What we call the will has no power over belief, and
consequently a man is nowise responsible for his creed, except in so far
as he is responsible for the events which gave him his creed.' It may be
doubted whether the majority of people are quite so ignorant as Mr.
Buckle here represents them; for the conflict between beliefs is rather
the result of feeling or passion than of judgment. Because men who
differ in opinion hate each other, it does not follow that they must
therefore deny the right to freedom of thought, or maintain that belief
may be changed at will. The red man and the white man may cordially
hate each other; but it would hardly be accurate to say that the former
denies the right of the latter to his color, or thinks him morally
responsible for it. Yet men are quite as much responsible for the color
of their skin as for the character of their honest convictions, and they
have almost equal power to control the one or the other. In truth, the
hatred arising from conflict of opinion is not the offspring of thought,
but of emotion. It is chiefly a derangement of the affections; not so
much an error of the reason. The most unenlightened man has the innate
conviction that he is entitled to his peculiar belief, because it is
impossible for him to admit any other; nor is it at all natural or
necessary that one individual should question the sincerity of another's
opinion on any subject, because it differs from his own. Intolerance in
this particular has been the result mostly of interference and
usurpation--the consequence of that theological despotism to which men
have, in some form or other, in all ages, been more or less subjected.
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