uperstition than a belief; you have a condition of things
highly favorable to the forcible suppression of heresy. Now,
throughout history, there is one great form of opinion which _has been_
artificially developed, which has been accepted through faith and not
through study, which has always been concerned with alleged occurrences
in the remote past or the inaccessible future, and which has also
been systematically maintained in its "pristine purity" by an army of
teachers who have pledged themselves to inculcate the ancient faith
without any admixture of their own intelligence.

That form of opinion is Religion. Accordingly we should expect to find
its career always attended with persecution, and the expectation is
amply justified by a cursory glance at the history of every faith. There
is, indeed, one great exception; but, to use a popular though inaccurate
phrase, it is an exception which proves the rule. Buddhism has never
persecuted But Buddhism is rather a philosophy than a religion; or, if
a religion, it is not a theology, and that is the sense attached to
_religion_ in this article.

All such religions have persecuted, do persecute, and will persecute
while they exist. Let it not be supposed, however, that they punish
heretics on the open ground that the majority must be right and the
minority must be wrong, or that some people have a right to think while
others have only the right to acquiesce. No, that is too shameless an
avowal; nor would it, indeed, be the real truth. There is a principle in
religions which has always been the sanction of persecution, and if it
be true, persecution is more than right, it is a duty. That principle is
Salvation by Faith.

If a certain belief is necessary to salvation, if to reject it is to
merit damnation, and to undermine it is to imperil the eternal welfare
of others, there is only one course open to its adherents; they must
treat the heretic as they would treat a viper. He is a poisonous
creature to be swiftly extinguished.

But not _too_ swiftly, for he has a soul that may still be saved.
Accordingly he is sequestered to prevent further harm, an effort is made
to convert him, then he is punished, and the rest is left with God. That
his conversion is attempted by torture, either physical or mental, is
not an absurdity; it is consonant to the doctrine of salvation by faith.
For if God punishes or rewards us according to our possession or lack
of faith, it follows that fa