Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/371

Rh plea that Catholics once were barbarous; when their own establishment is liable to the very same objections, on the very same grounds? I think this is a specimen of barefaced intoleration, which I had hoped would not have disgraced this age; this age, which is called the age of reason, of thought diffused, of virtue acknowledged, and its principles fixed.—Oh! that it may be so.—I have mentioned the Catholic and Protestant Religions more to shew that any objection to the toleration of the one forcibly applies to the non-permission of the other, or rather to shew that there is no reason why both might not be tolerated, why every Religion, every form of thinking might not be tolerated.—But why do I speak of toleration? This word seems to mean that there is some merit in the person who tolerates, he has this merit if it be one, of refraining to do an evil act, but he will share the merit with every other peaceable person who pursues his own business, and does not hinder another of his rights. It is not a merit to tolerate, but it is a crime to be intolerant: it is not a merit in me that I sat quietly at home without murdering any one, but it is a crime if I do so. Besides no act of a National representation can make any thing wrong, which was not wrong before; it cannot change virtue and truth, and for a very plain reason; because they are unchangeable. An act passed in the British Parliament to take away the rights of Catholics to act in that assembly, does not really take them away. It prevents them from doing it by force. This is in such cases, the last and only efficacious way. But force is not the test of truth; they will never have recourse to violence who acknowledge no other rule of behaviour but virtue and justice.