All your divisions are in particular instances
inadequate, and they destroy the interest which arises from watching the
progress, maturity, and even the decay of genius.
_January_ 3. 1834.
TOLERATION.--NORWEGIANS.
I have known books written on Tolerance, the proper title of which would
be--intolerant or intolerable books on tolerance. Should not a man who
writes a book expressly to inculcate tolerance learn to treat with respect,
or at least with indulgence, articles of faith which tens of thousands ten
times told of his fellow-subjects or his fellow-creatures believe with all
their souls, and upon the truth of which they rest their tranquillity in
this world, and their hopes of salvation in the next,--those articles being
at least maintainable against his arguments, and most certainly innocent in
themselves?--Is it fitting to run Jesus Christ in a silly parallel with
Socrates--the Being whom thousand millions of intellectual creatures, of
whom I am a humble unit, take to be their Redeemer, with an Athenian
philosopher, of whom we should know nothing except through his
glorification in Plato and Xenophon?--And then to hitch Latimer and
Servetus together! To be sure there was a stake and a fire in each case,
but where the rest of the resemblance is I cannot see.
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