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BLASPHEMY^
>f)outo tbep be aboltWb ?
4
BY
S W. A. HUNTER,
LL.D., M.A.,
BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
PUBLISHED FOR
0T!)e ^ssociatton. for the Bepeal of tf)e -Slaspljenxp Hatofi,
By Rev. W. Sharman (Hon. Sec.), 20, Headland Park, Plymouth.
1884.
J
Price Twopence.
��B
i
N3H
THE
BLASPHEMY
LAWS:
SHOULD THEY BE ABOLISHED.?
have arrived at an interesting
of
WEFreedom. The right of privatestage in the history to
judgment, the right
of free discussion, liberty to think, and therefore liberty
differ, are accepted as indisputable by all parties. The
intellectual basis of intolerance is cut away; the pernicious
sophistry that justified intolerance is discredited. But the
passion of intolerance, although now ranking as a vice, is
by no means extinct. So far we have made progress.
There was a time when the gratification of a depraved
taste for persecution was regarded as the highest of moral
duties. St. Thomas Aquinas—to whom the Pope has
recently invited Christendom to turn as an oracle of philo
sophical truth—St. Thomas Aquinas writes, apparently with
perfect seriousness, that the crime of heresy exceeds the
crime of coining false money. By heresy he meant the
publication of any opinions that were condemned by the
authorities of the Roman Catholic Church. But it is beyond
the power even of a Pope to restore to life the antiquated
opinions of St. Thomas Aquinas. The true doctrine of
intellectual freedom has won an ascendancy among the best
representatives of the Christian faith. The danger now lies
in a different direction. What is to be feared is not a
revival of persecution in its old shape—naked and not
ashamed—but the invention of sophistical excuses to enable
persons to enjoy the exciting pleasure of persecution, while
at the same time they contrive to keep on good terms with
their consciences as consistent supporters of freedom of
speech.
• •’>
�4
The Blasphemy Laws:
Intolerance is a strange passion to be found in a being
endowed with reason. Why should I hate a man, to the
point of taking away his life by torture, merely because he
does not share my opinions? No man is infallible. The
persecutor may be wrong, and not the victim. It is Socrat^t
that was right, not the fanatical demos that made him
drink a cup of poison. And Christians, at least, think that
Jesus Christ was right, and not the Jews who nailed him
to the cross. But even if the persecutor is right, that
does not make his conduct any the more rational. Punish
ment may make a hypocrite, but it cannot make a convert.
All error is involuntary, and even a savage has the sense to
see that it is idiotic to punish a man for that which is
involuntary. No human being can desire to believe false
hood ; naturally we desire that the facts should be agreeable
to us ; but we cannot believe anything that does not appear
to us to be true. Even a persecutor must admit that man
would be unworthy of the reason with which he is endowed
if he were to try to extinguish the light of reason. Intoler
ance is the paradox of human nature; it is the treason of
man against the rational soul that raises him above the
beasts of the field.
How then is the existence of a persecuting spirit to be
accounted for? The law that seems to govern the intensity
of intolerance is that we are angry with those who differ
from us in proportion as we are conscious of weakness in
the grounds of our opinions. The most certain facts are
those that rest upon the direct testimony of the senses. If
a man blind from birth were to argue seriously that there
was no such thing as light, we should not be angry with
him, we should only smile. Of truths not perceptible through
the senses, the most certain are the truths of mathematics.
A man who should contend that two and two make five
would excite perhaps compassion, but certainly not indig
nation. Next in rank of certainty come the established
truths of physical science. Occasionally we meet with a
writer who contends that the law of gravitation is a chimera,
and will undertake to demonstrate that the earth is as flat
as a pancake. But still we retain our composure. If, how
ever, we turn from the established truths of science to the
region of taste, we find a marked change. There is, no
�Shotild they be Abolishedf
5
doubt, such a thing as good taste; but the distinction
between good taste and bad taste is not marked by any
common measure that can be applied with certainty. For
this reason it often happens that some men take deadly
offence when their opinions on a matter of taste are ques
tioned. In politics and sociology we are in a region of
opinion, and not of science—a region not necessarily of
incorrigible uncertainty, but where we are a long way from
any accepted standard of truth. In this region we find that
intolerance displays considerable vigour. There are many
men whose self-love is mortally wounded by any contradic
tion of their favourite political opinions. True, in a free
country, they must sulk and suffer; they are debarred from
the luxury of imprisoning their opponents ; but, in revenge,
they soothe their vanity by describing their opponents as
men of Belial, who are actuated only by the basest motives.
In art, in politics, in the disputed territory where the
conquests of science are not yet assured, intolerance is an
unlovely weed; but it is not a serious social evil. It is
when the passions of the populace are worked up in the
interest of an organized body of men that we learn to what
frightful excesses intolerance will go, and how man’s in
humanity to man is a more deadly evil than hurricanes,
earthquakes, famine, or pestilence.
In religion the conditions are favourable to extreme
intolerance. On the one hand, religion is a subject of the
most intense interest. It must either occupy the highest
place in our esteem, or no place at all. It must be every
thing or nothing. On the other hand, historical facts must
necessarily remain on a lower level of certainty than the
truths of science. The reason of the certainty attainable
in science is that experiments admit of repetition, and that
any intelligent man may put himself in as good a position
to ascertain any truth as the original discoverer of it. The
facts, the experiments, the calculations by which Newton
established the law of gravitation are open to be examined
and tested by any one of us as much as by Newton. We
can appreciate the enormous difference it would make to
the unanimity with which the Newtonian account of the
heavenly bodies is received if the truth of it rested upon a
few transitory events that were known to Sir Isaac Newton
�6
The Blasphemy Laws:
and half a dozen Fellows of Colleges, and were of such a
character that they could never occur again. The truth of
Christianity, to take one illustration, depends upon a series
of events that are alleged to have occurred nearly two
thousand years ago in an outlying portion of the Roman
Empire. These events may be proved to the satisfaction of
individual minds, but they cannot be repeated so that a
doubter may have evidence at first hand; and we cannot feel
surprise that the unanimity that is attained in science should
be very far indeed from being attained in religion.
But after all it is only a few that can spare the time, or
feel themselves qualified, to examine for themselves the
grounds upon which the credibility of historical Christianity
depends. To all of us, in our early years, and to the
enormous majority always, our confidence in Christianity
must depend, not upon proof, but upon authority ; that is,
upon assertion, upon the assertion of persons whom we
have been taught to respect. Thus it comes to pass that
in a community where any form of religion occupies the
highest place in general reverence, the belief of almost the
whole population rests upon assertion, and not upon reason
or evidence. When a believer is then confronted for the
first time with a serious denial of his opinions, he experi
ences a painful and mortifying sensation. What he regards
as truths of infinite importance are assailed, and he is con
scious of a total inability to deal with the arguments by
which they are assailed. He is exposed to the eventual
perils and present torture of doubt. A state of doubt is
distressing in proportion to the importance of the matters in
question, and to the difficulties in the way of restoring calm
and confidence. If man were a being governed by pure
reason he would, under those circumstances, adopt one of
two courses. He would either stop his ears and eyes, and
resolutely turn aside from those who attacked his peace of
mind, or he would follow the alternative and manly course
of examining the evidence for himself, and thus rising from
the lower level of unintelligent belief to the higher platform
of intelligent belief, or else of discarding the ideas instilled
into his youthful mind. But there is a third course, involving
less exercise of self-denial, which has been more generally
pursued, and peace has too often been obtained by turning
�Should they be Abolishedf
?
’
7
round on the person that has disturbed our repose, and
treating him as a malefactor of the worst species. When
the grounds of deeply-cherished beliefs are assailed, man
usually follows the baser course dictated by sloth and vanity,
and seeks peace for his agitated mind, not in the pursuit of
truth, but in the punishment of those who have roused him
from intellectual torpor. If, however, there were nothing
more, intolerance would not lead to much harm beyond an
explosion of bad temper. Other motives are at work.
There is a natural affinity between the baser passions of
human nature, and intolerance soon associates itself with
deadlier allies. With what grim humour does the apostle
relate the instructive episode of the silversmith of Ephesus? .
Demetrius did a good trade in images of Diana, and when
the early Christians laboured, not without success, to expose
the gods and goddesses to ridicule and contempt, with what
virtuous zeal did the pious silversmith lead the mob to the
cry of “ Great is Diana of the Ephesians !” Lord Coleridge,
in his summing up in Foote’s case, suggested that a law of
blasphemy might possibly be defended as a means of pro
tection to freethinkers from lynch law, and he referred to
the mob that burned Dr. Priestley’s house in Birmingham.
Before, however, we censure the mob we ought to know
what was the character of the sermons preached in the
Birmingham pulpits during the months that preceded the
outrage. Possibly an inquiry of that nature might lead us
to a more excellent way of protecting freethinkers than the
choice between imprisonment or mob violence.
In a.d. 325 the Emperor Constantine formally proclaimed
Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire. In
the century following an incredible number of statutes was
passed, punishing not merely pagans and Jews, and others
who were not Christians, but prosecuting even Christians
themselves if they departed by a hair’s breadth from the
dogmas of the particular section of the Christians that had
the ear of the imperial throne. The crimes of the Roman
Catholic Church against the intellect of man form one of
the blackest pages in the history of the world. The Pro
testants at first were no better than the Catholics. Until
the year 1677 it was a crime punishable with death to deny
or dispute the doctrin.es of the Church of England; but the
�8
The Blasphemy Laws:
long struggle that ended in the triumph of William ol
Orange convinced even the members of the Church of
England that the Dissenters were too powerful to be
attacked with the clumsy weapons of the criminal law.
Peace was accordingly established on the terms that the
Church should have liberty to persecute the weaker sects.
The reign of William III. is stained by an infamous statute*
imposing three years’ imprisonment, and the forfeiture of all
civil rights upon those who should deny the doctrine of the
Trinity, or the truths of the Christian religion, or the divinej
authority of the Bible. By an accident the statute seems
to have been wholly inoperative. With the intention probl
ably of saving the Jews, the statute applied only to thosd
persons who had been educated in or made a profession
of the Christian religion; and the difficulty of proving
this has thrown persecutors back upon the common law
of blasphemy. It was not until 1813 that the statute was
so far repealed as to permit a denial of the Trinity, and
thus exclude Unitarian Christians from the operation of
the criminal law.
It will not have escaped observation that the statute law is
based upon the naked doctrine of persecution. The mere
denial of the Christian religion, however honest the opponent,
and however respectful his mode of address, is in itself a
crime. That statute remains to this day unrepealed.
The prosecutions, however, that have taken place since
the reign of William III. have been instituted under thcr*
common law. By common law is meant the invention of
law by the judges without any warrant from the legislature!
The name of the common law offence is significant. It is
not Heresy, but Blasphemy. All blasphemy is heresy, but
all heresy is not blasphemy. Looking at the question
historically, I think there can be little doubt that the judges
who invented the law of blasphemy meant to distinguish
between heresy and blasphemy, and to punish merely those
who denied the Christian religion as a whole, and not those
who professing to be Christians entertained heterodox
opinions in regard to some doctrines; but of late years
a tendency has been exhibited to interpret blasphemy in a
different sense, so as to avoid the unpopularity of making
* Appendix, p. 20.
�Should they be Abolished?
9
dissent from religion a crime. This tendency culminated in
the charge of Lord Coleridge to the jury in Foote’s case,
and a discussion on the propriety of abolishing the blas
phemy laws, to be of any use, must proceed on the defini
tion of the common law offence, which his lordship sub
mitted to the jury. Lord Coleridge did not put forth any
definition of his own, but adopted, and lent his high judicial
authority to, the definition contained in Starkie on Libel.
The passage in Mr. Starkie’s work becomes of great im
portance, and is here given at length :
“There are no questions of more intense and awful
interest than those which concern the relations between the
Creator and the beings of His creation j and though, as a
matter of discretion and prudence, it might be better to
leave the discussion of such matters to those who, from
their education and habits, are most likely to form correct
conclusions, yet it cannot be doubted that any man has a
right, not merely to judge for himself on such subjects, but
also, legally speaking, to publish his opinions for the benefit
of others. When learned and acute men enter upon these
discussions with such laudable motives their very contro
versies, even where one of the antagonists must necessarily
be mistaken, so far from producing mischief, must in general
tend to the advancement of truth, and the establishment of
religion on the firmest and most stable foundations. The
very absurdity and folly of an ignorant man, who professes
to teach and enlighten the rest of mankind, are usually so
gross as to render his errors harmless ; but be this as it may,
the law interferes not with his blunders so long as they are
honest ones, justly considering that society is more than com
pensated for the partial and limited mischief which may
arise from the mistaken endeavours of honest ignorance,
by the splendid advantages which result to religion and to
truth from the exertions of free and unfettered minds. It
is the mischievous abuse of this state of intellectual liberty
which calls for penal censure. The law visits not the honest
errors, but the malice of mankind. A wilful intention to
pervert, insult, and mislead others by means of licentious
and contumelious abuse applied to sacred subjects, or by wilful
misrepresentations or artful sophistry, calculated to mislead
the ignorant and unwary, is the criterion and test of guilt.
�IO
i
f
\
V
The Blasphemy Laves:
11A malicious and mischievous intention, or what is
equivalent to such an intention, in law as well as morals, a
state of apathy and indifference to the interests of societyj
is the broad boundary between right and wrong.”
According to Mr. Starkie, “ honest error ” is no crime; a
“ wilful intention to mislead and pervert ” is alone criminal.
Mr. Starkie would seem to have overlooked the fact, that if
this be blasphemy, it is a crime that no one but a lunatic
could possibly commit. A dishonest freethinker in a Christian country such as ours is what metaphysicians would call ■
an unthinkable proposition. If Christians were to-day, as
they were in the second century, a small, a poor and a
despised sect, we could understand dishonest attacks upon
their doctrines. If the preachers of Secularism were re
warded with large incomes, with princely palaces, and with
seats in the House of Lords, we may well believe that a dis
honest secularist would be within the bounds of possibility.
But that any man, not being honest, should publicly em
brace the tenets of Secularism, and expose himself to the
worldly losses and social persecution that is the lot of
secularists, is a wild absurdity.
But when Mr. Starkie puts forward “ honesty ” as the
test of innocence, he does not in the least mean it. What
he does mean is this. Whether a man is honest or not
does not matter; the jury or the law must make him
a criminal in two cases. The first is when “ wilful misre
presentation or artful sophistry calculated to mislead the
ignorant and unwary ” is employed. A greater piece of
nonsense never was written. If a secularist lecturer is to
be sent to prison because twelve jurymen, all Christians, and
all ignorant of the elements of Christian evidences, think
that his arguments are sophistical and his statements misre
presentations, it would be more honest and decent to say
that Secularism is a crime, and to proceed under the in
famous statute of William III. To say that “honest
error ” is no crime, but it is a crime if a jury don’t agree
with your arguments, is to give justice with one hand and to
take it away with the other.
The second case where “ honest error ” is to be turned
into a crime is where contumelious abuse is applied to
sacred subjects. At length we touch something like solid
�Should they be A bolished ?
11
ground. All that Mr. Starkie writes about 11 honest error,”
“ malicious intention,” is mere rhetorical bombast. What
he means apparently is that blasphemy does not consist in
the mere denial of Christianity, so long, as Lord Coleridge
puts it, as the decencies of controversy are observed. The
crime of blasphemy, if we may invoke the shade of Aristotle
to elucidate the mystery, consists, not in the matter, but in
the form; not in the denial of Christianity, but in the way
of doing it. The question is whether the law of blasphemy
thus understood is consistent with free discussion of re
ligion, or whether it is not in the nature of a clever trap,
warranted as good as the statute of William, to catch
heretics.
Let us see how such a law works in practice. Mr. Foote
was convicted, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, not
for being a freethinker, but for violating the decencies of
controversy. But what is or is not consistent with the
decencies of controversy is a matter upon which perfectly
fair and competent men will hold different opinions. Mr.
Foote was tried before three juries. Two of them, one of
these being a special jury, refused to convict. If there was
this difference of opinion among the jurors, it requires but
little charity to suppose that Mr. Foote himself may have
been of opinion that he carefully observed the decencies of
controversy. For this error of judgment, if it be an error,
Mr. Foote receives a severer punishment than if he had
been captain of a ship, and by an error of judgment had
caused the death of hundreds of passengers. Many a man has
beaten his wife to death and escaped with much lighter
punishment. Whence then a sentence of one year’s im
prisonment? The judge did not conceal the motive, and
told the prisoner plainly, if not politely, that it was because
he dedicated his talents to the service of the devil. In
plain English, Mr. Foote was punished for delivering freethought lectures.
Let us consider what sort of political freedom we should
enjoy if the law relating to political debate were modelled
on Mr. Starkie’s law of religious freedom. Let us suppose
that Lord Randolph Churchill is tried, in order to make the
comparison fair, by a jury of pronounced hereditary Radicals,
who have been taught from the time they left their cradles
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The Blasphemy Laws:
that Toryism is a horrible creed, and that every Tory either
is or ought to be considered a miscreant. The accusation
is based on one of his lordship’s speeches on what he calls
the Kilmainham Treaty. The judge, if possible a more
bigoted Radical than the jury, informs the jury that honest
political error is not a crime; that the law does not interfere
with the most pronounced political speeches, provided that
the decencies of controversy are observed; that it is law
ful for the defendant to say that Mr. Gladstone is not in
fallible, and in temperate and respectful language even to go
so far as to say that he totally disagrees with the policy of
the Government. All this is lawful; but if the defendant
has employed artful sophistries calculated to mislead the
ignorant and unwary, or has applied contumelious abuse to
Her Majesty’s ministers, then the jury will find him guilty.
Lord Randolph escapes the first jury; but his persecutors
are not done with him, and at length, after several trials, a
jury is found ignorant enough and bigoted enough to find
him guilty. The judge then gives him twelve months’
imprisonment. This is what so many Liberal papers call
freedom of speech.
The first essential of a good law, especially of a criminal
law, is that it should be intelligible. A law is a mere trap
to work injustice if a man cannot tell beforehand whether
he is breaking the law or not, and when he can discover his
offence only when a jury gives a verdict against him. How
can any human being foretell what a jury may or may not
consider to be “the decencies of controversy”? An im
pression has got abroad that Mr. Foote’s case was excep
tional, and that the eminent writers who have published
books hostile to Christianity are free from any danger of
molestation. But if those eminent authors should be pro
secuted they may discover their mistake, and get a year in
Holloway Prison to reflect on the vanity of trying to obey
the law. Lord Coleridge has given them fair warning:
“ With regard to some of the others, passages from whose
writings Mr. Foote read, I heard them yesterday for the first
time. I do not at all question that Mr. Foote read them
correctly. I confess, as I heard them, I had and have a
difficulty in distinguishing them from the alleged libels.
They do appear to me to be open to the same charge, on
�Should they be Abolishedf
13
the same grounds, as Mr. Foote’s writings. He says many
of these things are written in expensive books, published
by publishers of known eminence ; that they are to be found
in the drawing-rooms, studies, and libraries of men of high
position. It may be so. If it be, I will make no distinc
tion between Mr. Foote and anyone else; if there are
men, however eminent, who use such language as Mr. Foote,
and if ever I have to try them, troublesome and disagree
able as it is, if they come before me, they shall, so far as my
powers go, have neither more nor less than the justice I am
trying to do to Mr. Foote.”
The danger of a vague and indefinable law is not dimin
ished when it is applied by a jury. What justice can a
secularist expect from a jury of twelve ignorant and exasper
ated opponents ? If the decencies of controversy are to be
judged of fairly, both sides ought to be heard, and one half
of the jury should consist of secularists. How would a
Protestant lecturer like to be tried by a jury of ignorant
Irish Catholics; or a Catholic lecturer by a jury of Orange
men, the issue being whether they observed the decencies of
controversy in their attacks ? According to this law, the
guilt or innocence of a defendant turns entirely upon the
composition of the jury. If there is even one freethinker
on the jury, there is no danger of a verdict of guilty. But
that profits the prisoner nothing; for the eleven Christians
will stand out for a verdict, and the jury will be discharged.
The prosecutor will try another jury, and so on for a
hundred times, if necessary, until he gets his unanimous
jury of twelve Christians. A secularist can never escape;
for unless he gets a jury wholly composed of secularists he
cannot secure an acquittal, for it must be remembered that
it needs a unanimous jury to acquit as well as unanimity to
convict.
. The decencies of controversy are best observed in those
countries where difference of creed is not exasperated by
the iniquitous use of the criminal law. Freethinkers, in
particular, are bound over by more powerful sanctions to
the observance of those decencies than their orthodox
rivals. A speaker on the popular side does himself no
harm, even if he indulges in the most indecent abuse of his
opponents. But a freethinker cannot get a hearing except
�14
The Blasphemy Laws:
by the most careful style of address. Christianity cannot
be shaken by ridicule. There is only one way by which the
stronghold can be taken. If secularists are to succeed, it
can only be by producing in the minds of sober and
earnest men a conviction that Christianity has no intellectual
basis, and that its foundations rest on sand. If such men
are to be induced even to look at the claims of secularism,
they must be approached in a spirit suitable to the gravity
of the task that is undertaken. From coarse and scurrilous
;> writing no protection is needed; it carries its antidote in
i its sting.
Is a jury, again, a fit tribunal to determine a question of good
taste in religious controversy? To a plain juryman, who is
ignorant of non-Christian and anti-Christian literature, the
mere denial of that which he has been accustomed to regard
with unhesitating reverence as incontestable truth must be in
the highest degree painful, or even horrible. The truth is that,
whatever may be said about decencies of controversy, a
jury of twelve orthodox Christians of the usual unlettered
type would condemn any anti-Christian publication as
blasphemous, if it was written in such plain terms that they
could understand it. No treatise would escape unless it
was so very learned and obscure, or the irony was so fine,
that the twelve plain men did not understand it. What a
task the law throws upon the grocer or baker who is sum
moned as a juror! He is to perform a delicate feat of
mental analysis, and say whether the shock to his system,
from an open denial of his cherished opinions, is due to the
fact of the denial, or to the particular words in which the
denial is expressed. The case of Woolston supplies us
with an illustration in point. Woolston wrote an essay on
miracles, in which with bated breath and apologetic humility
he ventured to say that miracles were not essential to
I Christianity, and were moreover not credible in themselves.
Woolston was a sincere Christian, a man of learning and
piety, a Fellow of Sidney College, Cambridge; but none
the less he was convicted for blasphemy. The fact is that
it is idle to ask a man to distinguish between the matter
and the form of a publication, when the matter is in itself
intensely painful, and can scarcely be aggravated by any
faults oi form. The freedom that a secularist lecturer would
�Should they be Abolished1
?
i5
enjoy under such a law reminds one of the sort of freedom
permitted in one of the petty Republics of ancient Greece.
It was lawful for any man to propose a change in the laws,
and to address the assembled citizens in favour of the
change with all the arguments and eloquence at his com
mand ; but if he failed to convince his audience and carry
the new law, he was to be forthwith put to death. One
might as well pass a law making it lawful to skin eels alive;
but if, in the course of the operation, the operator hurt the
feelings of the eel, he should suffer the utmost severity of
the criminal law.
Let us now try calmly to sum up the results of a pro
secution for blasphemy. First of all, great physical privation
and suffering have been inflicted on Messrs. Foote and
Ramsey. This is an evil to them, and, on the other hand,
is a good to those Christians who harbour feelings of
revenge in their bosom. Perhaps it may be the case that
at relatively no great expense, Messrs. Foote and Ramsey
have been the means of affording a cheap pleasure to a
great number of their fellow-countrymen. But do not these
good people buy their pleasure too»dear? We must credit
them with an honest desire to uphold Christianity; and is
that object likely to be gained by persecuting poor secularist
lecturers ? In the first place, they know well that a system
of religion that cannot maintain itself, except by putting its
opponents in prison, stands self-condemned. The bigot
who persecutes in the criminal courts allows judgment to
go against him by default in the higher court of reason and
conscience. It is idle to say that Mr. Foote is not in prison
because he is a freethought lecturer. When the question
was submitted to a special jury whether he was guilty of
blasphemy in the sense ruled by Lord Coleridge—and it
must be remembered that was the only occasion when the
true issue was fairly put before the jury—the jury could not
agree. And even if Mr. Foote had been fairly convicted
the sentence was a sentence not for blasphemy, but for being
a freethought lecturer, or, as the judge put it, for serving the /
devil. In a short time Mr. Foote will be released. He
will be met at the doors of the prison by a crowd of friends;
he will be carried off to a public entertainment, and receive
in gift a sum perhaps larger than he would have earned if he
�16
The Blasphemy Lazus:
had been engaged in his business. His character suffers no
stain in the eyes of the only people for whose opinion he
can entertain any respect; his influence and popularity as a
freethought lecturer, so far from being diminished, will
increase tenfold; for one man that went to hear him before
a score will go to hear him now. He will be able to ex
patiate on the comparative services of himself and his
persecutor, Sir Henry Tyler, to the world ; he will be able to
draw a powerful picture of the ex-chairman of the Brush
Light Company as the man whom the Christian world loves
to honour. If the career and character of the persecutor
are compared with the career and character of his victim,
Mr. Foote will have an unfailing means of eliciting the
sympathy of his audience. Christianity will suffer badly by
the comparison.
Those who venture to apologize for the blasphemy laws
try to make out that blasphemy is not a spiritual, but a
social offence, and that it consists in wantonly wounding the
feelings of Christians. The short answer to that is, that it
is not true. The offence of blasphemy as the law now stands
is complete without any proof that anybody’s feelings ever
were, or ever were intended to be, hurt. A lecture delivered
to an audience of freethinkers is in law blasphemous, al
though no Christian is present to hear it, and even if no
person would be admitted to the lecture if he were known
to be a Christian. Mere publication, in the legal sense,
constitutes the crime. Suppose a man writing a letter to a
friend makes a joke about the devils that entered into the
swine, and set them running down a steep place into the
sea, that is a publication in the eye of the law, although
the letter should never be seen by Christian eyes.
Mere publication cannot hurt anybody. Before a Chris
tian is able to procure the shock to his feelings that, we are
told, really constitutes blasphemy, it is necessary that he
should procure a copy of the publication and read it. This
is his own voluntary act. The mere publication is inoffen
sive and harmless. The harm and offence arise from the
act of the party who professes to be injured. Now it is a
maxim, not merely of a refined system of jurisprudence,
such as we desire the English law to be, but even of bar
barous systems of law, that no wrong can be done to a man
�Should they be Abolished?
by anything that is done with his own consent. Volenti non
fit injuria. It is quite superfluous for the law to protect us
from injuries that cannot be done without our own wilful
concurrence. A person who chooses to read a blasphemous
publication has nobody but himself to blame. If he does
not want his susceptibilities to be harrowed, he has an easy
and simple remedy in his own hands. Bear in mind that
the sole offence of which Messrs. Foote and Ramsey were
convicted was mere publication, and that, as a matter of
fact, not a single Christian obtained from them a copy of
the Freethinker, even at their own request. The truth is
that few, if any, Christians ever read the publication. It
was a paper written manifestly for non-Christians. The real
reason for the hostility to the publication was, not that it
gave pain to Christians, but that it gave pleasure, or was
supposed to give pleasure, to non-Christians. As Macaulay
says of the Puritans, they objected to bear-baiting, not be
cause it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure
to the spectators.
One of the most surprising things in the discussion to
which recent cases have given rise is, that the Indian Penal
Code should have been quoted in support of the blasphemy
laws. It is with some sense of humiliation that one finds
such an authority invoked. The Government of India has
to control a populace entremely ignorant and very fanatical.
One might be permitted to hope that the measure of re
ligious freedom that was considered safe in India is not to
be taken as indicating the high-water mark of freedom in a
country like ours, that boasts of being free and the great
mother of free nations. But, as a matter of fact, there is
far more religious liberty in India; and we may even go
farther, and say that there is nothing in the Indian Penal
Code to prevent, or even to restrict, the fullest liberty of
speech. There is no section of the Indian Penal Code
under which Mr. Foote could have been indicted. In
India he could edit and publish his Freethinker without
molestation, no man daring to make him afraid. One
blushes to think that there should be less freedom in
religion in this country than is found by experience to be
safe amid the fanatical populations of the East.
The Indian Penal Code contains a chapter on “ Offences
�The Blasphemy Laws:
relating to Religion ” in four sections. The first punishes
the injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to
insult the religion of any class ; the second punishes wilful
disturbance of any assembly lawfully engaged in the per
formance of religious worship or religious ceremonies; and
the third makes it an offence to trespass on a place set apart
for burial or the performance of funeral rites with the inten
tion of insulting the religious feelings of any persons. All
these are very proper regulations.
The fourth section is of wider extent, and must be quoted
in full: “ Whoever, with the deliberate intention of wound
ing the religious feelings of any person, utters any word or
makes any sound in the hearing of that person, or makes
any gesture in the sight of that person, or places any object
in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprison
ment [with or without hard labour] for a term which may
extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.”
Under this section no one can be prosecuted for the mere
publication of any matter, however offensive. It proceeds
upon the distinction I have adverted to, that a person who
voluntarily procures or reads offensive publications has
himself to blame if he is pained.
If, however, a person were to exhibit pictures caricaturing
the objects held sacred by Christians, with the deliberate
intention of wounding their religious feelings, he could be
prosecuted under this section.
Whether the exhibition of such pictures, with a view to
sale in the course of ordinary business, although they might
be in such a position that Christians, if they chose, could
see them, would be a violation of the section, is a question
perhaps open to doubt.
But the section proceeds upon the correct lines. It does
not permit a blow to be directed against religious opponents
under the pretext that they have published blasphemous
libels; while it effectually protects the professors of every
form of religion from personal insult.
Our Blasphemy Laws cannot invoke the assistance of the
Indian Penal Code; on the contrary, the law in India puts
us to shame. These laws, at rare intervals, are employed
to subject some freethought lecturers to serious personal
suffering, and to injure their health by long terms of imprison
�Should they be Abolished 1
19
ment. But they have the consolation of knowing that their
sufferings advance the cause they have at heart more effec
tually than their most eloquent discourses. All that is best
in Christianity revolts from such persecutions, that recall
to mind the indignities and cruelties practised upon the
founders of that religion. These laws are, I believe, con
demned by all good men, whatever their views on religion,
as being, not merely at variance with the principles of
justice, but as a weapon that injures most the hand that
wields it. Is it too much then to hope that the Bill * drafted
by Mr. Justice Stephen, for the total abolition of Blasphemy
Laws, may soon be taken into consideration by the legisla
ture and passed into law, and that this miserable relic of
ancient barbarism be entirely swept away ?
* Appendix, p. 23.
�20
The Blasphemy Laws:
APPENDIX.
I. The Statute Law.
(9 Will. ill. c. 32.)
“An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy
and Profaneness.
“ Whereas many persons have of late years openly avowed
and published many blasphemous and impious opinions con
trary to the doctrines and principles of the Christian religion,
greatly tending to the dishonour of Almighty God, and may
prove destructive to the peace and welfare of this kingdom ;
Wherefore, for the more effectual suppressing of the said
detestable crimes, be it enacted by the King’s most excellent
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords
spiritual and temporal, and the commons of this present
Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that if
any person or persons having been educated in, or at anytime
having made profession of, the Christian religion within this
realm shal, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking,
\deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be Godp\
or shal assert or maintain there are more gods than one, or
shal deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures
of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority, and
shal, upon indictment or information in any of his Majesties
Courts at Westminster, or at the assizes, be thereof lawfully
convicted by the oath of two or more credible witnesses, such
person or persons for the first offence shall be adjudged incap
able and disabled in law to all intents and purposes whatsoever
to have or enjoy any office or offices, imployment or imployments, ecclesiastical, civil, or military, or any part in them, or
any profit or advantage appertaining to them, or any of them.
And if any person or persons so convicted as aforesaid shal at
the time of his or their conviction, enjoy or possess any office,
place, or imployment, such office, place, or imployment shal be
voyd, and is hereby declared void. And if such person or
persons shal be a second time lawfully convicted, as aforesaid,
* Repealed 53 Geo. III. c. 160.
�Should they be Abolished1
?
21
of all or any the aforesaid crime or crimes that then he or they
ihal from thenceforth be disabled to sue, prosecute, plead, or
use any action or information in any court of law or equity, or
to be guardian of any child, or executor or administrator of any
person, or capable of any legacie or deed of gift, or to bear any
office, civil or military, or benefice ecclesiastical for ever within
this realm, and shall also suffer imprisonment for the space of
three years, without bail or mainprize from the time of such
conviction.
“ Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority afore
said, that no person shall be prosecuted by virtue of this Act for
any words spoken, unless the information of such words shal
be given upon oath before one or more justice or justices of the
peace within four days after such words spoken, and the prose
cution of such offence be within three months after such
information.
“ Provided also, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid,
that any person or persons convicted of all, or any, of the
aforesaid crime or crimes in manner aforesaid, shal, for the first
offence (upon his, her, or their acknowledgment and renuncia
tion of such offence, or erronious opinions, in the same court
where such person or persons was or were convicted, as afore
said, within the space of four months after his, her, or their
conviction) be discharged from all penalties and disabilities
incurred by such conviction, anything in this Act contained to
the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.”
Depraving, despising, or reviling the Sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper is a misdemeanour, (i Edw. VI. c. I § I; 14 Car.
II. c. 4 § 20.)
It is also a misdemeanour to say anything in derogation or
despising of the Book of Common Prayer. (1 Eliz. c. 2 § 3 ;
14 Car. II. c. 4 § 20.)
It is not known that any prosecution has ever taken
place under the statute of William III.; but no public
record is kept of such prosecutions, and we cannot therefore
say that the statute has been a dead letter.
�22
The Blasphemy Laws:
II. Ecclesiastical Law.
At the present day any person, whether Christian or Tew
may be proceeded against criminally in the Ecclesiastical
Courts “m cases of Atheism, blasphemy, heresy or schism
and other damnable doctrines or opinions, and they may
proceed to punish the crime according to his Majesty’s
ecclesiastical laws, by excommunication, deprivation, de
gradation, and other ecclesiastical censures not extending
to death.
A person convicted of heresy is liable to im
prisonment for not more than six months. The jurisdiction
th-r Ecclesiastical Courts is subject to this qualification,
that if the offence is punishable in the ordinary courts, it is
not a matter of ecclesiastical cognisance. But this is a’poor
consolation; for the ordinary courts have power to inflict a
much longei sentence of imprisonment. Special interest
attaches to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in view of the more
liberal statement of the common law recently made by the
Lord Chief Justice of England. Whatever is cut out of
the common law thereby at once falls under the Ecclesiastical
Courts, and the liberality of the ordinary tribunals is thus
effectually checkmated.
Let it not be said that no one would dare in the present
day to bring forth the rusty weapons of ecclesiastical censure.
Recent experience warns us that we are never safe so long
as a bad law exists. At any moment some malicious fool
may set the law in motion.
�&
Shotild they be Abolished?
\
23
III. Draft Bill.
n
■
“ Whereas certain laws now in force and intended for the
promotion of religion are no longer suitable for that purpose,
and it is expedient to repeal them,
Be it enacted as follows :
“ 1. After the passing of this Act no criminal proceedings
shall be instituted in any Court whatever, against any person
whatever, for atheism, blasphemy at common law, blasphemous
libel, heresy, or schism, except only criminal proceedings insti
tuted in Ecclesiastical Courts against clergymen of the Church
of England.
“2. An Act passed in the 1st year of his late Majesty King
Edward VI., c. 1, intituled‘An Act against such as shall unreverently speak against the Sacrament of the body and blood
of Christ, commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar, and for
the receiving thereof in both kinds,’ and an Act passed in the
9th and 10th year of his late Majesty King William III., c. 35,
intituled ‘An Act for the more effectual suppressing of blas
phemy and profaneness,’ are hereby repealed.
“ 3. Provided that nothing herein contained shall be deemed
to affect the provisions of an Act passed in the 19th year of his
late Majesty King George II., c. 21, intituled ‘An Act more
effectually to prevent profane cursing and swearing,’ or any other
provision of any other Act of Parliament not hereby expressly
repealed.”
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Dublin Core
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Blasphemy laws ; should they be abolished?
Creator
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Hunter, W.A.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Plymouth
Collation: 23 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Stamp on front cover: Freethought Publishing Co., Printing Officer. 63 Fleet Street, E.C., A. Bonner, Manager. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Association for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws
Date
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1884
Identifier
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N317
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Blasphemy
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Blasphemy laws ; should they be abolished?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Blasphemy-Law and Legislation-Great Britain
NSS