ength of
argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on
the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and
tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best
and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with
briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that
they might be free to believe as they should see cause; only he made a
solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate from the
dignity of human nature, as to think that our souls died with our bodies,
or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling
Providence: for they all formerly believed that there was a state of
rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life; and they now
look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be counted men, since
they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no better than a
beast's: thus they are far from looking on such men as fit for human
society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered commonwealth; since a man of
such principles must needs, as oft as he dares do it, despise all their
laws and customs: for there is no doubt to be made, that a man who is
afraid of nothing but the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will
not scruple to break through all the laws of his country, either by fraud
or force, when by this means he may satisfy his appetites. They never
raise any that hold these maxims, either to honours or offices, nor
employ them in any public trust, but despise them, as men of base and
sordid minds. Yet they do not punish them, because they lay this down as
a maxim, that a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases; nor
do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so that
men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions; which being a sort
of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians: they take care indeed to prevent
their disputing in defence of these opinions, especially before the
common people: but they suffer, and even encourage them to dispute
concerning them in private with their priest, and other grave men, being
confident that they will be cured of those mad opinions by having reason
laid before them. There are many among them that run far to the other
extreme, though it is neither thought an ill nor unreasonable opinion,
and therefore is not at all discouraged. They think that the souls of
beasts are immortal, though