gradual development, which, by
establishing definite rights revives in positive form the negative
liberty of an unformed society. The object and the result of this
process is the organisation of self-government, the substitution of
right for force, of authority for power, of duty for necessity, and of a
moral for a physical relation between government and people. Until this
point is reached, religious liberty is an anomaly. In a State which
possesses all power and all authority there is no room for the autonomy
of religious communities. Those States, therefore, not only refuse
liberty of conscience, but deprive the favoured Church of ecclesiastical
freedom. The principles of religious unity and liberty are so opposed
that no modern State has at once denied toleration and allowed freedom
to its established Church. Both of these are unnatural in a State which
rejects self-government, the only secure basis of all freedom, whether
religious or political. For religious freedom is based on political
liberty; intolerance, therefore, is a political necessity against all
religions which threaten the unity of faith in a State that is not free,
and in every State against those religions which threaten its existence.
Absolute intolerance belongs to the absolute State; special persecution
may be justified by special causes in any State. All mediaeval
persecution is of the latter kind, for the sects against which it was
directed were revolutionary parties. The State really defended, not its
religious unity, but its political existence.

If the Catholic Church was naturally inclined to persecute, she would
persecute in all cases alike, when there was no interest to serve but
her own. Instead of adapting her conduct to circumstances, and accepting
theories according to the character of the time, she would have
developed a consistent theory out of her own system, and would have been
most severe when she was most free from external influences, from
political objects, or from temporary or national prejudices. She would
have imposed a common rule of conduct in different countries in
different ages, instead of submitting to the exigencies of each time and
place. Her own rule of conduct never changed. She treats it as a crime
to abandon her, not to be outside her. An apostate who returns to her
has a penance for his apostasy; a heretic who is converted has no
penance for his heresy. Severity against those who are outside her fold
is against