CHAPTER VI. IF NON-TOLERATION IS AGREEABLE TO THE LAW OF NATURE AND OF SOCIETY.
The law of nature is that which nature points out to all mankind. You have brought up a child, that child owes you a respect as its parent, and gratitude as its benefactor. You have a right over the productions of the earth which you have raised by the labor of your own hands; you have given and received a promise; that promise ought to be kept.
The law of society can have no other foundation in any case than on the law of nature. “Do not that to another which thou wouldst not he should do unto thee,” is the great and universal principle of both throughout the earth; now, agreeably to this principle, can one man say to another: “Believe that which I believe, and which thou thyself canst not believe, or thou shalt die?” And yet this is what is every day said in Portugal, in Spain, and in Goa. In some other countries, indeed, they now content themselves with saying, “Believe as I do, or I will hold thee in abhorrence; believe like me, or I will do thee all the evil I can; wretch, thou art not of my religion, and therefore thou hast no religion at all, and oughtest to be held in execration by thy neighbors, thy city, and thy province.”
If the law of society directs such a conduct, the Japanese ought then to hold the Chinese in detestation; the latter the Siamese, who should persecute the inhabitants of the Ganges; and they fall upon those of India; the Mogul should put to death the first Malabar he found in his kingdom; the Malabar should poniard the Persian; the Persian massacre the Turk; and, all together, should fall upon us Christians, who have so many ages been cutting one another’s throats.
The law of persecution then is equally absurd and barbarous; it is the law of tigers; nay, it is even still more savage, for tigers destroy only for the sake of food, whereas we have butchered one another on account of a sentence or a paragraph.