rs or sophists of ancient times. He was the first
avowed Agnostic, for he wrote a work on the gods, of which the
very first remark was that the existence of gods at all he could
not himself either affirm or deny. For this offensive sentiment
his book was publicly burnt; but Protagoras, could he have
foreseen the future, might have esteemed himself happy to have
lived before the Christian epoch, when authors came to share with
their works the purifying process of fire. The world grew less
humane as well as less sensible as it grew older, and came to
think more of orthodoxy than of any other condition of the mind.

The virtuous Romans appear to have been greater book-burners than
the Greeks, both under the Republic and under the Empire. It was
the Senate's function to condemn books to the flames, and the
praetor's to see that it was done, generally in the Forum. But for
this evil habit we might still possess many valuable works, such
as the books attributed to Numa on Pontifical law (Livy xl.), and
those eulogies of Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius, which were burnt,
and their authors put to death, under the tyranny of Domitian
(Tacitus, Agricola 2). Let these cases suffice to connect the
custom with Pagan Rome, and to prove that this particular mode
of warring with the expression of free thought boasts its
precedents in pre-Christian antiquity.

Nevertheless it is the custom as it was manifested in Christian
times that has chief interest for us, because it is only with
condemned books of this period that we have any chance of
practical acquaintance. Some of these survived the flames, whilst
none of antiquity's burning have come down to us. But on what
principle it was that the burning authorities (in France
generally the Parlement of Paris, or of the provinces), burnt
some books, whilst others were only censured, condemned, or
suppressed, I am unable to say, and I doubt whether any principle
was involved. Peignot has noticed the chief books stigmatised by
authority in all these various ways; but though undoubtedly this
wider view is more philosophical, the view is quite comprehensive
enough which confines itself to the consideration of books that
were condemned to be burnt.

Books so treated may be classified according as they offended
against (i) the religion, (ii) the morals, or (iii) the politics
of the day, those against the first being by far the most
numerous, and so admitting here of notice only of their most
co