The theory that opinions and institutions are justified as “stepping-stones,” survivals not yet quite outworn, always carries the presumption that we are the apex—an assumption, of course, which evolutionary theory does not bear out. It is possible that our seeming progress may be retrogressive, that the true apex may have been reached in Greece some two thousand years ago. When we look kindly upon (to us) impossible views, with some idea of thesis and antithesis in our minds, we are taking our own position as the synthesis, and, placing ourselves at the standpoint of the whole, implying knowledge of that far off, divine event towards which the Tennysonian creation moves. But if we really think the truth of our vision worth striving for, it is dangerous to hold our reputation for urbanity to be of more importance than insight, by smiling down on opponents as on children at play, not worth fighting. Imperfect as it is, our little truth must seem to us, as it stands, better than any other, without smoothing away the stark contradiction between it and its opposite, and without claiming for it a higher level than for them, if it is to be at once effective and humble.
To all of this it may be answered that our idea of tolerance has been an impossible ideal; that simply by making the definition unwarrantably strict, the quality has been pushed out of reach; and that, on these terms of course it cannot exist. Nevertheless the exact quality of current attempts at tolerance is made visible in the light of that extreme form which we have been considering: as Plato judged the success of actual forms of the state by comparison with that perfect justice which was to be found in none of them. But if, as the situation suggests, the degree of tolerance is in inverse ratio to the force of conviction, we cannot hold both as ideals. The question is, Which is the more valid?
By assuming tolerance as a possession or even as a goal, we have lost that driving power of conviction which more primitive, less imaginative forms of belief still hold. Perfect tolerance would be an anæsthetic influence; it would militate against that clash of open conflict in which alone are ideas tested. If tolerance is to be achieved only by proportionate weakening of conviction, the prevailing acceptance of such an ideal may be not merely a crying for the moon, but for a burning toy balloon which would be of no value to us if we had it.
The past few centuries have deepened the conception of tolerance, given inner meaning as a virtue to what was originally only a convenience of social conduct. Tolerance in act has been proved practically advisable. It rests on the recognition that the intolerant Calvin, burning Servetus, was a more positively objectionable member of society than the Greek sage whose skepticism was so complete that he would commit himself to nothing more than the wagging of his finger. But if we are right in maintaining the incompatibility of tolerance and conviction, each gaining ground only at the expense of the other, are we not following the wrong star? Calvin was doubtless less pleasant to live with than the Greek skeptic; but, since clear definition of issues is the first step in judgment, the following of the harsher example may clear the way for those battles of thought which change the boundaries of its territories, when diplomacies accomplish nothing.
Socrates, according to Plato, must have spent a good many hours and days in buttonholing young men on the streets of Athens, and pricking the airy bubbles of the catchwords which they used so glibly. His inveterate questioning often seemed to lead only to a deadlock. “What is this justice, this temperance, this courage, of which you seem so sure?”—he would ask, and, after leading them a merry chase along the mazes of thought, brought them to the reluctant conclusion that virtue is not so simple, after all. There was something of the spirit of the detective in this sleuthing among ideas, this quick recognition and rejection of clues. What Socrates was chiefly trying to do—and no wonder he was accused of corrupting the young men!—was to cultivate in his interlocutors the rare art of questioning, to extirpate in them the prevalent stupidity of taking things for granted.
But Socrates did not cure the world of using catchwords. In war, in politics, in religion, even in science, they still pass for the coin of the realm. They are always dangerous: for they always delude one into thinking to be easy that which is in truth most difficult. There is hardly a virtue which we can have without crowding out another virtue. We of the twentieth century have taken tolerance for granted, as if it were as much to be expected as good manners. And we have scarcely thought to ask the price for which it is bought.
If it is only a utilitarian matter of social policy, to be relinquished when that policy changes, we have done foolishly to exalt it as a moral virtue. If we must choose between tolerance and our sense of ascertainable truth in the world, our eyes should be open to the terms of that choice; if we must have a slogan, shall it be, Live and Let Live, or The Truth is Mighty and Shall Prevail? If, on the other hand, the field of tolerance is limited to cases in which we are indifferent or skeptical, much is to be gained in humility and sincerity by the frank avowal. We may cut the Gordian knot, and boldly accept the paradox. In any case, something is gained, if only that we have asked, What do we mean by tolerance?
THE NEO-PARNASSIANS
“… But I would implore them to abstain from wearing their knees out before the shrine of the ugly and grotesque when there is all the beauty of the world for the choosing.”—Sir Johnstone Forbes-Robertson.
Away back in the dark ages, when the kindergarten was still an experiment, a stern elderly person—doubtless a relic of the yet earlier age in which children addressed their mother as “Honoured Madam,” and never sat down in their father’s presence—a person of far-seeing but ruthless mind, would every now and then arise to predict that Froebel and his disciples, by making things too easy for the infant intelligence, would produce a spineless generation, with the mentality of rubber dolls. Changing the figure, with apparently an eye upon the dentist, this pessimist would point out that a pap-fed race could have occasion for, and therefore would develop, no teeth.