as a kind of
privilege, and make such boast of it, that authority is powerless to
repeal it, even if such a course be subsequently desired.

... And, lastly, how many schisms have arisen in the Church from the
attempt of the authorities to decide by law the intricacies of
theological controversy! If men were not allured by the hope of getting
the law and the authorities on their side, of triumphing over their
adversaries in the sight of an applauding multitude, and of acquiring
honorable distinctions, they would not strive so maliciously, nor would
such fury sway their minds. This is taught not only by reason but by
daily examples, for laws of this kind prescribing what every man shall
believe and forbidding any one to speak or write to the contrary, have
often been passed as sops or concessions to the anger of those who
cannot tolerate men of enlightenment, and who, by such harsh and crooked
enactments, can easily turn the devotion of the masses into fury and
direct it against whom they will.

How much better would it be to restrain popular anger and fury, instead
of passing useless laws, which can only be broken by those who love
virtue and the liberal arts, thus paring down the state till it is too
small to harbor men of talent. What greater misfortune for a state can
be conceived than that honorable men should be sent like criminals into
exile, because they hold diverse opinions which they cannot disguise?
What, I say, can be more hurtful than that men who have committed no
crime or wickedness should, simply because they are enlightened, be
treated as enemies and put to death, and that the scaffold, the terror
of evil-doers, should become the arena where the highest examples of
tolerance and virtue are displayed to the people with all the marks of
ignominy that authority can devise?

He that knows himself to be upright does not fear the death of a
criminal, and shrinks from no punishment. His mind is not wrung with
remorse for any disgraceful deed. He holds that death in a good cause is
no punishment, but an honor, and that death for freedom is glory.

What purpose, then, is served by the death of such men, what example is
proclaimed? The cause for which they die is unknown to the idle and the
foolish, hateful to the turbulent, loved by the upright. The only lesson
we can draw from such scenes is to flatter the persecutor, or else to
imitate the victim.

If formal assent is not to be esteemed above conviction,