the Universities. This proves that Separation is not an infallible
receipt for producing tolerance. But I see no reason to suppose that
public opinion in America would be different, if either the Federal
Republic or the particular States had adopted Jurisdiction. Given legal
liberty under either system, I should say that the tolerance of public
opinion depends on social conditions and especially on the degree of
culture among the educated classes.

From this sketch it will be seen that toleration was the outcome of new
political circumstances and necessities, brought about by the disunion
of the Church through the Reformation. But it meant that in those States
which granted toleration the opinion of

[127] a sufficiently influential group of the governing class was ripe
for the change, and this new mental attitude was in a great measure due
to the scepticism and rationalism which were diffused by the Renaissance
movement, and which subtly and unconsciously had affected the minds of
many who were sincerely devoted to rigidly orthodox beliefs; so
effective is the force of suggestion. In the next two chapters the
advance of reason at the expense of faith will be traced through the
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

[1] Translated by Lecky.

[2] Complete toleration was established by Penn in the Quaker Colony of
Pennsylvania in 1682.

[3] Especially Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants (1637), and
Jeremy Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying (1646).