Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/71

Rh regards dissent as not only harmless but inevitable. Thus upon a calculation of the number of sermons annually preached in England, he remarks that "It were a Miracle, if a Million of Sermons Composed by so many Men, and of so many Minds and Methods, should produce Uniformity upon the discomposed understandings of about 8 Millions of Hearers ," and suggests that misbelievers, provided they keep the public peace, may wisely be indulged by the magistrate, upon payment of "well proportioned, tolerable pecuniary mulcts, such as every conscientious Nonconformist would gladly pay, and Hypocrites by refusing, discover themselves to be such ." For "no man can believe what himself pleases and to force men to say they believe what they do not, is vain, absurd, and without honour to God." Besides "where most indeavours have been used to help Uniformity, there Heterodoxy hath most abounded ." The best policy therefore is for the government to pluck with moderation the geese who persist in their unauthorized beliefs.

Upon Petty as an economist the influence of Hobbes was far outweighed by that of Bacon. There was of course no personal connection here. When the founder of the New Philosophy was dying at Highgate, the future political arithmetician was a weaver's brat in Hampshire. But the youth became, as he grew to manhood, an eager member of that group of experimental investigators, working in the spirit of the "Novum Organum," who began the systematic pursuit of scientific knowledge in England. At the close of a century distinguished above its predecessors not so much by the spirit of research as by the passion for accuracy in the determination