On the other hand, if the legislator has great moral weight, if those for whom he legislates have a great respect for him, the fact that he denounces and punishes a particular thing is a strong reason to his subjects for supposing that that thing is not right but wrong. Hence, if the legislator commits himself to a conflict with the conscience of his subjects, or any of them, he ought, in the first place, to have in view a perfectly clear and very great advantage. He ought, if possible, to be so much superior to those for whom he legislates in force and wisdom that his disapproval will carry with it great moral weight.

These rules, simple as they are, give the real solution of most of the common cases about the rights of conscience. Why not persecute religions which the majority of a nation consider erroneous ? Because the fact that they are conscientiously held -ie. that the reason of a large number of people, exercised on their sentiments, produces an habitual conviction of the duty of believing them-shows that the gain of exterminating them is doubtful, as they may be true; and that the certain evil to be incurred in the operation would be enormously great, because there would be so much resistance.

Why treat Thuggee and Suttee as crimes? Because the evil to be overcome is great and indisputable, and because it is so glaring that, if faced and denounced as being what it is, there is a strong probability that even those whose consciences now approve such practices will come to change their minds.

Why punish high treason as a crime, when it is often committed by virtuous men on the loftiest principles? Because destruction is to a government the greatest of all evils, and self-preservation the first of duties. Still the conscientious character of the offence mitigates it so far that, when the immediate danger is over, no one would wish to punish a traitor as one would punish a murderer. In short, the fact that anything whatever is in accordance with the consciences of a large body of people, is a matter to be considered by the legislator in the creation of rights respecting it, and is, generally speaking, one of the strongest possible reasons against hostile legislation, though it is only a reason like another which in particular cases may have to give way.

Next, consider the rights of conscience from the point of view of the systematic moralist. How does the fact that an act was prescribed by a given man's conscience affect its moral quality? Meaning by the morality of an act its consistency with the principle of utility, it is obvious that the morality of an act no more depends on the conscience of the agent than the time of day depends on his watch. Acts, however, are more frequently viewed by moralists, not so much in relation to any specific moral principle of this sort, as in relation to the light which they throw on the general character of the agent, and on the degree in which other men would love or hate him. Viewed in this light,

a conscientious act is, in all common cases, equivalent to a right act, but there is an indefinable line beyond which this is not true. Intellectual duties form a real and most important, though a grossly neglected, province of morality. Honesty, energy, and courage in the conduct of the mind, are of this number, and if a man's conscience is either crotchety, superstitious, or cowardly, this is positive proof that the man himself must have been either false, idle, or cowardly in his thoughts, and some degree of disapprobation and contempt is the appropriate punishment for these offences.

Lastly, take the individual point of view. My conscience prescribes this or that. Ought I to act upon it unreservedly, fearing as I do that my mind. will not be at peace unless I do so, whatever systematic moralists may say to the contrary? The answer is that no man's watch goes quite right, though the sun keeps time to a second. It is a question for every individual whether he will trust his neighbour's watch, which he can see only at a distance and indistinctly, and whether he can trust himself to take an observation. As to peace of mind, that is an advantage of which every man must measure the value and extent for himself. As a matter of fact, it is hardly probable that a habit fixed by the practice of many years, will alter itself to meet a particular opinion, formed with reference to a special set of circumstances.

XIX

THE TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWERS

THE question what is the nature of the distinction between the temporal and the spiritual powers, and what is the limit between their respective provinces, is one of those standing problems which slowly, but surely, solve themselves. It may be said of them, if of anything, Securus judicat orbis the world decides at leisure. From the days when Paganism first attacked Christianity to the days when the Popes aimed at creating a universal sovereignty in Europe, and from those days down to our own, there has been a steady change in the views of mankind upon the subject, which appears at last as if it were working towards a result which, at all events, is intelligible, although we do not think that its true character is always clearly conceived or well described by those who make most of it.

In our own time and country the controversy has almost come to an end, unless it happens to be revived by some dispute about the loyalty of Roman Catholics, but it is an exceedingly common topic

amongst a certain school of Continental writers. Many eminent Frenchmen take every opportunity of asserting the absolute necessity of the division of the two powers. They will say that the independence of the spiritual power in its own province is the great safeguard of society, against the State-worship which would otherwise overspread every department of life, that the Pope and the Church are the great protectors of the rights and freedom of the conscience, and that if the two powers got into the same hands, the result would be the most crushing and most ignominious of all forms of tyranny.

These principles are often supported by reference to history. It is said that, as a matter of fact, the division of the two powers was one of the great foundations of the liberties of modern Europe; that Hildebrand and Innocent III. and Thomas à Becket asserted the rights of conscience against brute force; and that in the present day, if we could only see and know it, the organisation of the Roman Catholic Church is one of the principal bulwarks existing in Europe against a degrading and heartless form of despotism.

This, and much more to the same purpose, is continually to be read in newspapers, in reviews, and in speeches and addresses proceeding from eminent men, and sometimes not only from Roman Catholics but from Protestants also. No doubt, however, it is the distinctive language of that interesting though not very powerful party which tries to unite Romanism and Liberalism.