The author is
very careful, however, to except from its operation all persons who are
not in the maturity of their faculties, as well as all those backward
nations who are not capable of being improved by free and equal
discussion. The condition of society in which alone this liberal maxim
will be safe and appropriate, must be that of a people so far elevated
and enlightened, that persuasion and conviction are the most powerful
means of improvement. Wherever is to be found an advanced civilization,
with all the complex moral and social relations which grow out of it,
there the necessity for physical force will be found to have declined.
Public opinion will have acquired great authority, if not absolute
control; and the rights of individuals will require, for their
protection against the overpowering weight of the social combination,
all those safeguards against possible tyranny, which can only be
afforded by the general acceptance of the liberal principle just quoted.
The social authority must be educated and restrained by its own willing
recognition of individual rights. As the power most likely to be abused
for purposes of oppression is that of opinion and custom, too often
operating silently and insidiously, the corrective is only to be applied
by the establishment of a counteracting spiritual authority, in the
bosom of society itself, at all times ready to utter its mandate and to
proclaim the inviolable sanctity of individual liberty, within the
limits fixed by enlightened reason and conscience.
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