that the great enemy of Christianity was Marcus Aurelius, a man of kindly temper, and of fearless, unflinching honesty, but whose reign was characterized by a persecution from which he would have refrained had he been less in earnest about the religion of his fathers.18 And to complete the argument, it may be added, that the last and one of the most strenuous of the opponents of Christianity, who occupied the throne of the Cæsars, was Julian; a prince of eminent probity, whose opinions are often attacked, but against whose moral conduct even calumny itself has hardly breathed a suspicion."

19

II. The second illustration is supplied by Spain; a country of which it must be confessed, that in no other have religious feelings exercised such sway over the affairs of men. No other European nation has produced so many ardent and disinterested missionaries, zealous self-denying martyrs, who have cheerfully sacrificed their lives in order to propagate truths which they thought necessary to be known. Nowhere else have the spirit

ual classes been so long in the ascendant; nowhere else are the people so devout, the churches so crowded, the clergy so numerous. But the sincerity and the honesty of purpose by which the Spanish people, taken as a whole, have always been marked, have not only been unable to prevent religious persecution, but have proved the means of encouraging it. If the nation had been more lukewarm, it would have been more tolerant. As it was,

Christian, makes Commodus a persecutor." Letters concerning the Thundering Legion, in Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 266, London, 1726. "Heliogabalus also, though in other respects the most infamous of all princes, and perhaps the most odious of all mortals, showed no marks of bitterness or aversion to the disciples of Jesus." Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. i. p. 66: see also Milman's History of Christianity, London, 1840, vol. ii. p. 225.

Dr. Milman (History of Christianity, 1840, vol. ii. p. 159) says, "A blameless disciple in the severest school of philosophic morality, the austerity of Marcus rivalled that of the Christians in its contempt of the follies and diversions of life; yet his native kindliness of disposition was not hardened or embittered by the severity or the pride of his philosophy. With Aurelius, nevertheless, Christianity found not only a fair and high-minded competitor for the command of the human mind; not only a rival in the exaltation of the soul of man to higher views and more dignified motives; but a violent and intolerant persecutor." M. Guizot compares him with Louis IX. of France; and certainly there was in both an evident connexion between sincerity and persecution: "Marc Aurèle et saint Louis sont peut être les deux seuls princes qui, en toute occasion, aient fait de leurs croyances morales la première règle de leur conduite: Marc Aurèle, stoicien; saint Louis, chrétien." Guizot, Civilisation en France, vol. iv. p. 142. Even Duplessis Mornay (Mém. vol. iv. p. 374) calls him "le meilleur des empereurs payens;" and Ritter (Hist. of Philos. vol. iv. p. 222), "the virtuous and noble emperor."

19 Neander (History of the Church, vol. i. p. 122) observes, that the best emperors opposed Christianity, and that the worst ones were indifferent to its encroachments. The same remark, in regard to Marcus and Commodus, is made by Gibbon; Decline and Fall, chap. xvi. p. 220, Lond. 1836. Another writer, of a very different character, ascribes this peculiarity to the wiles of the devil: "In the primitive times, it is observed that the best emperors were some of them stirred up by Satan to be the bitterest persecutors of the Church." Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 85.

the preservation of the faith became the first consideration; and every thing being sacrificed to this one object, it naturally happened that zeal begat cruelty, and the soil was prepared in which the Inquisition took root and flourished. The supporters of that barbarous institution were not hypocrites, but enthusiasts. Hypocrites are for the most part too supple to be cruel. For cruelty is a stern and unbending passion; while hypocrisy is a fawning and flexible art, which accommodates itself to human feelings, and flatters the weakness of men in order that it may gain its own ends. In Spain, the earnestness of the nation, being concentrated on a single topic, carried every thing before it; and hatred of heresy becoming a habit, persecution of heresy was thought a duty. The conscientious energy with which that duty was fulfilled is seen in the history of the Spanish Church. Indeed, that the inquisitors were remarkable for an undeviating and incorruptible integrity, may be proved in a variety of ways, and from different and independent sources of evidence. This is a question to which I shall hereafter return; but there are two testimonies which I cannot omit, because, from the circumstances attending them, they are peculiarly unimpeachable. Llorente, the great historian of the Inquisition, and its bitter enemy, had access to its private papers; and yet, with the fullest means of information, he does not even insinuate a charge against the moral character of the inquisitors; but while execrating the cruelty of their conduct, he cannot deny the purity of their intentions.20 Thirty years earlier, Townsend, a clergyman of the Church of England, published his valuable work on Spain;21 and though, as a Protestant and an Englishman, he had every reason to be prejudiced against the infamous system which he describes, he also can bring no charge against those who upheld it; but having occasion to mention its establishment at Barcelona, one of its most important branches, he makes the remarkable admission, that all its members are men of worth, and that most of them are of distinguished humanity.22

20

These facts, startling as they are, form a very small part of

By which, indeed, he is sorely puzzled. "On reconnaîtra mon impartialité dans quelques circonstances où je fais remarquer chez les inquisiteurs des dispositions généreuses; ce qui me porte à croire que les atroces sentences rendues par le SaintOffice, sont plutôt une conséquence de ses lois organiques, qu'un effet du caractère particulier de ses membres." Llorente, Histoire Critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne, vol. i. p. xxiii. compare vol. ii. pp. 267, 268, vol iv. p. 153.

21 Highly spoken of by the late Blanco White, a most competent judge. See Doblado's Letters from Spain, p. 5.

22 "It is, however, universally acknowledged, for the credit of the corps at Barcelona, that all its members are men of worth, and most of them distinguished for humanity." Townsend's Journey through Spain in 1786 and 1787, vol. i. p. 122, Lond. 1792.

that vast mass of evidence which history contains, and which decisively proves the utter inability of moral feelings to diminish religious persecution. The way in which the diminution has been really effected by the mere progress of intellectual acquirements, will be pointed out in another part of this volume; when we shall see that the great antagonist of intolerance is not humanity, but knowledge. It is to the diffusion of knowledge, and to that alone, that we owe the comparative cessation of what is unquestionably the greatest evil men have ever inflicted on their own species. For that religious persecution is a greater evil than any other, is apparent, not so much from the enormous and almost incredible number of its known victims, 23 as from the fact that the unknown must be far more numerous, and that history gives no account of those who have been spared in the body, in order that they might suffer in the mind. We hear much of martyrs and confessors-of those who were slain by the sword, or consumed in the fire; but we know little of that still larger number who, by the mere threat of persecution, have been driven into an outward abandonment of their real opinions; and who, thus forced into an apostasy the heart abhors, have passed the remainder of their lives in the practice of a constant and humiliating hypocrisy. It is this which is the real curse of religious persecution. For in this way, men being constrained to mask their thoughts, there arises a habit of securing safety by falsehood, and of purchasing impunity with deceit. In this way, fraud becomes a necessary of life; insincerity is made a daily custom; the whole tone of public feeling is vitiated, and the gross amount of vice and of error fearfully increased. Surely, then, we have reason to say, that, compared to this, all other crimes are of small account; and we may well be grateful for that increase of intellectual pursuits, which has destroyed an evil that some among us would even now willingly restore.

The principle I am advocating is of such immense importance in practice as well as in theory, that I will give yet

23 In 1546, the Venetian ambassador at the court of the Emperor Charles V. stated, in an official report to his own government on his return home, "that in Holland and in Friesland, more than 30,000 persons have suffered death at the hands of justice for Anabaptist errors." Correspondence of Charles V. and his Ambassadors, edited by William Bradford, Lond. 8vo, 1850, p. 471. In Spain, the Inquisition during the eighteen years of Torquemada's ministry, punished, according to the lowest estimate, upwards of 105,000 persons, of whom 8800 were burned. Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. p. 265. In Andalusia alone, during a single year, the Inquisition put to death 2000 Jews, "besides 17,000 who underwent some form of punishment less severe than that of the stake." Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, vol. i. p. 410. For other statistical evidence on this horrible subject, see Llorente, Histoire de l'Inquisition, vol. i. pp. 160, 229, 238, 239, 279, 280, 406, 407, 455, vol. ii. pp. 77, 116, 376, vol. iv. p. 31; and, above all, the summary at pp. 242-273.

another instance of the energy with which it works. The second greatest evil known to mankind-the one by which, with the exception of religious persecution, most suffering has been caused -is, unquestionably, the practice of war. That this barbarous pursuit is, in the progress of society, steadily declining, must be evident, even to the most hasty reader of European history." If we compare one century with another, we shall find that for a very long period, wars have been becoming less frequent; and now so clearly is the movement marked, that until the late commencement of hostilities, we had remained at peace for nearly forty years: a circumstance unparalleled, not only in our own country, but also in the annals of every other country which has been important enough to play a leading part in the affairs of the world.25 The question arises, as to what share our moral feelings have had in bringing about this great improvement. And if this question is answered, not according to preconceived opinions, but according to the evidence we possess, the answer will certainly be, that those feelings have had no share at all. For it surely will not be pretended that the moderns have made any discoveries respecting the moral evils of war. On this head, nothing is now known that has not been known for many centuries. That defensive wars are just, and that offensive wars are unjust, are the only two principles which, on this subject, moralists are able to teach. These two principles were as clearly laid down, as well understood, and as universally admitted, in the Middle Ages, when there was never a week without war, as they are at the present moment, when war is deemed a rare and singular occurrence. Since, then, the actions of men respecting war have been gradually changing, while their moral knowledge respecting it has not been changing, it is palpably evident, that the changeable effect has not been produced by the unchangeable cause. It is impossible to conceive an argument more decisive than this. If it can be proved that, during the last thousand years, moralists or theologians have pointed out a single evil caused by war, the existence of which was unknown to their predecessors,-if this can be proved, I will abandon the view for which I am contending. But if, as I most confidently assert, this cannot be proved, then it must be conceded, that, no ad

On the diminished love of war, which is even more marked than the actual diminution of war, see some interesting remarks in Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol. iv. pp. 488, 713, vol. vi. pp. 68, 424-436, where the antagonism between the military spirit and the industrial spirit is, on the whole, well worked out; though some of the leading phenomena have escaped the attention of this eminent philosopher, from his want of acquaintance with the history and present state of political economy.

In Pellew's Life of Sidmouth, 1847, vol. iii. p. 137, this prolonged peace is gravely ascribed to "the wisdom of the adjustment of 1815;" in other words, to the proceedings of the Congress of Vienna!

ditions having been made on this subject to the stock of morals, no additions can have been made to the result which the morals produce.26

Thus far as to the influence exercised by moral feelings in increasing our distaste for war. But if, on the other hand, we turn to the human intellect, in the narrowest sense of the term, we shall find that every great increase in its activity has been a heavy blow to the warlike spirit. The full evidence for this, I shall hereafter detail at considerable length; and in this Introduction I can only pretend to bring forward a few of those prominent points, which, being on the surface of history, will be at once understood.

Of these points, one of the most obvious is, that every important addition made to knowledge increases the authority of the intellectual classes, by increasing the resources which they have to wield. Now, the antagonism between these classes and the military class is evident; it is the antagonism between thought and action, between the internal and the external, between argument and violence, between persuasion and force; or to sum up the whole, between men who live by the pursuits of peace and those who live by the practice of war. Whatever, therefore, is favourable to one class, is manifestly unfavourable to the other. Supposing the remaining circumstances to be the same, it must happen, that as the intellectual acquisitions of a people increase, their love of war will diminish; and if their intellectual acquisitions are very small, their love of war will be very great.27 In perfectly barbarous countries, there are no in

26 Unless more zeal has been displayed in the diffusion of moral and religious principles; in which case it would be possible for the principles to be stationary, and yet their effects be progressive. But so far from this, it is certain that in the Middle Ages there were, relatively to the population, more churches than there are now; the spiritual classes were far more numerous, the proselyting spirit far more eager, and there was a much stronger determination to prevent purely scientific inferences from encroaching on ethical ones. Indeed, during the Middle Ages, the moral and religious literature outweighed all the profane literature put together; and surpassed it, not only in bulk, but also in the ability of its cultivators. Now, however, the generalizations of moralists have ceased to control the affairs of men, and have made way for the larger doctrine of expediency, which includes all interests and all classes. Systematic writers on morals reached their zenith in the thirteenth century; fell off rapidly after that period; were, as Coleridge well says, opposed by "the genius of Protestantism;" and, by the end of the seventeenth century became extinct in the most civilized countries; the Ductor Dubitantium of Jeremy Taylor being the last comprehensive attempt of a man of genius to mould society solely according to the maxims of moralists. Compare two interesting passages in Mosheim's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. i. p. 338, and Coleridge's Friend, vol. iii. P. 104.

27 Herder boldly asserts that man originally, and by virtue of his organization, is peaceably disposed; but this opinion is decisively refuted by the immense additions which, since the time of Herder, have been made to our knowledge of the feelings and habits of savages. "Indessen ist's wahr, dass der Bau des Menschen vorzüglich auf die Vertheidigung, nicht auf den Angriff gerichtet ist in diesem