DECLINE OF POLITICAL FETISHISM. 333 "Give us our eleven days," obviously implied minds incapable of conceiving social affairs to be regulated by other than visible, tangible agencies. That there should be at work some unseen but universally-diffused influence determining the buyings and sellings of citizens and the transactions of merchants from abroad, in a way the most advantageous to all parties, was an idea as foreign to such minds as was that of uniform physical causation to the primitive Greeks;* and, conversely, as the primitive Greeks could understand the operations of nature being performed by a number of presiding individualities so to the people of the middle ages it was comprehensible that a proper production and distribution of commodities should be ensured by acts of Parliament and government officials. Whilst the due regulation of trade by a natural indestructible force was inconceivable to them, they could conceive trade to be duly regulated by a force resident in some material instrumentality put together by legislators, clothed in the robes of office, painted by court flatterers, and decorated with "jewels five words long."t But with the complex phenomena of commerce, as with the simpler phenomena of the inorganic world, constancy of sequence has gradually undermined the theory that power dwells in entities. Irresistible evidence is at length establishing a belief in the law of supply and demand, as some thousands of years ago it established a belief in the law of gravitation. And the development of politico-economical science, being thus a further conquest of the faith in impersonal agencies over the faith in personal agencies, must be regarded as one of that series of changes which commenced with the first victory of natural philosophy over superstition. * Sce Grote's History. A metaphor that has been used to denote the pride with which the German officials regard their titles. 4. Fortunately it is now needless to enforce the doctrine of commercial freedom by any considerations of policy. After making continual attempts to improve upon the laws of trade, from the time of Solon downwards, men are at length beginning to see that such attempts are worse than useless. Political economy has shown us in this matter-what indeed it is its chief mission to show that our wisest plan is to let things take their own course. An increasing sense of justice, too, has assisted in convincing us. We have here learned, what our forefathers learned in some cases, and what, alas! we have yet to learn in many more, that nothing but evil can arise from inequitable regulations. The necessity of respecting the principles of abstract rectitude-this it is that we have had another lesson upon. Look at it rightly and we shall find that all the Anti-Corn-Law League did, with its lectures, its newspapers, its bazaars, its monster meetings, and its tons of tracts, was to teach people—what should have been very clear to them without any such teaching-that no good can come of violating men's rights. By bitter experience and a world of talk we have at length been made partially to believe as much. Be it true or not in other cases, we are now quite certain that it is true in trade. In respect to this at least we have declared that, for the future, we will obey the law of equal freedom. CHAPTER XXIV. RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 1. As a matter of routine, it is needful here to point out what the reader will have inferred from Chap. XXII., that, by devoting a portion of its revenues or a ALL STATE-CHURCHES ESSENTIALLY POPISH 335 part of the nation's property to the propagation of Chris tianity or any other creed, a government necessarily commits a wrong. If, as with ourselves, such government forcibly takes a citizen's money for the support of a national church, it is guilty of infringing the rights it ought to maintain-of trespassing upon that freedom to exercise the faculties which it was commissioned to guard. For, as already shown, by diminishing a subject's liberty of action more than is needful for securing the remainder, the civil power becomes an aggressor instead of a protector. If, on the other hand, the right to ignore the state is recognized, as, in considering the question abstractedly, we must suppose it to be, then, by insisting upon conditions which drive some men to abandon its aid, and which unnecessarily restrict the freedom of those who do not, the state fails to that extent in discharging its duty. Hence, specifically applying the principle lately set forth in general terms, we find that a government cannot undertake the teaching of a religious faith without either directly reversing its function, or partially incapacitating itself for the performance of that function. § 2. In the conduct of English churchmen we have a curious illustration of the way in which men will readopt, when it is thinly disguised, a belief they had indig nantly cast from them. That same Romish dogmatism, against which our clergy exclaim with such vehemence, they themselves defend when it is exercised on behalf of their own creed. Every state-church is essentially popish. We also have a Vatican-St. Stephen's. It is true that our arch-priest is a composite one. It is true that with us the triple tiara is separated into its parts-one for monarch, one for peers, and one for commons. But this fact makes no difference. In substance, popery is the assumption of infallibility. It matters not in principle whether this assumption is made by one man, or by an assembly of men. No doubt the astounding announcement-" You must believe what we say is right, and not what you think is right,” comes less offensively from the lips of a parliamentary majority than from those of a single individual. But there still arises the question-By what authority do these men assert this? Whence do they derive their infallibility? That in establishing any religion a government docs claim to be infallible, scarcely needs proof. Before a church organization can be set to work, a distinct understanding as to what it is to do must be arrived at. Before state-paid ministers can be set to preach, it must first be decided what they are to preach. And who is to say? Clearly the state. Either it must itself elaborate a creed, or it must depute some man or men to do so. It must in some way sift out truth from error, and cannot escape the responsibility attending this. If it undertakes itself to settle the doctrines to be taught, it is responsible. If it adopts a ready-made set of doctrines, it is equally respon sible. And if it selects its doctrines by proxy, it is still responsible; both as appointing those who choose for it, and as approving their choice. Hence, to say that a government ought to set up and maintain a system of religious instruction, is to say that it ought to pick out from amongst the various tenets that men hold or have held, those which are right; and that, when it has done thiswhen it has settled between the Roman Catholic, the Greek, the Lutheran, and the Anglican creeds, or between the Puseyite, High Church, and Evangelical ones-when it has decided whether we should be baptized during infancy or at a mature age, whether the truth is with Trinitarians or Unitarians, whether men are saved by faith or by works, whether pagans go to hell or not, whether min isters should preach in black or white, whether confirma tion is scriptural, whether or not saints' days should be THE ASSUMPTION OF INFALLIBILITY. 337 kept, and (as we have lately seen it debating) whether baptism does or does not regenerate-when, in short, it has settled all those controversies which have split mankind into innumerable sects, it ought to assert that its judgment is incapable of error-is unquestionable-is beyond appeal. There is no alternative. Unless the state says this, it convicts itself of the most absurd inconsistency. Only on the supposition of infallibility can its ecclesiastical doings be made to seem tolerable. How else shall it demand rates and tithes of the dissenter? What answer can it make to his expostulations? "Are you quite sure about these doctrines of yours?" inquires the dissenter. "No," replies the state; "not quite sure, but nearly so." "Then it is just possible you may be wrong, is it not?" "Yes." "And it is just possible that I may be right, is it not?" "Yes." "Yet you threaten to inflict penalties upon me for nonconformity! You seizo my goods; you imprison me if I resist; and all to force. from me the means to preach up doctrines which you admit may be false, and by implication to preach down doctrines which you admit may be true! How do you justify this?" No reply. Evidently, therefore, if the state persists, the only position open to it is that its judg ment cannot be mistaken-that its doctrines cannot be erroneous. And now observe, that if it says this, it stands committed to the whole Roman Catholic discipline as well as to its theory. Having a creed that is beyond the possibility of doubt, and being commissioned to disseminate that creed, the state is in duty bound to employ the most efficient means of doing this-is bound to put down all adverse teachers, as usurping its function and hindering the reception of its unquestionable doctrine-is bound to use as much force as may be needful for doing this-is bound, therefore, to imprison, to fine, and if necessary, to inflict severer penalties, so that error may be exterminated |