Just that sort of peace which subsists between the housebreaker and the householder, when the one has bound the other hand and foot, and gagged him.It is not to be denied but that there may be some sort of uneasiness between them in the first mentioned state of things; to wit, where, neither of them being sacrificed, they are both at liberty, and both of them protected.
But what sort of uneasiness is this? Just that sort of uneasiness which may perhaps subsist between two neighbours at the thought that neither of them can break into the other's house.Against this sort of uneasiness, peace, it must be confessed, affords no remedy: but, from the possibility of there subsisting this sort of uneasiness between two neighbours, or two nations, whoever thought of speaking of them as not being at peace?
If this method of insuring peace were good in one case, how should it be otherwise in any other? Religion, or rather the nonsense which has been grafted on it---(for the part that is capable of being made useful is not thus exposed to controversy)---religion, I say, is not the only topic which has given rise to controversy.So long as there is any man whose knowledge falls short of omniscience, and whose faculties are liable to error, men ill bare their differences: they will differ about matters of judgment, and about matters of taste---about the sciences, about the arts, about the ordinary occurrences of life; in short, about everything which has a name.It would then be making peace among the lovers of music to make them swear before God, that they think the Italian style, or that they think the French style, of music is the more pleasing; among the lovers of heroic poetry, that they think it best in blank verse, or that they think it best in rhyme; among the lovers of dramatic poetry, that the unities of time and place may be dispensed with, or that they must be observed.
It would be making peace between an affectionate pair, to question them about every possible point of domestic management, till some slight diversity were found in their opinions, and then force one of them to swear, before God, that he was convinced his own opinion was the wrong one.It would be making peace---But surely by this time, the pacific tendency of this policy must be sufficiently understood.
Another mischievous effect of this policy is the tendency it has to vitiate the understanding.Over a man's genuine opinion, such forms, it has been shown, can have no influence: either his veracity must give way, or his understanding, or both: he must deceive either himself or others.A deceit of some kind or other he must put on somebody; either on himself or others.There is one thing which a man cannot do; that is, destroy the force of arguments which are actually present to his mind.There is another thing which he is enabled to do in a great measure, that is, keep them from getting there.This, accordingly, is what, if the consciousness of falsehood sit uneasy on him, he will labour to do with all his might.To believe, is not in his power: for, when all the arguments that have ever been urged, or can be devised, in favour of the proposition, are collected and applied to his mind, and make no impression, what help is there? What may perhaps be in his power is, not to disbelieve:
and that, if possible, he will do.But thus to shut the right eye, if one may so say, of the understanding, and keep open only the left, is not the work of a minute nor of an hour.He must make many ineffectual attacks, and return as often to the charge: he must wage war against the stubbornness of the understanding---he must bring it under the dominion of the affections---he must debilitate its powers---he must render it incapable of placing, in a clear light, the difference between right and wrong: in a word, he must instill into his mind a settled habit of partiality and bad reasoning---a habit of embracing falsehood with facility, and regarding truth, not with indifference merely, but with suspicion, in the apprehension of being brought by it into trouble.
One might imagine, that it could not have both these bad effects at once; that if it have the one, it cannot have the other: if a man disbelieve, his understanding---if he believe, his morals,---are yet safe.But whoever thinks thus, is led away by words: he does not understand aright the workings of the human mind.He supposes the mind fixed as between two rocks; whereas it is perpetually shaken and tossed about, as by a thousand waves.He supposes a man at all times perfectly conscious of the state of his own mind, aware of the momenta and directions of the incessantly fluctuating forces that are operating on him.But this is not the case with one man in a million, in any the least degree; nor perhaps with any man in perfection.Thus it is also with hypocrisy and fanaticism: it might naturally be imagined, that the one excludes the other; but repeated experience, and long continued observation, have at length opened the eyes of most men upon that head: and it seems now to be pretty generally understood that these two seemingly incompatible bad qualities are found frequently in the same receptacle.
