necessary for the progress of civilisation, and, indirectly, therefore, for the progress of morals. >29 The violence of the Reformation not only resulted in a new tyranny for its own adherents—calling in turn for fresh reformations by Puritans, Quakers, Deists, and Freethinkers—but it re-established, and even to-day continues to support, that very tyranny of the old Church against which it was a
When we try to regulate the morals of men on the same uniform pattern we have to remember that we are touching the most subtle, intimate, and incalculable springs of action. It is useless to apply the crude methods of "suppression" and "annihilation" to these complex and indestructible forces.
When Charles V retired in weariness from the greatest throne in the world to the solitude of the monastery at Yuste, he occupied his leisure for some weeks in trying to regulate two clocks. It proved very difficult. One day, it is recorded, he turned to his assistant and said: "To think that I attempted to force the reason and conscience of thousands of men into one mould, and I cannot make two clocks agree!"
Wisdom comes to the rulers of men, sometimes, usually when they have ceased to be rulers. It comes to the moral legislators not otherwise than it comes to the immoral persons they legislate against. "I act first," the French thief said; "then I think."
It seems to some people almost a paradox to assert that immorality should not be encountered by physical force. The same people would willingly admit that it is hopeless to rout a modern army with bows and arrows, even with the support of a fanfare of trumpets. Yet that metaphor, as we have seen, altogether fails to represent the inadequacy of law in the face of immorality. We are concerned with a method of