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Untitled Article
The true test for ascertaining the liberality of any age or country is , to ofoserve the degree of temper and moderation exhibited on those topics by vVhich it is powerfully excited . I am afraid that if we are thus tried , it will be found that we have much to learn . I know that in considering political questions we must recollect that they are not merely speculative . If I
believe that I am oppressed by my adversary , the anger which is raised in my mind results from my view of his actions . It is true , that we do not sufficiently analyse our feelings ; we often carry the indignation which is justly felt towards one man whose actions
are bad , to another , whose only fault is agreeing with the first in political opinions . And this leads me to my last point .
Assuming , as I have done throughout , that opinion ought to be fettered by no legislative enactments , it still remains a question , how far we may in private Kfe discountenance doctrines which
appear to us pregnant with mischief , by shunning those who profess them . It must be admitted , that the rights of individuals and of society rest upon very different grounds . If I shun a man , he may find others to associate with him , whose tastes better agree with his , or who are less fastidious in the
choice of their companions ; but if society shun him by law , it must be either by banishing him , or by throwing him into prison . The opinions which he holds are either beneficial to societv or they are injurious , or they are neither the one
nor the other . If they are neutral , we may put them out of the account . Whether they are beneficial or injurious must be matter of experiment , and the proof will be found in the actions which spring from them . Now society can ajffhrd to try the experiment . It can patiently watch their
operation , and if they shall prove by their results to be injurious , it can punish the actions which arise from them , and guard against their spreading , by demonstrating the falsity of the
rect& judicandum : ut etiam obsit maxim £ ; labefactat enira jadicium caligmemque offundit oinnis auimi peiturbatio . —Aconivus . Lib . in .
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principles on which they are founded . On the other hand , if they prove beneficial , society is rewarded for its forbearance by the fruit which they yield . But an individual has not capital ( so to speak ) sufficient to enable him to act thus . If he imbibe false principles , and act upon them , he may be irretrievablv ruined . If a man should
be induced by a train of sophistry to entertain doctrines which should lead him to cheat his neighbour of a thousand pounds , the latter sustains a great injury , and the former is ruined . It is of little consequence to the present
supposition , whether or not the delinquent escapes a legal punishment ; he is lost to the enjoyment of real happiness—he is reduced to a state , from the contemplation of which we shrink , and that is all which the argument
requires . Society , however , is comparatively little injured—perhaps benefited . The fate of the deluded wretch has , perhaps , operated as a warning to others . At any rate , it has furnished proof to those who opposed the false doctrine ,
by which they may the more powerfull y resist it . From these considerations I deduce , that when I find a man holding opinions which appear to me to have a direct tendency to bad actions , I have
a right to shun him , both because I may be injured by his acts and seduced by his doctrines to injure others . But this reasoning evidently applies only to such opinions as have a clear influence on actions , and in all cases
it may be set aside by testimony of a safer kind . Thus if I find , after a complete inquiry , that a person professing doctrines which appear to me dangerous , has , nevertheless , passed a life of unimpeached virtue , I ought to conclude that my estimate of the
tendency of his opinions is mistaken : or if I cannot trace any pretty close connexion between his theory and mpral conduct , I ought not to suffer mere discrepancy of opinion to destroy my intercourse with a person whom I
have no other reason for avoiding . It is hardly necessary to say , that no one who confines himself to the society of those whose thoughts are only a reflex of his own , can rationally hope for improvement : but it is worthy of remark , that as the opinions of the corn-
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462 The Nonconformist . No . XXI .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1821, page 462, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2503/page/22/
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