country insisted that all priests of whatsoever faith should swear an oath of allegiance to the new form of government and should regard themselves strictly as servants of the state1 like the school-teachers and postal employees and light-house keepers and customs officials who were their fellow-citizens4 ,pope ,pius ,,vi objected4 ,the clerical stipulations of the new constitution were in direct violation of every solemn agreement that had been concluded between ,france and the ,holy ,see since the year #aeaf4 ,but the ,assembly was in no mood to bother about such little trifles as precedents and treaties4 ,the clergy must either swear allegiance to this decree or resign their positions and starve to death4 ,a few bishops and a few priests accepted what seemed inevitable4 ,they crossed their fingers and went through the formality of an oath4 ,but by far the greater number1 being honest men1 refused to perjure themselves and taking a leaf out of the book of those ,huguenots whom they had persecuted during so many years1 they began to say mass in deserted stables and to give communion in pigsties1 to preach their sermons behind country hedges and to pay clandestine visits to the homes of their former parishioners in the middle of the night4 ,generally speaking1 they fared infinitely better than the ,protestants had done under similar circumstances1 for ,france was too hopelessly disorganized to take more than very perfunctory measures against the enemies of her constitution4 ,and as none of them seemed to run the risk of the galleys1 the excellent clerics were soon emboldened to ask that they1 the non-jurors1 the 8refractory ones0 as they were popularly called1 be officially recognized as one of the 8tolerated sects0 and be accorded those privileges which during the previous three centuries they had so persistently refused to grant to their compatriots of the ,calvinist faith4 ,the situation1 for those of us who look back at it from the safe distance of the year #aibe1 was not without a certain grim humor4 ,but no definite decision was taken1 for the ,assembly soon afterwards fell entirely under the denomination of the extreme radicals and the treachery of the court1 combined with the stupidity of ,his ,majesty's foreign allies1 caused a panic which in less than a week spread from the coast of ,belgium to the shores of the ,mediterranean and which was responsible for that series of wholesale assassinations which raged from the second to the seventh of ,september of the year #agib4 ,from that moment on the ,revolution was bound to degenerate into a reign of terror4 ,the gradual and evolutionary efforts of the philosophers came to naught when a starving populace began to suspect that their own leaders were engaged in a gigantic plot to sell the country to the enemy4 ,the explosion which then followed is common history4 ,that the conduct of affairs in a crisis of such magnitude is likely to fall into the hands of unscrupulous and ruthless leaders is a fact with which every honest student of history is sufficiently familiar4 ,but that the principal actor in the drama should have been a prig1 a model-citizen1 a hundred-percenting paragon of ,virtue1 that indeed was something which no one had been able to foresee4 ,when ,france began to understand the true nature of her new master1 it was too late1 as those who tried in vain to utter their belated words of warning from the top of a scaffold in the ,place de la ,concorde could have testified4 ,thus far we have studied all revolutions from the point of view of politics and economics and social organization4 ,but not until the historian shall turn psychologist or the psychologist shall turn historian shall we really be able to explain and understand those dark forces that shape the destinies of nations in their hour of agony and travail4 ,there are those who hold that the world is ruled by sweetness and light4 ,there are those who maintain that the human race respects only one thing1 brute force4 ,some hundred years from now1 ,i may be able to make a choice4 ,this much1 however1 seems certain to us1 that the greatest of all experiments in our sociological laboratory1 the ,french revolution1 was a noisy apotheosis of violence4 ,those who had tried to prepare for a more humane world by way of reason were either dead or were put to death by the very people whom they had helped to glory4 ,and with the ,voltaires and ,diderots and the ,turgots and the ,condorcets out of the way1 the untutored apostles of the ,new ,perfection were left the undisputed masters of their country's fate4 ,what a ghastly mess they made of their high mission6 ,during the first period of their rule1 victory lay with the out-and-out enemies of religion1 those who had some particular reason to detest the very symbols of ,christianity2 those who in some silent and hidden way had suffered so deeply in the old days of clerical supremacy that the mere sight of a cassock drove them into a frenzy of hate and that the smell of incense made them turn pale with long forgotten rage4 ,together with a few others who believed that they could disprove the existence of a personal ,god with the help of mathematics and chemistry1 they set about to destroy the ,church and all her works4 ,a hopeless and at best an ungrateful task but it is one of the characteristics of revolutionary psychology that the normal becomes abnormal and the impossible is turned into an every day occurrence4 ,hence a paper decree of the ,convention abolishing the old ,christian calendar2 abolishing all saints' days2 abolishing ,christmas and ,easter2 abolishing weeks and months and re-dividing the year into periods of ten days each with a new pagan ,sabbath on every tenth4 ,hence another paper pronunciamento which abolished the worship of ,god and left the universe without a master4 ,but not for long4 ,however eloquently explained and defended within the bare rooms of the ,jacobin club1 the idea of a limitless and empty void was too repellent to most citizens to be tolerated for more than a couple of weeks4 ,the old ,deity no longer satisfied the masses4 ,why not follow the example of ,moses and ,mahomet and invent a new one that should suit the demands of the times8 ,as a result1 behold the ,goddess of ,reason6 ,her exact status was to be defined later4 ,in the meantime a comely actress1 properly garbed in ancient ,greek draperies1 would fill the bill perfectly4 ,the lady was found among the dancers of his late ,majesty's corps de ballet and at the proper hour was most solemnly conducted to the high altar of ,notre ,dame1 long since deserted by the loyal followers of an older faith4 ,as for the blessed ,virgin who1 during so many centuries1 had stood a tender watch over all those who had bared the wounds of their soul before the patient eyes of perfect understanding1 she too was gone1 hastily hidden by loving hands before she be sent to the limekilns and be turned into mortar4 ,her place had been taken by a statue of ,liberty1 the proud product of an amateur sculptor and done rather carelessly in white plaster4 ,but that was not all4 ,notre ,dame had seen other innovations4 ,in the middle of the choir1 four columns and a roof indicated a 8,temple of ,philosophy0 which upon state occasions was to serve as a throne for the new dancing divinity4 ,when the poor girl was not holding court and receiving the worship of her trusted followers1 the ,temple of ,philosophy harbored a 8,torch of ,truth0 which to the end of all time was to carry high the burning flame of world enlightenment4 ,the 8end of time0 came before another six months4 ,on the morning of the seventh of ,may of the year #agid the ,french people were officially informed that ,god had been restablished and that the immortality of the soul was once more a recognized article of faith4 ,on the eighth of ,june1 the new ,supreme ,being 7hastily constructed out of the second-hand material left behind by the late ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau7 was officially presented to his eager disciples4 ,robespierre in a new blue waistcoat delivered the address of welcome4 ,he had reached the highest point of his career4 ,the obscure law clerk from a third rate country town had become the high priest of the ,revolution4 ,more than that1 a poor demented nun by the name of ,catherine ,thot1 revered by thousands as the true mother of ,god1 had just proclaimed the forthcoming return of the ,messiah and she had even revealed his name4 ,it was ,maximilian ,robespierre2 the same ,maximilian who in a fantastic uniform of his own designing was proudly dispensing reams of oratory in which he assured ,god that from now on all would be well with ,his little world4 ,and to make doubly sure1 two days later he passed a law by which those suspected of treason and heresy 7for once more they were held to be the same1 as in the good old days of the ,inquisition7 were deprived of all means of defense1 a measure so ably conceived that during the next six weeks more than fourteen hundred people lost their heads beneath the slanting knife of the guillotine4 ,the rest of his story is only too well known4 ,as ,robespierre was the perfect incarnation of all he himself held to be ,good 7with a capital ,g7 he could1 in his quality of a logical fanatic1 not possibly recognize the right of other men1 less perfect1 to exist on the same planet with himself4 ,as time went by1 his hatred of ,evil 7with a capital ,e7 took on such proportions that ,france was brought to the brink of depopulation4 ,then at last1 and driven by fear of their own lives1 the enemies of ,virtue struck back and in a short but desperate struggle destroyed this ,terrible ,apostle of ,rectitude4 ,soon afterwards the force of the ,revolution had spent itself4 ,the constitution which the ,french people then adopted recognized the existence of different denominations and gave them the same rights and privileges4 ,officially at least the ,republic washed her hands of all religion4 ,those who wished to form a church1 a congregation1 an association1 were free to do so but they were obliged to support their own ministers and priests and recognize the superior rights of the state and the complete freedom of choice of the individual4 ,ever since1 the ,catholics and ,protestants in ,france have lived peacefully side by side4 ,it is true that the ,church never recognized her defeat1 continues to deny the principle of a division of state and church 7see the decree of ,pope ,pius ,,ix of ,december #hth1 #ahfd7 and has repeatedly tried to come back to power by supporting those political parties who hope to upset the republican form of government and bring back the monarchy or the empire4 ,but these battles are usually fought in the private parlors of some minister's wife1 or in the rabbit-shooting-lodge of a retired general with an ambitious mother-in-law4 ,they have thus far provided the funny papers with some excellent material but they are proving themselves increasingly futile4 ,,chapter ,,xxviii ,,lessing ,on the twentieth of ,september of the year #agib a battle was fought between the armies of the ,french ,revolution and the armies of the allied monarchs who had set forth to annihilate the terrible monster of insurrection4 ,it was a glorious victory1 but not for the allies4 ,their infantry could not be employed on the slippery hillsides of the village of ,valmy4 ,the battle therefore consisted of a series of solemn broadsides4 ,the rebels fired harder and faster than the royalists4 ,hence the latter were the first to leave the field4 ,in the evening the allied troops retreated northward4 ,among those present at the engagement was a certain ,johann ,wolfgang von ,goethe1 aide to the hereditary ,prince of ,weimar4 ,several years afterwards this young man published his memoirs of that day4 ,while standing ankle-deep in the sticky mud of ,lorraine1 he had turned prophet4 ,and he had predicted that after this cannonade1 the world would never be the same4 ,he had been right4 ,on that ever memorable day1 ,sovereignty by the grace of ,god was blown into limbo4 ,the ,crusaders of the ,rights of ,man did not run like chickens1 as they had been expected to do4 ,they stuck to their guns4 ,and they pushed those guns forward through valleys and across mountains until they had carried their ideal of 8,liberty1 ,equality and ,fraternity0 to the furthermost corners of ,europe and had stabled their horses in every castle and church of the entire continent4 ,it is easy enough for us to write that sort of sentence4 ,the revolutionary leaders have been dead for almost one hundred and fifty years and we can poke as much fun at them as we like4 ,we can even be grateful for the many good things which they bestowed upon this world4 ,but the men and women who lived through those days1 who one morning had gaily danced around the ,tree of ,liberty and then during the next three months had been chased like rats through the sewers of their own city1 could not possibly take such a detached view of those problems of civic upheaval4 ,as soon as they had crept out of their cellars and garrets and had combed the cobwebs out of their perukes1 they began to devise measures by which to prevent a reoccurrence of so terrible a calamity4 ,but in order to be successful reactionaries1 they must first of all bury the past4 ,not a vague past in the broad historical sense of the word but their own individual 8pasts0 when they had surreptitiously read the works of ,monsieur de ,voltaire and had openly expressed their admiration for the ,encyclopdie4 ,now the assembled works of ,monsieur de ,voltaire were stored away in the attic and those of ,monsieur ,diderot were sold to the junk-man4 ,pamphlets that had been reverently read as the true revelation of reason were relegated to the coal-bin and in every possible way an effort was made to cover up the tracks that betrayed a short sojourn in the realm of liberalism4 ,alas1 as so often happens in a case like that when all the literary material has been carefully destroyed1 the repentant brotherhood overlooked one item which was even more important as a telltale of the popular mind4 ,that was the stage4 ,it was a bit childish on the part of the generation that had thrown whole cartloads of bouquets at 8,the ,marriage of ,figaro0 to claim that they had never for a moment believed in the possibilities of equal rights for all men1 and the people who had wept over 8,nathan the ,wise0 could never successfully prove that they had always regarded religious tolerance as a misguided expression of governmental weakness4 ,the play and its success were there to convict them of the opposite4 ,the author of this famous key play to the popular sentiment of the latter half of the eighteenth century was a ,german1 one ,gotthold ,ephraim ,lessing4 ,he was the son of a ,lutheran clergyman and had studied theology in the ,university of ,leipzig4 ,but he had felt little inclination for a religious career and had played hooky so persistently that his father heard of it1 had told him to come home and had placed him before the choice of immediate resignation from the university or diligent application as a member of the medical department4 ,gotthold1 who was no more of a doctor than a clergyman1 promised everything that was asked of him1 returned to ,leipzig1 went surety for some of his beloved actor friends and upon their subsequent disappearance from town was obliged to hasten to ,wittenberg that he might escape arrest for debt4 ,his flight meant the beginning of a period of long walks and short meals4 ,first of all he went to ,berlin where he spent several years writing badly paid articles for a number of theatrical papers4 ,then he engaged himself as private secretary to a rich friend who was going to take a trip around the world4 ,but no sooner had they started than the ,seven ,years' war must break out4 ,the friend1 obliged to join his regiment1 had taken the first post-chaise for home and ,lessing1 once more without a job1 found himself stranded in the city of ,leipzig4 ,but he was of a sociable nature and soon found a new friend in the person of one ,eduard ,christian von ,kleist1 an officer by day and a poet by night1 a sensitive soul who gave the hungry ex-theologian insight into the new spirit that was slowly coming over this world4 ,but von ,kleist was shot to death in the battle of ,kunersdorf and ,lessing was driven to such dire extremes of want that he became a columnist4 ,then followed a period as private secretary to the commander of the fortress of ,breslau where the boredom of garrison life was mitigated by a profound study of the works of ,spinoza which then1 a hundred years after the philosopher's death1 were beginning to find their way to foreign countries4 ,all this1 however1 did not settle the problem of the daily ,butterbrod4 ,lessing was now almost forty years old and wanted a home of his own4 ,his friends suggested that he be appointed keeper of the ,royal ,library4 ,but years before1 something had happened that had made ,lessing persona non grata at the ,prussian court4 ,during his first visit to ,berlin he had made the acquaintance of ,voltaire4 ,the ,french philosopher was nothing if not generous and being a person without any idea of 8system0 he had allowed the young man to borrow the manuscript of the 8,century of ,louis ,,xiv10 then ready for publication4 ,unfortunately1 ,lessing1 when he hastily left ,berlin1 had 7entirely by accident7 packed the manuscript among his own belongings4 ,voltaire1 exasperated by the bad coffee and the hard beds of the penurious ,prussian court1 immediately cried out that he had been robbed4 ,the young ,german had stolen his most important manuscript1 the police must watch the frontier1 etc41 etc41 etc41 after the manner of an excited ,frenchman in a foreign country4 ,within a few days the postman returned the lost document1 but it was accompanied by a letter from ,lessing in which the blunt young ,teuton expressed his own ideas of people who would dare to suspect his honesty4 ,this storm in a chocolate-pot might have easily been forgotten1 but the eighteenth century was a period when chocolate-pots played a great rle in the lives of men and women and ,frederick1 even after a lapse of almost twenty years1 still loved his pesky ,french friend and would not hear of having ,lessing at his court4 ,and so farewell to ,berlin and off to ,hamburg1 where there was rumor of a newly to be founded national theater4 ,this enterprise came to nothing and ,lessing in his despair accepted the office of librarian to the hereditary grand duke of ,brunswick4 ,the town of ,wolfenbttel which then became his home was not exactly a metropolis1 but the grand-ducal library was one of the finest in all ,germany4 ,it contained more than ten thousand manuscripts and several of these were of prime importance in the history of the ,reformation4 ,boredom of course is the main incentive to scandal mongering and gossip4 ,in ,wolfenbttel a former art critic1 columnist and dramatic essayist was by this very fact a highly suspicious person and soon ,lessing was once more in trouble4 ,not because of anything he had done but on account of something he was vaguely supposed to have done1 to wit3 the publication of a series of articles attacking the orthodox opinions of the old school of ,lutheran theology4 ,these sermons 7for sermons they were7 had actually been written by a former ,hamburg minister1 but the grand duke of ,brunswick1 panic stricken at the prospect of a religious war within his domains1 ordered his librarian to be discreet and keep away from all controversies4 ,lessing complied with the wishes of his employer4 ,nothing1 however1 had been said about treating the subject dramatically and so he set to work to re-valuate his opinions in terms of the stage4 ,the play which was born out of this small-town rumpus was called 8,nathan the ,wise40 ,the theme was very old and ,i have mentioned it before in this book4 ,lovers of literary antiquities can find it 7if ,mr4 ,sumner will allow them7 in ,boccaccio's 8,decameron0 where it is called the 8,sad ,story of the ,three ,rings0 and where it is told as follows3 ,once upon a time a ,mohammedan prince tried to extract a large sum of money from one of his ,jewish subjects4 ,but as he had no valid reason to deprive the poor man of his property1 he bethought himself of a ruse4 ,he sent for the victim and having complimented him gracefully upon his learning and wisdom1 he asked him which of the three most widely spread religions1 the ,turkish1 the ,jewish and the ,christian1 he held to be most true4 ,the worthy patriarch did not answer the ,padishah directly but said1 8,let me1 oh great ,sultan1 tell you a little story4 ,once upon a time there was a very rich man who had a beautiful ring and he made a will that whichever of his sons at the time of his death should be found with that ring upon his finger should fall heir to all his estates4 ,his son made a like will4 ,his grandson too1 and for centuries the ring changed hands and all was well4 ,but finally it happened that the owner of the ring had three sons whom he loved equally well4 ,he simply could not decide which of the three should own that much valued treasure4 ,so he went to a goldsmith and ordered him to make two other rings exactly like the one he had4 ,on his death-bed he sent for his children and gave them each his blessing and what they supposed was the one and only ring4 ,of course1 as soon as the father had been buried1 the three boys all claimed to be his heir because they had ,the ,ring4 ,this led to many quarrels and finally they laid the matter before the ,kadi4 ,but as the rings were absolutely alike1 even the judges could not decide which was the right one and so the case has been dragged on and on and very likely will drag on until the end of the world4 ,amen40 ,lessing used this ancient folk-tale to prove his belief that no one religion possessed a monopoly of the truth1 that it was the inner spirit of man that counted rather than his outward conformity to certain prescribed rituals and dogmas and that therefore it was the duty of people to bear with each other in love and friendship and that no one had the right to set himself upon a high pedestal of self-assured perfection and say1 8,i am better than all others because ,i alone possess the ,truth40 ,but this idea1 much applauded in the year #aggh1 was no longer popular with the little princelings who thirty years later returned to salvage such goods and chattels as had survived the deluge of the ,revolution4 ,for the purpose of regaining their lost prestige1 they abjectly surrendered their lands to the rule of the police-sergeant and expected the clerical gentlemen who depended upon them for their livelihood to act as a spiritual militia and help the regular cops to restablish law and order4 ,but whereas the purely political reaction was completely successful1 the attempt to reshape men's minds after the pattern of fifty years before ended in failure4 ,and it could not be otherwise4 ,it was true that the vast majority of the people in all countries were sick and tired of revolution and unrest1 of parliaments and futile speeches and forms of taxation that had completely ruined commerce and industry4 ,they wanted peace4 ,peace at any price4 ,they wanted to do business and sit in their own front parlors and drink coffee and not be disturbed by the soldiers billeted upon them and forced to drink an odious extract of oak-leaves4 ,provided they could enjoy this blessed state of well-being1 they were willing to put up with certain small inconveniences such as saluting whoever wore brass buttons1 bowing low before every imperial letter-box and saying 8,sir0 to every assistant official chimney-sweep4 ,but this attitude of humble obedience was the result of sheer necessity1 of the need for a short breathing space after the long and tumultuous years when every new morning brought new uniforms1 new political platforms1 new police regulations and new rulers1 both of ,heaven and earth4 ,it would be erroneous1 however1 to conclude from this general air of subservience1 from this loud hurray-ing for the divinely appointed masters1 that the people in their heart of hearts had forgotten the new doctrines which the drums of ,sergeant ,le ,grand had so merrily beaten into their heads and hearts4 ,as their governments1 with that moral cynicism inherent in all reactionary dictatorships1 insisted chiefly upon an outward semblance of decency and order and cared not one whit for the inner spirit1 the average subject enjoyed a fairly wide degree of independence4 ,on ,sunday he went to church with a large ,bible under his arm4 ,the rest of the week he thought as he pleased4 ,only he held his tongue and kept his private opinions to himself and aired his views when a careful inspection of the premises had first assured him that no secret agent was hidden underneath the sofa or was lurking behind the tile stove4 ,then however he discussed the events of the day with great gusto and sadly shook his head when his duly censored1 fumigated and sterilized newspaper told him what new idiotic measures his masters had taken to assure the peace of the realm and bring about a return to the status quo of the year of grace #afjj4 ,what his masters were doing was exactly what similar masters with an imperfect knowledge of the history of human nature under similar circumstances have been doing ever since the year one4 ,they thought that they had destroyed free speech when they ordered the removal of the cracker-barrels from which the speeches that had so severely criticized their government had been made4 ,and whenever they could1 they sent the offending orators to jail with such stiff sentences 7forty1 fifty1 a hundred years7 that the poor devils gained great renown as martyrs1 whereas in most instances they were scatter-brained idiots who had read a few books and pamphlets which they had failed to understand4 ,warned by this example1 the others kept away from the public parks and did their grumbling in obscure wine shops or in the public lodging houses of overcrowded cities where they were certain of a discreet audience and where their influence was infinitely more harmful than it would have been on a public platform4 ,there are few things more pathetic in this world than the man upon whom the ,gods in their wisdom have bestowed a little bit of authority and who is in eternal fear for his official prestige4 ,a king may lose his throne and may laugh at a misadventure which means a rather amusing interruption of a life of dull routine4 ,and anyway he is a king1 whether he wears his valet's brown derby or his grandfather's crown4 ,but the mayor of a third rate town1 once he has been deprived of his gavel and his badge of office1 is just plain ,bill ,smith1 a ridiculous fellow who gave himself airs and who is now laughed at for his troubles4 ,therefore woe unto him who dares to approach such a potentate pro tem without visible manifestations of that reverence and worship due to so exalted a human being4 ,but those who did not stop at burgomasters1 but who openly questioned the existing order of things in learned tomes and handbooks of geology and anthropology and economics1 fared infinitely worse4 ,they were instantly and dishonorably deprived of their livelihood4 ,then they were exiled from the town in which they had taught their pernicious doctrines and with their wives and children were left to the charitable mercies of the neighbors4 ,this outbreak of the reactionary spirit caused great inconvenience to a large number of perfectly sincere people who were honestly trying to go to the root of our many social ills4 ,time1 however1 the great laundress1 has long since removed whatever spots the local police magistrates were able to detect upon the professorial garments of these amiable scholars4 ,today1 ,king ,frederick ,william of ,prussia is chiefly remembered because he interfered with the teachings of ,emanuel ,kant1 that dangerous radical who taught that the maxims of our own actions must be worthy of being turned into universal laws and whose doctrines1 according to the police reports1 appealed only to 8beardless youths and idle babblers40 ,the ,duke of ,cumberland has gained lasting notoriety because as ,king of ,hanover he exiled a certain ,jacob ,grimm who had signed a protest against 8,his ,majesty's unlawful abrogation of the country's constitution40 ,and ,metternich has retained a certain notoriety because he extended his watchful suspicion to the field of music and once censored the music of ,schubert4 ,poor old ,austria6 ,now that it is dead and gone1 all the world feels kindly disposed towards the 8gay empire0 and forgets that once upon a time it had an active intellectual life of its own and was something more than an amusing and well-mannered county-fair with excellent and cheap wine1 atrocious cigars and the most enticing of waltzes1 composed and conducted by no one less than ,johann ,strauss himself4 ,we may go even further and state that during the entire eighteenth century ,austria played a very important rle in the development of the idea of religious tolerance4 ,immediately after the ,reformation the ,protestants had found a fertile field for their operations in the rich province between the ,danube and the ,carpathian ,mountains4 ,but this had changed when ,rudolf ,,ii became emperor4 ,this ,rudolf was a ,german version of ,spanish ,philip1 a ruler to whom treaties made with heretics were of no consequence whatsoever4 ,but although educated by the ,jesuits1 he was incurably lazy and this saved his empire from too drastic a change of policy4 ,that came when ,ferdinand ,,ii was chosen emperor4 ,this monarch's chief qualification for office was the fact that he alone among all the ,habsburgs was possessed of a few sons4 ,early during his reign he had visited the famous ,house of the ,annunciation1 bodily moved in the year #abia by a number of angels from ,nazareth to ,dalmatia and hence to central ,italy1 and there in an outburst of religious fervor he had sworn a dire oath to make his country one-hundred-percent ,catholic4 ,he had been as good as his word4 ,in the year #afbi ,catholicism once more was proclaimed the official and exclusive faith of ,austria and ,styria and ,bohemia and ,silesia4 ,hungary having been meanwhile married into that strange family1 which acquired vast quantities of ,european real estate with every new wife1 an effort was made to drive the ,protestants from their ,magyar strongholds4 ,but backed up by the ,transylvanians1 who were ,unitarians1 and by the ,turks1 who were heathen1 the ,hungarians were able to maintain their independence until the second half of the eighteenth century4 ,and by that time a great change had taken place in ,austria itself4 ,the ,habsburgs were loyal sons of the ,church1 but at last even their sluggish brains grew tired of the constant interference with their affairs on the part of the ,popes and they were willing for once to risk a policy contrary to the wishes of ,rome4 ,in an earlier part of this book ,i have already told how many medieval ,catholics believed that the organization of the ,church was all wrong4 ,in the days of the martyrs1 these critics argued1 the ,church was a true democracy ruled by elders and bishops who were appointed by common consent of all the parishioners4 ,they were willing to concede that the ,bishop of ,rome1 because he claimed to be the direct successor of the ,apostle ,peter1 had been entitled to a favorite position in the councils of the ,church1 but they insisted that this power had been purely honorary and that the popes therefore should never have considered themselves superior to the other bishops and should not have tried to extend their influence beyond the confines of their own territory4 ,the popes from their side had fought this idea with all the bulls1 anathemas and excommunications at their disposal and several brave reformers had lost their lives as a result of their bold agitation for greater clerical decentralization4 ,the question had never been definitely settled1 and then during the middle of the eighteenth century1 the idea was revived by the vicar-general of the rich and powerful archbishop of ,trier4 ,his name was ,johann von ,hontheim1 but he is better known by his ,latin pseudonym of ,febronius4 ,hontheim had enjoyed the advantages of a very liberal education4 ,after a few years spent at the ,university of ,louvain he had temporarily forsaken his own people and had gone to the ,university of ,leiden4 ,he got there at a time when that old citadel of undiluted ,calvinism was beginning to be suspected of liberal tendencies4 ,this suspicion had ripened into open conviction when ,professor ,gerard ,noodt1 a member of the legal faculty1 had been allowed to enter the field of theology and had been permitted to publish a speech in which he had extolled the ideal of religious tolerance4 ,his line of reasoning had been ingenious1 to say the least4 8,god is allpowerful10 so he had said4 8,god is able to lay down certain laws of science which hold good for all people at all times and under all conditions4 ,it follows that it would have been very easy for him1 had he desired to do so1 to guide the minds of men in such a fashion that they all of them should have had the same opinions upon the subject of religion4 ,we know that ,he did not do anything of the sort4 ,therefore1 we act against the express will of ,god if we try to coerce others by force to believe that which we ourselves hold to be true40 ,whether ,hontheim was directly influenced by ,noodt or not1 it is hard to say4 ,but something of that same spirit of ,erasmian rationalism can be found in those works of ,hontheim in which he afterwards developed his own ideas upon the subject of episcopal authority and papal decentralization4 ,that his books were immediately condemned by ,rome 7in ,february of the year #agfd7 is of course no more than was to be expected4 ,but it happened to suit the interests of ,maria ,theresa to support ,hontheim and ,febronianism or ,episcopalianism1 as the movement which he had started was called1 continued to flourish in ,austria and finally took practical shape in a ,patent of ,tolerance which ,joseph ,,ii1 the son of ,maria ,theresa1 bestowed upon his subjects on the thirteenth of ,october of the year #agha4 ,joseph1 who was a weak imitation of his mother's great enemy1 ,frederick of ,prussia1 had a wonderful gift for doing the right thing at the wrong moment4 ,during the last two hundred years the little children of ,austria had been sent to bed with the threat that the ,protestants would get them if they did not go to sleep at once4 ,to insist that those same infants henceforth regard their ,protestant neighbors 7who1 as they all knew1 had horns and a long black tail71 as their dearly beloved brothers and sisters was to ask the impossible4 ,all the same1 poor1 honest1 hard working1 blundering ,joseph1 forever surrounded by a horde of uncles and aunts and cousins who enjoyed fat incomes as bishops and cardinals and deaconesses1 deserves great credit for this sudden outburst of courage4 ,he was the first among the ,catholic rulers who dared to advocate tolerance as a desirable and practical possibility of statecraft4 ,and what he did three months later was even more startling4 ,on the second of ,february of the year of grace #aghb he issued his famous decree concerning the ,jews and extended the liberty then only enjoyed by ,protestants and ,catholics to a category of people who thus far had considered themselves fortunate when they were allowed to breathe the same air as their ,christian neighbors4 ,right here we ought to stop and let the reader believe that the good work continued indefinitely and that ,austria now became a ,paradise for those who wished to follow the dictates of their own conscience4 ,i wish it were true4 ,joseph and a few of his ministers might rise to a sudden height of common sense1 but the ,austrian peasant1 taught since time immemorial to regard the ,jew as his natural enemy and the ,protestant as a rebel and a renegade1 could not possibly overcome that old and deep-rooted prejudice which told him to regard such people as his natural enemies4 ,a century and a half after the promulgation of these excellent ,edicts of ,tolerance1 the position of those who did not belong to the ,catholic ,church was quite as unfavorable as it had been in the sixteenth century4 ,theoretically a ,jew and a ,protestant could hope to become prime ministers or to be appointed commander-in-chief of the army4 ,and in practice it was impossible for them to be invited to dinner by the imperial boot-black4 ,so much for paper decrees4 ,,chapter ,,xxix ,,tom ,,paine ,somewhere or other there is a poem to the effect that ,god moves in a mysterious way1 his wonders to perform4 ,the truth of this statement is most apparent to those who have studied the history of the ,atlantic seaboard4 ,during the first half of the seventeenth century the northern part of the ,american continent was settled by people who had gone so far in their devotion to the ideals of the ,old ,testament that an unsuspecting visitor might have taken them for followers of ,moses1 rather than disciples of the words of ,christ4 ,cut off from the rest of ,europe by a very wide and very stormy and very cold expanse of ocean1 these pioneers had set up a spiritual reign of terror which had culminated in the witch-hunting orgies of the ,mather family4 ,now at first sight it seems not very likely that those two reverend gentlemen could in any way be held responsible for the very tolerant tendencies which we find expounded with such able vigor in the ,constitution of the ,united ,states and in the many documents that were written immediately before the outbreak of hostilities between ,england and her former colonies4 ,yet such is undoubtedly the case1 for the period of repression of the seventeenth century was so terrible that it was bound to create a furious reaction in favor of a more liberal point of view4 ,this does not mean that all the colonists suddenly sent for the collected works of ,socinius and ceased to frighten little children with stories about ,sodom and ,gomorrah4 ,but their leaders were almost without exception representatives of the new school of thought and with great ability and tact they infused their own conceptions of tolerance into the parchment platform upon which the edifice of their new and independent nation was to be erected4 ,they might not have been quite so successful if they had been obliged to deal with one united country4 ,but colonization in the northern part of ,america had always been a complicated business4 ,the ,swedish ,lutherans had explored part of the territory4 ,the ,french had sent over some of their ,huguenots4 ,the ,dutch ,arminians had occupied a large share of the land4 ,while almost every sort and variety of ,english sect had at one time or another tried to found a little ,paradise of its own in the wilderness between the ,hudson ,bay and the ,gulf of ,mexico4 ,this had made for a variety of religious expression and so well had the different denominations been balanced that in several of the colonies a crude and rudimentary form of mutual forbearance had been forced upon a people who under ordinary circumstances would have been forever at each other's throats4 ,this development had been very unwelcome to the reverend gentlemen who prospered where others quarreled4 ,for years after the advent of the new spirit of charity they had continued their struggle for the maintenance of the old ideal of rectitude4 ,they had achieved very little but they had successfully estranged many of the younger men from a creed which seemed to have borrowed its conceptions of mercy and kindliness from some of its more ferocious ,indian neighbors4 ,fortunately for our country1 the men who bore the brunt of battle in the long struggle for freedom belonged to this small but courageous group of dissenters4 ,ideas travel lightly4 ,even a little two-masted schooner of eighty tons can carry enough new notions to upset an entire continent4 ,the ,american colonists of the eighteenth century were obliged to do without sculpture and grand pianos1 but they did not lack for books4 ,the more intelligent among the people in the thirteen colonies began to understand that there was something astir in the big world1 of which they had never heard anything in their ,sunday sermons4 ,the booksellers then became their prophets4 ,and although they did not officially break away from the established church and changed little in their outer mode of life1 they showed when the opportunity offered itself that they were faithful disciples of that old prince of ,transylvania1 who had refused to persecute his ,unitarian subjects on the ground that the good ,lord had expressly reserved for himself the right to three things3 8,to be able to create something out of nothing2 to know the future2 and to dominate man's conscience40 ,and when it became necessary to draw up a concrete political and social program for the future conduct of their country1 these brave patriots incorporated their ideas into the documents in which they placed their ideals before the high court of public opinion4 ,it would undoubtedly have horrified the good citizens of ,virginia had they known that some of the oratory to which they listened with such profound respect was directly inspired by their arch-enemies1 the ,libertines4 ,but ,thomas ,jefferson1 their most successful politician1 was himself a man of exceedingly liberal views and when he remarked that religion could only be regulated by reason and conviction and not by force or violence2 or again1 that all men had an equal right to the free exercise of their religion according to the dictates of their conscience1 he merely repeated what had been thought and written before by ,voltaire and ,bayle and ,spinoza and ,erasmus4 ,and later when the following heresies were heard3 8that no declaration of faith should be required as a condition of obtaining any public office in the ,united ,states10 or 8that ,congress should make no law which referred to the establishment of religion or which prohibited the free exercise thereof10 the ,american rebels acquiesced and accepted4 ,in this way the ,united ,states came to be the first country where religion was definitely separated from politics2 the first country where no candidate for office was forced to show his ,sunday ,school certificate before he could accept the nomination2 the first country in which people could1 as far as the law was concerned1 worship or fail to worship as they pleased4 ,but here as in ,austria 7or anywhere else for that matter7 the average man lagged far behind his leaders and was unable to follow them as soon as they deviated the least little bit from the beaten track4 ,not only did many of the states continue to impose certain restrictions upon those of their subjects who did not belong to the dominant religion1 but the citizens in their private capacity as ,new ,yorkers or ,bostonians or ,philadelphians continued to be just as intolerant of those who did not share their own views as if they had never read a single line of their own ,constitution4 ,all of which was to show itself soon afterwards in the case of ,thomas ,paine4 ,tom ,paine rendered a very great service to the cause of the ,americans4 ,he was the publicity man of the ,revolution4 ,by birth he was an ,englishman2 by profession1 a sailor2 by instinct and training1 a rebel4 ,he was forty years old before he visited the colonies4 ,while on a visit to ,london he had met ,benjamin ,franklin and had received the excellent advice 8to go west40 ,in the year #aggd1 provided with letters of introduction from ,benjamin himself1 he had sailed for ,philadelphia and had helped ,richard ,bache1 the son-in-law of ,franklin1 to found a magazine1 the 8,pennsylvania ,gazette40 ,being an inveterate amateur politician1 ,tom had soon found himself in the midst of those events that were trying men's souls4 ,and being possessed of a singularly well-ordered mind1 he had taken hold of the ill-assorted collection of ,american grievances and had incorporated them into a pamphlet1 short but sweet1 which by a thorough application of 8common sense0 should convince the people that the ,american cause was a just cause and deserved the hearty coperation of all loyal patriots4 ,this little book at once found its way to ,england and to the continent where it informed many people for the first time in their lives that there was such a thing as 8an ,american nation0 and that it had an excellent right1 yea1 it was its sacred duty to make war upon the mother country4 ,as soon as the ,revolution was over1 ,paine went back to ,europe to show the ,english people the supposed absurdities of the government under which they lived4 ,it was a time when terrible things were happening along the banks of the ,seine and when respectable ,britishers were beginning to look across the ,channel with very serious misgivings4 ,a certain ,edmund ,burke had just published his panic-stricken 8,reflections on the ,french ,revolution40 ,paine answered with a furious counter-blast of his own called 8,the ,rights of ,man0 and as a result the ,english government ordered him to be tried for high treason4 ,meanwhile his ,french admirers had elected him to the ,convention and ,paine1 who did not know a word of ,french but was an optimist1 accepted the honor and went to ,paris4 ,there he lived until he fell under the suspicion of ,robespierre4 ,knowing that at any moment he might be arrested and decapitated1 he hastily finished a book that was to contain his philosophy of life4 ,it was called 8,the ,age of ,reason40 ,the first part was published just before he was taken to prison4 ,the second part was written during the ten months he spent in jail4 ,paine believed that true religion1 what he called 8the religion of humanity10 had two enemies1 atheism on the one hand and fanaticism on the other4 ,but when he gave expression to this thought he was attacked by every one and when he returned to ,america in #ahjb he was treated with such profound and relentless hatred that his reputation as a 8dirty little atheist0 has survived him by more than a century4 ,it is true that nothing happened to him4 ,he was not hanged or burned or broken on the wheel4 ,he was merely shunned by all his neighbors1 little boys were encouraged to stick their tongues out at him when he ventured to leave his home1 and at the time of his death he was an embittered and forgotten man who found relief for his anger in writing foolish political tracts against the other heroes of the ,revolution4 ,this seems a most unfortunate sequel to a splendid beginning4 ,but it is typical of something that has repeatedly happened during the history of the last two thousand years4 ,as soon as public intolerance has spent its fury1 private intolerance begins4 ,and lynchings start when official executions have come to an end4 ,,chapter ,,xxx ,,the ,,last ,,hundred ,,years ,twelve years ago it would have been quite easy to write this book4 ,the word 8,intolerance10 in the minds of most people1 was then almost exclusively identified with the idea of 8religious intolerance0 and when an historian wrote that 8so and so had been a champion of tolerance0 it was generally accepted that so and so had spent his life fighting the abuses of the ,church and the tyranny of a professional priesthood4 ,then came the war4 ,and much was changed in this world4 ,instead of one system of intolerance1 we got a dozen4 ,instead of one form of cruelty1 practiced by man upon his fellow-men1 we got a hundred4 ,and a society which was just beginning to rid itself of the horrors of religious bigotry was obliged to put up with the infinitely more painful manifestations of a paltry form of racial intolerance and social intolerance and a score of petty forms of intolerance1 the existence of which had not even been suspected a decade ago4 99 99 99 99 99 ,this seems very terrible to many good people who until recently lived in the happy delusion that progress was a sort of automatic time-piece which needed no other winding than their occasional approbation4 ,they sadly shake their heads1 whisper 8,vanity1 vanity1 all is vanity60 and mutter disagreeable things about the cussedness of the human race which goes everlastingly to school1 yet always refuses to learn4 ,until1 in sheer despair1 they join the rapidly increasing ranks of our spiritual defeatists1 attach themselves to this or that or the other religious institution 7that they may transfer their own burden to the back of some one else71 and in the most doleful tones acknowledge themselves beaten and retire from all further participation in the affairs of their community4 ,i don't like such people4 ,they are not merely cowards4 ,they are traitors to the future of the human race4 99 99 99 99 99 ,so far so good1 but what is the solution1 if a solution there be8 ,let us be honest with ourselves4 ,there is not any4 ,at least not in the eyes of a world which asks for quick results and expects to settle all difficulties of this earth comfortably and speedily with the help of a mathematical or medical formula or by an act of ,congress4 ,but those of us who have accustomed ourselves to consider history in the light of eternity and who know that civilization does not begin and end with the twentieth century1 feel a little more hopeful4 ,that vicious circle of despair of which we hear so much nowadays 78man has always been that way10 8man always will be that way10 8the world never changes10 8things are just about the same as they were four thousand years ago107 does not exist4 ,it is an optical illusion4 ,the line of progress is often interrupted but if we set aside all sentimental prejudices and render a sober judgment upon the record of the last twenty thousand years 7the only period about which we possess more or less concrete information7 we notice an indubitable if slow rise from a condition of almost unspeakable brutality and crudeness to a state which holds the promise of something infinitely nobler and better than what has ever gone before and even the ghastly blunder of the ,great ,war can not shake the firm conviction that this is true4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the human race is possessed of almost incredible vitality4 ,it has survived theology4 ,it due time it will survive industrialism4 ,it has lived through cholera and plague1 high heels and blue laws4 ,it will also learn how to overcome the many spiritual ills which beset the present generation4 99 99 99 99 99 ,history1 chary of revealing her secrets1 has thus far taught us one great lesson4 ,what the hand of man has done1 the hand of man can also undo4 ,it is a question of courage1 and next to courage1 of education4 99 99 99 99 99 ,that of course sounds like a platitude4 ,for the last hundred years we have had 8education0 driven into our ears until we are sick and tired of the word and look longingly back to a time when people could neither read nor write but used their surplus intellectual energy for occasional moments of independent thinking4 ,but when ,i here speak of 8education0 ,i do not mean the mere accumulation of facts which is regarded as the necessary mental ballast of our modern children4 ,rather1 ,i have in mind that true understanding of the present which is born out of a charitable and generous knowledge of the past4 ,in this book ,i have tried to prove that intolerance is merely a manifestation of the protective instinct of the herd4 ,a group of wolves is intolerant of the wolf that is different 7be it through weakness or strength7 from the rest of the pack and invariably tries to get rid of this offending and unwelcome companion4 ,a tribe of cannibals is intolerant of the individual who by his idiosyncrasies threatens to provoke the wrath of the ,gods and bring disaster upon the whole village and brutally relegates him or her to the wilderness4 ,the ,greek commonwealth can ill afford to harbor within its sacred walls a citizen who dares to question the very fundaments upon which the success of the community has been built and in a poor outburst of intolerance condemns the offending philosopher to the merciful death of poison4 ,the ,roman state cannot possibly hope to survive if a small group of well-meaning zealots is allowed to play fast and loose with certain laws which have been held indispensable ever since the days of ,romulus1 and much against her own will she is driven into deeds of intolerance which are entirely at variance with her age-old policy of liberal aloofness4 ,the ,church1 spiritual heir to the material dominions of the ancient ,empire1 depends for her continued existence upon the absolute and unquestioning obedience of even the humblest of her subjects and is driven to such extremes of suppression and cruelty that many people prefer the ruthlessness of the ,turk to the charity of the ,christian4 ,the great insurgents against ecclesiastical tyranny1 beset by a thousand difficulties1 can only maintain their rule if they show themselves intolerant to all spiritual innovations and scientific experiments and in the name of 8,reform0 they commit 7or rather try to commit7 the self-same mistakes which have just deprived their enemies of most of their former power and influence4 ,and so it goes throughout the ages until life1 which might be a glorious adventure1 is turned into a horrible experience and all this happens because human existence so far has been entirely dominated by fear4 99 99 99 99 99 ,for fear1 ,i repeat it1 is at the bottom of all intolerance4 ,no matter what form or shape a persecution may take1 it is caused by fear and its very vehemence is indicative of the degree of anguish experienced by those who erect the gallows or throw fresh logs upon the funeral pyre4 99 99 99 99 99 ,once we recognize this fact1 the solution of the difficulty immediately presents itself4 ,man1 when not under the influence of fear1 is strongly inclined to be righteous and just4 ,thus far he has had very few opportunities to practice these two virtues4 ,but ,i cannot for the life of me see that this matters overmuch4 ,it is part of the necessary development of the human race4 ,and that race is young1 hopelessly1 almost ridiculously young4 ,to ask that a certain form of mammal1 which began its independent career only a few thousand years ago should already have acquired those virtues which go only with age and experience1 seems both unreasonable and unfair4 ,and furthermore1 it warps our point of view4 ,it causes us to be irritated when we should be patient4 ,it makes us say harsh things where we should only feel pity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in the last chapters of a book like this1 there is a serious temptation to assume the rle of the prophet of woe and indulge in a little amateur preaching4 ,heaven forbid6 ,life is short and sermons are apt to be long4 ,and what cannot be said in a hundred words had better never be said at all4 99 99 99 99 99 ,our historians are guilty of one great error4 ,they speak of prehistoric times1 they tell us about the ,golden ,age of ,greece and ,rome1 they talk nonsense about a supposedly dark period1 they compose rhapsodies upon the tenfold glories of our modern era4 ,if perchance these learned doctors perceive certain characteristics which do not seem to fit into the picture they have so prettily put together1 they offer a few humble apologies and mumble something about certain undesirable qualities which are part of our unfortunate and barbaric heritage but which in due course of time will disappear1 just as the stage-coach has given way before the railroad engine4 ,it is all very pretty but it is not true4 ,it may flatter our pride to believe ourselves heir to the ages4 ,it will be better for our spiritual health if we know ourselves for what we are--contemporaries of the folks that lived in caves1 neolithic men with cigarettes and ,ford cars1 cliff-dwellers who reach their homes in an elevator4 ,for then and only then shall we be able to make a first step toward that goal that still lies hidden beyond the vast mountain ranges of the future4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to speak of ,golden ,ages and ,modern ,eras and ,progress is sheer waste of time as long as this world is dominated by fear4 ,to ask for tolerance1 as long as intolerance must of need be an integral part of our law of self-preservation1 is little short of a crime4 ,the day will come when tolerance shall be the rule1 when intolerance shall be a myth like the slaughter of innocent captives1 the burning of widows1 the blind worship of a printed page4 ,it may take ten thousand years1 it may take a hundred thousand4 ,but it will come1 and it will follow close upon the first true victory of which history shall have any record1 the triumph of man over his own fear4 ,westport1 ,connecticut ,july1 #ai1 #aibe