This exchange by Sam Johnson and dinner guests is apt:
JOHNSON. ‘Every society has a right to preserve publick peace and order, and therefore has a good right to prohibit the propagation of opinions which have a dangerous tendency. To say the MAGISTRATE has this right, is using an inadequate word: it is the SOCIETY for which the magistrate is agent. He may be morally or theologically wrong in restraining the propagation of opinions which he thinks dangerous, but he is politically right.’
MAYO. ‘I am of opinion, Sir, that every man is entitled to liberty of conscience in religion; and that the magistrate cannot restrain that right.’
JOHNSON. ‘Sir, I agree with you. Every man has a right to liberty of conscience, and with that the magistrate cannot interfere. People confound liberty of thinking with liberty of talking; nay, with liberty of preaching. Every man has a physical right to think as he pleases; for it cannot be discovered how he thinks. He has not a moral right, for he ought to inform himself, and think justly. But, Sir, no member of a society has a right to TEACH any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true. The magistrate, I say, may be wrong in what he thinks: but while he thinks himself right, he may and ought to enforce what he thinks.’
MAYO. ‘Then, Sir, we are to remain always in errour, and truth never can prevail; and the magistrate was right in persecuting the first Christians.’
JOHNSON. ‘Sir, the only method by which religious truth can be established is by martyrdom. The magistrate has a right to enforce what he thinks; and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer. I am afraid there is no other way of ascertaining the truth, but by persecution on the one hand and enduring it on the other.’
GOLDSMITH. ‘But how is a man to act, Sir? Though firmly convinced of the truth of his doctrine, may he not think it wrong to expose himself to persecution? Has he a right to do so? Is it not, as it were, committing voluntary suicide?’
JOHNSON. ‘Sir, as to voluntary suicide, as you call it, there are twenty thousand men in an army who will go without scruple to be shot at, and mount a breach for five-pence a day.’
GOLDSMITH. ‘But have they a moral right to do this?’
JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, if you will not take the universal opinion of mankind, I have nothing to say. If mankind cannot defend their own way of thinking, I cannot defend it. Sir, if a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.’
GOLDSMITH. ‘I would consider whether there is the greater chance of good or evil upon the whole. If I see a man who had fallen into a well, I would wish to help him out; but if there is a greater probability that he shall pull me in, than that I shall pull him out, I would not attempt it. So were I to go to Turkey, I might wish to convert the Grand Signor to the Christian faith; but when I considered that I should probably be put to death without effectuating my purpose in any degree, I should keep myself quiet.’
JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you must consider that we have perfect and imperfect obligations. Perfect obligations, which are generally not to do something, are clear and positive; as, “thou shalt not kill?’ But charity, for instance, is not definable by limits. It is a duty to give to the poor; but no man can say how much another should give to the poor, or when a man has given too little to save his soul. In the same manner it is a duty to instruct the ignorant, and of consequence to convert infidels to Christianity; but no man in the common course of things is obliged to carry this to such a degree as to incur the danger of martyrdom, as no man is obliged to strip himself to the shirt in order to give charity. I have said, that a man must be persuaded that he has a particular delegation from heaven.’
GOLDSMITH. ‘How is this to be known? Our first reformers, who were burnt for not believing bread and wine to be CHRIST’—
JOHNSON. (interrupting him,) ‘Sir, they were not burnt for not believing bread and wine to be CHRIST, but for insulting those who did believe it. And, Sir, when the first reformers began, they did not intend to be martyred: as many of them ran away as could.’
BOSWELL. ‘But, Sir, there was your countryman, Elwal, who you told me challenged King George with his black-guards, and his red-guards.’
JOHNSON. ‘My countryman, Elwal, Sir, should have been put in the stocks; a proper pulpit for him; and he’d have had a numerous audience. A man who preaches in the stocks will always have hearers enough.’
BOSWELL. ‘But Elwal thought himself in the right.’
JOHNSON. ‘We are not providing for mad people; there are places for them in the neighbourhood.’ (meaning moorfields.)
MAYO. ‘But, Sir, is it not very hard that I should not be allowed to teach my children what I really believe to be the truth?’
JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, you might contrive to teach your children extra scandalum; but, Sir, the magistrate, if he knows it, has a right to restrain you. Suppose you teach your children to be thieves?’
MAYO. ‘This is making a joke of the subject.’
JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, take it thus:—that you teach them the community of goods; for which there are as many plausible arguments as for most erroneous doctrines. You teach them that all things at first were in common, and that no man had a right to any thing but as he laid his hands upon it; and that this still is, or ought to be, the rule amongst mankind. Here, Sir, you sap a great principle in society,—property. And don’t you think the magistrate would have a right to prevent you? Or, suppose you should teach your children the notion of the Adamites, and they should run naked into the streets, would not the magistrate have a right to flog ’em into their doublets?’ MAYO. ‘I think the magistrate has no right to interfere till there is some overt act.’
BOSWELL. ‘So, Sir, though he sees an enemy to the state charging a blunderbuss, he is not to interfere till it is fired off?’
MAYO. ‘He must be sure of its direction against the state.’
JOHNSON. ‘The magistrate is to judge of that.—He has no right to restrain your thinking, because the evil centers in yourself. If a man were sitting at this table, and chopping off his fingers, the magistrate, as guardian of the community, has no authority to restrain him, however he might do it from kindness as a parent.— Though, indeed, upon more consideration, I think he may; as it is probable, that he who is chopping off his own fingers, may soon proceed to chop off those of other people. If I think it right to steal Mr. Dilly’s plate, I am a bad man; but he can say nothing to me. If I make an open declaration that I think so, he will keep me out of his house. If I put forth my hand, I shall be sent to Newgate. This is the gradation of thinking, preaching, and acting: if a man thinks erroneously, he may keep his thoughts to himself, and nobody will trouble him; if he preaches erroneous doctrine, society may expel him; if he acts in consequence of it, the law takes place, and he is hanged.’
MAYO. ‘But, Sir, ought not Christians to have liberty of conscience?’
JOHNSON. ‘I have already told you so, Sir. You are coming back to where you were.’
BOSWELL. ‘Dr. Mayo is always taking a return post-chaise, and going the stage over again. He has it at half price.’
JOHNSON. ‘Dr. Mayo, like other champions for unlimited toleration, has got a set of words. Sir, it is no matter, politically, whether the magistrate be right or wrong. Suppose a club were to be formed, to drink confusion to King George the Third, and a happy restoration to Charles the Third, this would be very bad with respect to the State; but every member of that club must either conform to its rules, or be turned out of it. Old Baxter, I remember, maintains, that the magistrate should “tolerate all things that are tolerable.” This is no good definition of toleration upon any principle; but it shows that he thought some things were not tolerable.’
TOPLADY. ‘Sir, you have untwisted this difficult subject with great dexterity.’
