THE TOLERANCE OF SCORN.
WE have never quite understood—it may be from want of comprehension—but we have never quite understood the argument of the thinkers, some of them very noteworthy men, who allege that the only conceivable reason for religious toleration is doubt. If you are doubtful of your theory, if you question your own conclusion, or if you distrust in your heart the possi- bility of certainty on the subject, then toleration is reasonable, or toleration within the limit of proved social expediency ; but if not, not. It seems to us that toleration—real toleration, we mean, not the system which merely endures the objectionable because it is too powerful to be put down—may be justified by many noble opinions, and arise from many opinions, noble and ignoble alike. The most faithful and convinced Christian may tolerate any creed hostile to Christianity, even if it is so intolerant that it would put down Christianity, if he is absolutely convinced, as part of his faith, that freedom of opinion is the Almighty's weapon ; that truth will prevail in His chosen time ; that in limiting freedom, however annoying its immediate developments, he is directly contending against the will of God. That is the doctrine of the most sincere and cultivated Protestants, though they have seldom grace sufficient to act completely up to it, and we see nothing in it inconsistent with the deepest piety or the most convinced faith. Christ may have meant to teach it, though we do not assert that, in his remark about the rain that falls equally on the just and the unjust ; it has been held by minds in which faith was at least as conspicuous as character, notably by Mr. F. D. Maurice, and it is maintained by all Quakers. A convinced man may tolerate also from an intellectual conviction that force applied to the suppression or diffusion of opinion always fails, either by direct failure to influence, as in the case of the "New Christians " in Spain, and we are told of some Catholic families in Austria, all of whom remained, under stress of terror, strict Jews, while apparently Christians ; or by developing a form of faith which is not the one desired, as was undoubtedly the case with some of the forcible conversions of the Middle Ages. The convert of the sword became a Christian, and as a Christian was a more irredeemable scoundrel, because sin- ning against light, than he ever was as a Pagan. That form of failure is seen even now, both in India and the South Seas, though the compulsion there takes only the form of, so to speak, mesmeric mental influence, and its result is the cause of the deep distrust with which some observers regard Missions altogether. The most deeply faithful man may dis- believe in force without scepticism entering his own mind. It is the belief of the English middle-class, which, as a rule, doubts less its own conclusions than any class in the world. A convinced man may also tolerate from a profound idea that though there is but one truth, its external manifestation may vary infinitely,—and no doubt that is the root of the quite perfect Hindoo toleration. Nobody can be convinced as a Brahmin is convinced, but as his first conviction is that spirit is the only reality, and concrete manifestations merely appearances, he tolerates all things in theory, and in practice all things except those which threaten the social system he thinks divine. These are motives for toleration arising not from doubt, but belief, and there are many more motives not originating in uncertainty. A man may tolerate because convinced that the religious impulse, if not provoked, is not an active power, any more than sensibility to music is ; that men will be governed in the long-run by utility, and that a society which tolerates all creeds will not be seriously worried by any. The Old Whig party in England undoubtedly held that opinion, in a very strongly convinced way, and even now detest action like Bismarck's, not because it is unjust, but because it precipitates just that ingredient into the religious fluid which makes that innocuous and many-coloured infusion suddenly explosive. There is no necessary scepticism in that opinion, nor is there any in the common though absurdly erroneous one of the English ten- pounder, that a religious opinion cannot be put down. It can be put down easily enough, if the penalty is sufficiently severe ; but modern Englishmen of a particular type think it cannot, and hate persecution, therefore, as they hate any other useless infliction of discomfort. And finally, men may tolerate not from doubt, but from a certainty so absolute, so satisfying, and so productive of conceit, that those who do not entertain it cease to be men in the eyes of those who do, and are no more hated for opinions or even acts, when not insulting or aggressive, than animals, birds, or insects. The greatest zealot that ever existed would tolerate Atheism in a flea, as long as the flea kept off him, and perhaps regard the flea's atheism not as obnoxious, but as proof that atheism was evidence of an entomo- logical status in the universe.
That is the tolerance of all convinced Mohammedans, and its relation to extreme intolerance is a curious subject of study. Englishmen, particularly if they hold Turkish Bonds, are apt to assert that tolerance is a Mohammedan peculiarity ; and so it is under certain circumstances, which usually happen to exist in Turkey, but it is the tolerance only of supreme scorn. The Mussulman creed does not in theory allow perfect tolerance, the Prophet having ordered that the Infidel should pay tribute, and the Doctors of Islam, as Mr. Benisch has shown in the Pall Mall Gazette of Wednesday, adding that tribute includes the concession of permanent and abject servility and respect. But in practice, sound Mussulmans arc too satisfied with their creed, too convinced of its truth and its per-
fection for their needs, to bore themselves with persecuting any one who is fool enough to reject it. Turks in particular, being accus- tomed to rule, very indolent, and constitutionally conceited, hold this opinion in its purity. An infidel is "a dog,' and what does a dog's opinion signify, or for that matter, his act either? If a monkey likes to preach blasphemy, let him preach ; he is rather the more an amusing monkey, and displays his animal nature all the more perfectly before the contemptuous world. His infidelity is natural, is of no contagious kind, can be of no earthly import- ance to human beings who are blessed with a perfect and all- sufficient faith, which of itself is the sum of all the knowledge that man has any need of. Theirs is the tolerance of supreme scorn, of that highest contempt which scarcely contemns, of that supe- riority which sees proof of God in that such a thing as an Infidel can be a creature made by Him, and therefore of some use, if it be only for manure ; and it is a most effective article of its kind. It is very often in seeming the equivalent of passionless serenity. A man possessed by it keeps his temper when enemies are scold- ing as he would keep his temper when frogs were croaking in the night. It is their nature to croak. This tolerance allows wonderful freaks to Infidels, as we allow wonderful freaks to monkeys, and on occasion develops a really admirable spirit of impartiality. Why whip Ranger when Gaylass is in fault, and they are both hounds? No kind of Christian, for instance, could govern the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the Turk does, could allow Greek and Latin and Armenian to behave as out- rageously as they all do with such a beautiful calm, or hew them down when they get too noisy with so exquisite and even-tempered a phlegm. Ibrahim Pasha was nearly killed there once by some sway of the crowd in the building, and his guards hewed a way for him out of the Church through the living bodies of the wor- shippers with as profound an exemption from scruple as if they had been "turning " a stampede of bisons or mustangs. English- men, when deciding at Bombay whether a Mohammedan sect ought or ought not to pay tithe to Aga Mohammed, the racing noble who represents the Prince of the Assassins, who ordered the execution of Richard Cceur de Lion, could hardly be juster than Turks are in settling Christian quarrels. But this form of tolerance, though very perfect, lies very near to intolerance of the most peremptory kind. Let the monkeys quarrel and we will judge, but they are monkeys, and if they become inconvenient or im- pertinent to men, they must be swept away. Europeans are often astonished because Mussulmans, for years on years so tolerant, suddenly, on certain provocations, which seem to observers slight, break out as violent oppressors ; but if they could arrive at the Mussulman's frame of mind, they would see how natural is the change. They themselves are very kindly to dogs, but if dogs will go fractious or show signs of insanity, they must be whipped or killed down till they have recovered their senses and are quiet again. The scorn which tolerates is also the scorn which attaches no attributes to its object, feels no responsibilities towards him, has no sense of wrong in treating him as may be convenient for the hour. The Southern master in the United States had often that scorn for the black man in its perfection, treated him with humorous kindness, was amused and pleased with his ways, never dreamed, while he was submissive, of checking his familiarity ; but if he grew "sassy," shot him down as readily as he had patted him, and if he rebelled, burned him alive with as little idea of committing murder as if he had blown up an alligator with dynamite in the bait. The Mussulman is the Southern planter as regards the Christian in his own dominions, and may change like him in an instant from the kindly, cynical, lazy noble to the fiercely enraged avenger. Scorn so perfect as this, scorn which levels its objects with the brutes alike for good and evil—that is kindly as men are to obedient dogs, yet cruel as men are to dogs in rabies—is hardly to be realised by the British Philistine, not to be realised at all when he is himself the object of it. What ! he who discovered steam to be despised by a man in a turban who never uses a fork? it is impossible ! It happens, nevertheless, and in all probability this generation will see before they die what the tolerance of scorn means, when there is a reason for the scorn being active instead of passive, for sweeping away instead of patting the object of the scorn ; and Englishmen may understand it, if they will only reflect on their own feeling in India before the Mutiny, in Jamaica in Mr. Eyre's time, in Ireland every now and then during the past six centuries. Governor Eyre never could understand why he was thought rather cruel, any more than Mussulmans understand why the Sultan, in English opinion, was bound to receive the deputation from the Evangelical Alliance. Why was he bound, any more than the butcher is bound to receive a deputation from calves to protest against being bled ? There was, to a Mohammedan mind, some- thing almost comically impertinent in such an application, and an illustration may enable Englishmen to see why. They are very tolerant of creeds, but suppose the Shakers of the New Forest demanded audience of the Queen to insist that a magistrate should be dismissed who fined them for dancing without clothes in Picca- dilly? That is about the light in which an Evangelical Alliance of Infidels, pleading against Mussulmans who punished or did not punish a renegade for deserting his faith, appeared to the Khalif.. He can tolerate renegades in private, as we can tolerate Shakers who keep indoors, but is the order of the Mussulman world or the decorum of Piccadilly to be violated on the plea of religious freedom? Infidels live. Having rejected Islam, is not that enough for them ?
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