moment a few bold Englishwomen ventured on the immorality of
riding astride their horses, a practice that has since
established itself so successfully that before another generation
has passed away there may not be a new side-saddle in England or
a woman who could use it if there was.


THE CASE FOR TOLERATION

Accordingly, there has risen among wise and far-sighted men a
perception of the need for setting certain departments of human
activity entirely free from legal interference. This has nothing
to do with any sympathy these liberators may themselves have with
immoral views. A man with the strongest conviction of the Divine
ordering of the universe and of the superiority of monarchy to
all forms of government may nevertheless quite consistently and
conscientiously be ready to lay down his life for the right of
every man to advocate Atheism or Republicanism if he believes in
them. An attack on morals may turn out to be the salvation of the
race. A hundred years ago nobody foresaw that Tom Paine's
centenary would be the subject of a laudatory special article in
The Times; and only a few understood that the persecution of his
works and the transportation of men for the felony of reading
them was a mischievous mistake. Even less, perhaps, could they
have guessed that Proudhon, who became notorious by his essay
entitled "What is Property? It is Theft" would have received,
on the like occasion and in the same paper, a respectful
consideration which nobody would now dream of according to Lord
Liverpool or Lord Brougham. Nevertheless there was a mass of
evidence to shew that such a development was not only possible