"Persecution always said, "I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves." But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just; it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance. It said, "Though I dislike your opinions, because I think them dangerous, yet, since you profess such opinions, I will not believe you can think such dangerous inferences flow from them, which strike my attention so forcibly." This was truly a just and legitimate mode of reasoning, always less liable to error, and more adapted to human affairs. When we argued à posteriori, judging from the fruit to the tree, from the effect to the cause, we were not so subject to deviate into error and falsehood, as when we pursued the contrary method of argument. Yet, persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
AbolitionistsMembers of the Parliament of Great BritainPeople from LondonWhig (British political party) politiciansSecretaries of State for Foreign Affairs of Great Britain and the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1790), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV (1815), pp. 58-59
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_James_Fox
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Charles James Fox
1749 – 1806
englischer Staatsmann und Rhetoriker
99 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Charles James Fox →
Related Quotes
"What is that fat gentleman in such a passion about?"
"[Fox] exhibited two pictures of this country; the one representing her at the end of the last glorious war, the other…"
"[T]he question now was, whether the British constitution, "that beautiful fabric, raised by the steadiness of our anc…"
"The war of the Americans is a war of passion; it is of such a nature as to be supported by the most powerful virtues,…"
"...against which we should direct all our force, the navy of France: in the destruction of her marine we might see so…"
"There is no man who hates the power of the crown more, or who has a worse opinion of the Person to whom it belongs th…"
"Kings, Sir, govern by means of popular assemblies, only because they cannot do without them; to suppose a king fond o…"
"Gentlemen, the malicious and groundless Reports which have been spread, make it necessary for me to assure you, that …"
"It is intolerable that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief."
"[H]e thought one of the most splendid triumphs of Christianity was, its having caused slavery to be so generally abol…"