o some, to many, or to all except those who make
it. The first point brings us back to the problem of political liberty,
which we defer. The second opens questions which have occupied a great
part of the history of Liberalism, and to deal with them we have to ask
what types of law have been felt as peculiarly oppressive, and in what
respects it has been necessary to claim liberty not merely through law,
but by the abolition of bad law and tyrannical administration.

In the first place, there is the sphere of what is called personal
liberty--a sphere most difficult to define, but the arena of the
fiercest strife of passion and the deepest feelings of mankind. At the
basis lies liberty of thought--freedom from inquisition into opinions
that a man forms in his own mind[3]--the inner citadel where, if
anywhere, the individual must rule. But liberty of thought is of very
little avail without liberty to exchange thoughts--since thought is
mainly a social product; and so with liberty of thought goes liberty of
speech and liberty of writing, printing, and peaceable discussion. These
rights are not free from difficulty and dubiety. There is a point at
which speech becomes indistinguishable from action, and free speech may
mean the right to create disorder. The limits of just liberty here are
easy to draw neither in theory nor in practice. They lead us immediately
to one of the points at which liberty and order may be in conflict, and
it is with conflicts of this kind that we shall have to deal. The
possibilities of conflict are not less in relation to the connected
right of liberty in religion. That this liberty is absolute cannot be
contended. No modern state would tolerate a form of religious worship
which should include cannibalism, human sacrifice, or the burning of
witches. In point of fact, practices of this kind--which follow quite
naturally from various forms of primitive belief that are most sincerely
held--are habitually put down by civilized peoples that are responsible
for the government of less developed races. The British law recognizes
polygamy in India, but I imagine it would not be open either to a
Mahommedan or a Hindu to contract two marriages in England. Nor is it
for liberty of this kind that the battle has been fought.

What, then, is the primary meaning of religious liberty? Externally, I
take it to include the liberties of thought and expression, and to add
to these the right of worship in any form which