y meant merely that they
had a right to their own opinions as against the Church.
They did not indeed put forward their claim quite so
nakedly; they made it general, as sounding less invidious;
but nobody ever heard an Evangelical admit a High Churchman
or a Catholic's right to be a Catholic.

But, secondly, society has a most absolute right to
prevent all manner of evil--drunkenness, and the rest
of it, if it can--only in doing so, society must not use
means which would create a greater evil than it would
remedy. As a man can by no possibility be doing
anything but most foul wrong to himself in getting
drunk, society does him no wrong, but rather does him
the greatest benefit if it can possibly keep him sober;
and in the same way, as a false belief in serious
matters is among the greatest of misfortunes, so to drive
it out of a man, by the whip, if it cannot be managed by
persuasion, is an act of brotherly love and affection,
provided the belief really and truly is false, and you
have a better to give him in the place of it. The
question is not what to do, but merely "how to do it;"
although Mr. Mill, in his love of "liberty," thinks
otherwise. Mr. Mill demands for every man a right to say
out his convictions in plain language, whatever they
may be; and so far as he means that there should be no
Act of Parliament to prevent him, he is perfectly just
in what he says. But when Mr. Mill goes from Parliament
to public opinion, when he lays down as a general
principle that the free play of thought is unwholesomely
interfered with by society, he would take away the sole
protection which we possess from the inroads of any
kind of folly. His dread of tyranny is so great, that
he thinks a man better off with a false opinion of his
own than with a right opinion inflicted upon him from
without; while for our own part we should be grateful
for tyranny or for anything else which would perform
so useful an office for us.

Public opinion may be unjust at particular times
and on particular subjects; we believe it to be both
unjust and unwise on the matter of which we are at
present speaking: But on the whole, it is like the
ventilation of a house, which keeps the air pure; much
in this world has to be taken for granted, and we cannot
be for ever arguing over our first principles. If a man
persists in talking of what he does not understand, he
is put down; if he sports loose views on morals at a
decent dinner party, the bett