Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/373

Rh yet have sentiments differing from you, then all the purposes are answered, which any reasonable man could want, and whether he thinks like you or not, is of too little consequence to employ means which must be disgusting and hateful to candid minds, nay they cannot approve of such means. For as I have before said you cannot believe or disbelieve what you like—perhaps some of you may doubt this, but just try—I will take a common and familiar instance. Suppose you have a friend of whom you wish to think well, he commits a crime, which proves to you that he is a bad man. It is very painful to you to think ill of him, and you would still think well of him if you could. But mark the word, you cannot think well of him, not even to secure your own peace of mind can you do so. You try, but your attempts are vain. This shews how little power a man has over his belief, or rather, that he cannot believe what he does not think true. And what shall we think now? What fools and tyrants must not those men be, who set up a particular religion, say that this religion alone is right, and that every one who disbelieves it, ought to be deprived of certain rights which are really his, and which would be allowed him if he believed. Certainly, if you cannot help disbelief, it is not any fault in you.—To take away a man's rights and privileges, to call him a heretic or to think worse of him, when at the same time you cannot help owning that he has committed no fault, is the grossest tyranny and intoleration. From what has been said I think we may be justified in concluding, that people of all religions ought to have an equal share in the state, that the words heretic and orthodox were invented by a vain villain, and have done a great deal of harm in the world, and that no person is answerable for