7. But is it not immoral to interfere with conscience, and to attempt to stifle sincere convictions? The State, we repeat, has nothing to do with conscience as such, nor with the inward convictions of any man. But if the State is sincerely convinced, that the convictions openly professed and propagated by some of its subjects are subversive of social order and public morality, whose sincere conviction is it that must carry the day in practice? It is of the essence of government that the convictions, sincere or otherwise, of the governed shall on certain practical issues be waived in the external observance in favour of the convictions of the ruling power. After all, this talk of conscience and sincere convictions is but the canting phrase of the day, according to which conscience means mere wild humour and headstrong self-will. Such teachings as those which we would have the State to suppress, _e.g.: An oath is a folly: There is no law of purity: There is no harm in doing anything that does not annoy your neighbour_: are not the teachings of men sincerely convinced: they deserve no respect, consideration, or tenderness on that score. We do not say, that the teachers of these monstrosities are not convinced, but that they are not honestly and conscientiously convinced: they have blinded themselves, and become the guilty authors of their own delusion. Not all strong convictions are honestly come by or virtuously entertained. 8. Arraigned for their utterances, men protest their sincerity, as parties indicted for murder do their innocence. We can set but small store by such protestations. It is a question of evidence to come from other sources than from the accused person's own mouth. A man indeed must be held to be sincere until he is proved to be the contrary. That is the general rule. But there are what Roman lawyers call _præsumptiones juris_; circumstances which, if proved, will induce the court to take a certain view of a case, and give judgment accordingly, unless by further evidence that view is proved to be a false one. Now when a man proclaims some blatant and atrocious error in a matter bearing directly upon public morals--and it is for the restraint of these errors alone that we are arguing--there is a decided _præsumptio juris_, that the error in him, however doggedly he maintains it, is not a sincere, candid, and innocently formed conviction. The light of nature is not so feeble as that, among civilized men. Let the offender be admonished and given time to think: but if, for all warning to the contrary, the wilful man will have his way, and still propagate his error to the confusion of society, he must be treated like any other virtuous and well-meaning criminal: he must be restrained and coerced to the extent that the interests of society require.