the severest censure. "The 'persecution' of Mormonism in a land of professed 'religious liberty' like the United States is an instructive comment on the notion that Declarations of Natural Rights will protect individuals who do what is unpopular" (p. 160). Yes, we must confess that we have laws against bigamy, which a man is not excused from obeying even if he calls it religion. And we shall probably continue to punish theft, even if the thief were to assure us that he had received a new revelation making thieving a religious rite. Besides several references in the text, a note of six pages on the Mormon question is appended to the chapter on Toleration. It is not very clear what our author understands by religious liberty, anyway. We are told that "the Swiss Federal Constitution guarantees religious liberty in a fuller sense than is done by the Constitution of the United States of America" (p. 178), and then on the next page that "in Switzerland every canton has an Established Church, or several Established Churches"; further, that the order of Jesuits is excluded, and that there are laws that make the Quaker and the Salvation Army impossible. One thing is plain, however, that religious liberty admits, if, indeed, it does not require, an established church.
Despite these and a few other casual inconsistencies that might be mentioned, however, the book as a whole is strong and stimulating. Whether it is quite convincing or not, will depend upon whether the reader accepts its metaphysics, viz., that the individual is nothing in and for himself, but that he exists only in and for society. The practical advice to the political world to make haste slowly, and to look to the experiences of history for light on the path of progress, is sound, whatever be our metaphysics. A vein of humor crops out here and there that enlivens and illumines the whole discussion. The appendix, containing extracts from the French and American Declarations of Rights referred to in the text, the analytical table of contents, and the index, are valuable additions to the book.
It may be noted, in conclusion, that Mr. Ritchie has been represented as showing that "the old asseverations of the rights which Nature, as opposed to Society, gives to man, are to-day urged by socialists with as much passion, if not with the same aim, as by revolutionaries and republicans a hundred years ago." This is wholly misleading. What Mr. Ritchie does say is that the conservatives, as represented by 'The Liberty and Property Defense League,' and 'The Primrose League,' are now the champions of Natural Rights, the doctrine of revolutionists of a century ago.
